nonnaturalistic

When you "see" a soldier being blasted out of his saddle by a shell, or a horse dying before your astonished and horrified eyes, you'll be reminded anew that the nonnaturalistic illusion of the stage can pack an emotional punch more powerful than the goriest of documentary photographs.

Manipulated Puppets, Manipulated Tears Terry Teachout 2011

This is a pretty creaky device in the '90s, but Daldry gives it power and suspense through his thunderously nonnaturalistic staging with its echoes of H.G. Wells, George Orwell and Alfred Hitchcock.

Broadway's British Invasion 2008

Schneider himself, who was steeped in the nonnaturalistic theater of Beckett and Pinter, subsequently confessed that "what that work was specifically saying, or how to make whatever it was saying clear, none of us was entirely sure — including, I believe Edward."

These Illusions Are Real O'Toole, Fintan 2004

Worringer, speaking as an art historian, champions the nonnaturalistic and anticlassical phases in the history of the plastic arts.

Dictionary of the History of Ideas ULRICH WEISSTEIN 1968

While the rusty mechanics of "The Patsy" are pleasingly lubricated by Mr. Greenspan's freewheeling, nonnaturalistic approach, his own "Jonas" might benefit from a stricter adherence to the logic of linear narrative.

NYT > Home Page By CHARLES ISHERWOOD 2011