ABSTRACT
The effect of the technique of reported action is partly aesthetic because actions are presented in a more oblique and distanced way. Thus reported action can be used to provide a non-linear dramatic structure for the creation of plot out of narrative, as well as to describe events which happen in the course of the normal chronology of the drama. The action on which the plot revolves, therefore, is reported by the main character with the added twist that what he reports is not exactly the way things happened. The play is set in the kitchen of a cottage in the west of Ireland and there is very little action on-stage. Reported action has to be used carefully. It can introduce the worst kind of artificial climax and does not necessarily make the drama easier for the participants. J. M. Synge’s Riders to the Sea has no scene divisions and no conventional dramatic structure.
