Audience means a group of people in any kind of performance or show who come to see any work of art or sports or theatre and such activities. The role of audience is like that of consumer of a product. Without audience, there can be no performance. Television and movie audience differ from theatre audience because screen audiences are passive audience. Their responses do not have any impact on the performances (Heim 2015). However, it is not so with theatre audience. They are active participant of theatre their responses have an impact over the actors enacting on stage. In a piece of literature like dramas, the playwright writes a drama keeping in his mind his audiences. The audiences are the primary critic of any art. The audiences’ role and demands keep changing over the years. For example, Shakespeare wrote his plays keeping in mind the then monarch of England queen Elizabeth.
William Shakespeare is one of the most renowned playwrights to have ever lived even until this day. One of his most famous plays was, Hamlet Prince of Denmark. The play was believed to have been first performed in 1601 and it remains well known even to this day. Shakespeare’s dramas are meant to be performed on stage and so was Hamlet. Shakespeare’s Hamlet called the Mona Lisa of drama by TS Eliot is one of the most widely acclaimed and renowned drama on the English stage (Bennett 2013). Throughout the play, the audience connects themselves with the protagonist prince hamlet. His wit, intelligence compel the audience to feel sympathy for the young prince. Shakespeare’s plays were written and performed to influence the audience and provoke their thoughts and debate and the cultural and social events of the contemporary age. Hamlet was Shakespeare reflection of the issues of the contemporary times in the Elizabethan age and politics.
Hamlet’s conversation with Claudius in act IV scene III was meant to directly target the contemporary Elizabethan audience by the repeated allusions to God, contemporary medical science and religion was a vital aspect of the Elizabethan England. In Hamlet’s repeated reference to God in act IV was important to show that the people of the age still believed in God whether catholic or protestant (Boecker 2015). Due to the age’s interest revolving around the humors, the melancholic psychology and character of hamlet further attracted the audiences. The audience could relate to the message of war in the play due to the constant threat of war in the contemporary England. A clash between catholic and protestant was popular in the Elizabethan age (Frye 2014). Queen Elizabeth when she came to power banned all religious plays because though she was a protestant her country was not. In Hamlet, Shakespeare avoids any kind of tiff and disagreement within the audience refers to God in general. By doing this, he does not offend the queen because it is not a religious play. During the Elizabethan age, the people were fascinated with psychology, medicines, and its impact on men. In hamlet, the humors are given importance (Gregory 2017). It was believed that the proportion of humors in a human body affected a man’s temperament. The four humors were blood, choler, phlegm and melancholy. When blood was excess it made sanguine, those with excess choler choleric, too much phlegm phlegmatic and excessive melancholy made a man melancholic (Charney 2015). This explained that when one men had too much of an element his characteristics will have the traits of that element. In the play hamlet comes across as a melancholic person, which is evident from his psychotic behavior towards others. Claudius’ speech in act IV also clarifies it that he too is aware of the four humors and their impact on a man’s nature. In the Elizabethan era, the economic and social conditions of England were important in determining the state of the country. Fighting over money, power and land was the social norm. Constant power struggle with France and Spain was an integral part of foreign policy of England for which England had to maintain army and lands. This is reflected in the play where hamlet talks about two thousand men and twenty thousand ducats. Further many quotes in the drama talks about the meaninglessness of war and how unnecessary wars are which cost the lives of innocent men for money and peace (Gibbons 2017). This reflects the then England’s views on war and power struggle between England, France and Spain. Issues like religion, medicine and war expressed through hamlet fascinated the audience because it reflected the contemporary important issues. The soliloquies in hamlet are a special theatre device that was used by dramatist to let the audience know about the character in detail (Anderson 2018). Since there are supposed to be no listener on the stage during a soliloquy there are no barriers and the characters can express his real feelings in front of the audience. Hamlet becomes a confessor to the audience where he reveals his inner thoughts, which make it evident that he is a lonely and melancholic character and lives in a world of solitude. The soliloquies are therefore important in the play as they let the audience understand the character of their prince.
