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Glite Dictionary
wooden performance

wooden performance

7.2
A stiff way of acting without emotion that looks unnatural
  • noun
translation icon : actuación rígida
  • Despite the interesting script, his wooden performance left the viewers feeling indifferent.

Examples

  • The actor's wooden performance made it hard for the audience to connect with the story.

  • It's a wooden performance, really.

    Fiction book (1999)

  • Both the film and the theme are not favorites with the public, and even some short Daisy Dukes couldn't distract from Denise Richards' wooden performance.

    Blog text (6)

  • Critics described her portrayal as a wooden performance that failed to convey any real emotion.

Synonyms

woodenness
vswooden performance
8.2

A stiff, awkward way of speaking or acting that does not feel natural

is specifically an acting style lacking emotion and naturalness
stiltedness
vswooden performance
8.6

A way of speaking or acting that sounds stiff and unnatural

is mainly about stiff acting lacking emotion rather than formality

Antonyms

expressive
41 3.4

Showing feelings and ideas clearly in the face or voice

How Expressive

animated
30 3.7
expressive
41 3.4
wooden performance
7.2
deadpan
9 7.5

Surface Forms

wooden performance singular
wooden performances plural

Morphology

wooden + performance

The adjective 'wooden' (stiff, lacking warmth) applied to 'performance' composes straightforwardly to mean a stiff, unresponsive acting style; the meaning is directly derivable from the constituent words and standard adjective+noun composition. This metaphor (wooden = stiff) is common cross-linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows both words would very likely infer the MWE meaning.

Etymology

Wooden performance comes from comparing an actor to a wooden puppet or statue that cannot move or show feeling. So it is used to say an actor's work is 'stiff' and 'without emotion'.