ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the three exhibitions The Passions: A Drama in Five Acts; Sawn: A Crime Featuring Baroque Backdrops; and Mountains, a Mysterious Passion. The focus of the exhibition analyses is the search for the protagonists because of their important role in creating dramatic suspense. It proves useful to explore each of the exhibitions from a different angle considering their different approaches. The creators of Passions labelled their exhibition as drama, so it is productive to examine how this is manifested in the actual exhibition. For Sawn, it proves essential to find out if the ‘crime’ can be considered a mystery. By applying this methodological strategy, the question can be answered whether and to what extent suspense actually unfolds. For Mountains, it is fertile to scrutinise the stories connected to its manifold characters and to uncover thus its netlike structure. After having focused on dramatic tension, the chapter then addresses the question of if the dramaturgical techniques dramatic irony, telegraphing, dangling cause and planting and payoff are employed in the exhibitions for creating suspense.
