Robert Cohen - Theatre, Brief Version-McGraw-Hill Education (2016)

G-10 Glossary
vaudeville A stage variety show, with singing, dancing, comedy
skits, and animal acts; highly popular in America from the
late 1880s to the 1930s, when it lost out to movies, radio, and
subsequently television.
verisimilitude Lifelikeness; the appearance of actual reality
(as in a stage setting).
wagoto In kabuki, “soft-style” acting performed by certain
male romantic characters.
waki The secondary character in nō.
well-made play Pièce bien faite in French; in the nineteenth
century, a superbly plotted play, particularly by such gifted
French playwrights as Eugène Scribe (1791–1861) and Victorien
Sardou (1831–1908); today, generally used pejoratively,
as to describe a play that has a workable plot but shallow characterization
and trivial ideas.
West End The commercial theatre district of London,
England.
wings In a proscenium theatre, vertical pieces of scenery
to the left and right of the stage, usually parallel with the
footlights.
working drawings Designer’s drawings that show how a prop
or a piece of scenery looks, and indicate how it should be constructed.
See also properties.
xiqu Chinese for “tuneful theatre”; the general term for all
varieties of traditional Chinese theatre, often called “Chinese
opera.”
zadacha Russian for “task” (though commonly translated as
“objective”); according to Konstantin Stanislavsky, a character’s
(fictional) tasks (or goals), which the actor must pursue
during the play.