monoscene

English

Etymology

From mono- +‎ scene.

Noun

monoscene (plural monoscenes)

1. A performance or piece of art occurring within a single setting.

   Because the budget was so low, most episodes of the show had to be monoscenes to avoid building multiple expensive sets.

   • 1986, Peter Rolfe Monks, “Reading Fifteenth-Century Miniatures: the Experience of the «Horloge de Sapience» in MS. Brussels, B.R., IV. 111”, in Scriptorium, volume 40, number 2, →DOI, page 244:

     The second major compartment contains four scenes. The third segment is a monoscene grouping St Paul and the four writers of Canonical Epistles.

   • 2003, David J. Roxburgh, “Micrographia: Toward a Visual Logic of Persianate Painting”, in Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics, volume 43, →DOI, page 27:

     In both of these examples, the initial impression of the monoscene is of a frozen narrative moment, of the eye capturing a split second of activity.

   • 2007, Virginia Scott, Sara Sturm-Maddox, Performance, Poetry and Politics on the Queen's Day: Catherine de Médicis and Pierre de Ronsard at Fontainebleau, New York, NY: Routledge, →ISBN, pages 173–174:

     The stage was still medieval in the sense of using multiple loci and platea that could shift its identity from before the palace to the Roman camp. "La belle Genièvre" could have been performed on a similar stage, although a Renaissance monoscene is also possible and even likely.

   • 2016, Svetlana G. Voitkevich, “On Some Features of A. Smelkov and Yu. Dimitrin's Libretto 'The Brothers Karamazov'”, in Journal of Siberian Federal University: Humanities & Social Sciences, volume 9, number 1, →DOI:

     In fact both episodes represent the recognition of the heroine, the difference being a large detailed monoscene in Tchaikovsky's opera and the presence of Mariya Kondratyevna and Alyosha besides the main heroine in piece No. 10 in Smelkov's opera.

2. (comedy) A specific form of improvisational comedy in which scenes are performed without edits.

   Her team once did a six-hour monoscene without any breaks!

   • 2015 March 21, Kevin Mullaney, KevinMullaney.com‎^[1], archived from the original on November 4, 2016:

     This process of bringing up new things to talk about is key to making monoscenes interesting. A common problem I see in a monoscene are characters who are so focused on one and only one thing.

   • 2016 December 1, Elise Czajkowski, “Comedy Listings for Dec. 2-8”, in The New York Times‎^[2], archived from the original on February 11, 2018:

     Justin Peters and Kelly Buttermore present their experimental improv show, a unique monoscene that is almost entirely silent.

   • 2017 December 6, Robert J. Moore, “3 Things Improv Comedy Taught Me About Starting a Business”, in Entrepreneur‎^[3], archived from the original on July 26, 2018:

     Longform improv sets typically run between 20 and 25 minutes, and Big Baby performs a style known as a "bunker monoscene" in which the entire show is a single scene in a single location.

Derived terms

• monoscenic