Legitimate theater

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This article is about the theatrical style; For the building where plays are staged, see Theater (structure).

Legitimate theater is live performance that relies entirely on diegetic elements, with actors performing through speech and natural movement.

Diegetic elements are internal, or related to the imaginary world the characters of the play are depicting. Musical accompaniment that is done for effect on the audience, but not supposed to be part of the experience of the characters in the play, is a non-diegetic element;^[1] dancing by characters who are actually portrayed as attending a dance is diegetic; while dancing for the benefit of the audience, as in a revue or musical, is non-diegetic.

Opera, musicals, dance shows and concerts all depend on non-diegetic elements, while legitimate theater relies only on actors' spoken words and movements to relate a story. Legitimate theater typically relies on the talents of a small group of actors, or even a single actor, rather than a large, choreographed cast.

An example of the difference between legitimate theater and non-legitimate theater is the William Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet compared to its modern adaptation for the musical West Side Story. In Shakespeare's play, the only dancing takes place at an actual ball where Romeo and Juliet meet. A sword fight is portrayed realistically, without singing or dancing. On the other hand, in West Side Story much of the dialogue takes place in song, and even a gang fight is portrayed through an elaborate dance.^{[citation needed]}

According to Everett Wilson, the term may have its genesis in an English Victorian-era law that prohibited music halls from adapting speech-only plays into musical performances. Wilson speculates that the law “may just have been the fear of theatrical producers that without legal protection both the money and the audience would flow away from the 'legitimate theatres' to the lowest common denominator of entertainment in those days, the music halls."^[2]