Mimes and Melodramas

Actors seldom speak directly to the audience. Occasionally actors use a device called an aside, this is usually only in comedies, especially in a style known as Melodrama, where they are speaking to actors, then turn to the audience with their hand beside their mouth like they're sharing a secret, and they tell the audience something that the characters onstage do not already know. In an aside, supposedly the actors onstage can't hear what the character is telling the audience, so the audience knows something that will happen that other characters don't know.