The topic is about the way an audiene can understand a perfromance without only hearing the text - things like the actors use of body to communicate, the way they movement hand gestures, facial expressions. Also the way codifiers and signifers are understood by the audience - the set, costumes etc. all of this in respect of differnt cultural traditions - the ones that have occured most in the studies are Western culture, Kathakali and Kabuki. The aim of the essay is to understand how much understanding of a performance is naturally understood just by natural understanding and how much of this reading of signifers and codifiers needs to be learnt.