During the Jacobean age, pastoral literature grew popular in England. Pastoral plays dealt with shepherds and livestock around open land. It portrayed a rural life and rural characters. The depiction of ideal rural life was a way to escape from the contemporary corruption and vices of the contemporary age (Anderson 2018). It was an attempt to return to the age on simplicity and innocence. The masque was becoming popular in this time in England though in Italy it developed much before. A masque was a kind of performance, which involved dancing, and music and singing with elaborate state and costumes. In these plays towards the end of the play, the audience joined the actors and danced together in the final dance. Masque was the only form of dramatic performance in which the audience played a complex role (Ribner 2017). During the rule of king, James masques developed as a chief dramatic presentation (Carr 2015). They were staged on important occasions and the audiences were chiefly the royal family, diplomats, wealthy aristocrats and courtiers. These masques often ended with elaborate dance that brought the audience to dance with the actors. More often, these masques were accompanied by banquets
The most important member of a masque was the king followed by queen, Prince Henry, Prince Charles and Princess Elizabeth followed by the other aristocrats. The royal family was not just the audience but played chief role in the production of the play. Henry VIII was the first king of England who took part in a masque in 1512. Queen Anne’s performance in the masques offended many. The audience blends with the performers in masques not just by dancing but also by several other ways (Sturgess 2017). Just like the masques, the audience too was elaborately dressed to signify their social status. By sitting close to the king in all glory, they too performed the same role like the masques, which was of obedience to the king and glorifying the king (Loxley 2016). The masque audience consisted of both men and women of high social strata and education and intelligence level. This was why masque used figures from mythologies and allegories. The masques were a sharp distinction from the Elizabethan drama which were played outdoors and were accessible to the commoners. During the time Shakespeare wrote his play The Tempest, queen Elizabeth the daughter of king James was about to get married. It is believed this special occasion led Shakespeare to include a masque in the play where Prospero celebrates the marriage of his daughter Miranda with Prince Ferdinand. Ben Jonson used the masque theme in many of his plays. He was the most renowned of the Jacobean dramatists. He wrote several masques in the court of King James I like The Masque of Blackness on the request of Queen Anne of Denmark who urged all the masquers should be disguised as Africans. Queen Anne was one of the performers in it along with her court ladies who appeared in black face makeup. The play dealt with the theme of fairness which was considered as more beautiful than black skin color. John Milton’s Comus was another example of a typical masque in every form. Milton as a masque honoring chastity used the traditional song and dance feature of masque.
Next in discussion would be the alienation effect of Brecht found in Mother Courage and Her Children and Edward Bond’s Lear. Edward Bond’s Lear written in 1971 is still known as one of the most controversial and violent plays ever staged. As many wrongly believes, Lear is not an adoption of Shakespeare’s King Lear but it Bond’s comment on the play. Bond’s writings not just aimed at recreational reading but his writings questioned the social and political conditions of the society and he focused on political unrest in his works (Gale 2016). In Lear, he exposed the political revolutions of the time. In the play, Bond tries to show the relationship of men with the society they live in. In the play bond uses the structure of an epic theatre developed by Brecht. This structure develops from a sequence of back-to-back scenes like in Lear. This technique of employing a large number of character and a constant movement from scene to scene prevents the audience from being emotionally involved with the character. The lack of emotional connection between the audience and the characters is known as Brecht’s alienation effect where the audience is continuously reminded that they are watching a play and it is not reality. As seen in Lear, the characters frequently interact and converse with the audience instead of one another. This kind of technique known as “aside” is also employed in alienation effect. The excruciating torture that Warrington faces in the hands of Bodice and Fontanella is an exaggerated form of cruelty far removed from the real world. The purpose and aim of the alienation effect was primary to compel the audience to make them use their intellect in judging the theme and action of the play instead of their emotion. Bertolt Brecht developed the alienation effect or distantiation effect or the V effect in his political dramas to combat with the emotional manipulation of the audience and instead used surprising jolt or entertainment. This was done to break the ongoing trend of emotional attraction of audience by beautiful set, natural lights, emotional arousing acting (Brecht 2016). Unlike traditional dramas, epic theatre or the alienation effect employs large number of characters; the plot is developed over a large number of scenes and takes place over a large period of time. The alienation effect originally known in German as the verfremdungseffekt is a cinematic and theatrical device that does not let the audience lose themselves passively in the character of the actor, which consciously makes them judge the characters critically like an observer. Brecht developed the term. The audience does not enjoy the illusion of being the unseen omniscient spectator in this. The direct interaction of the character with the audience breaks down the illusion and results in the alienation effect.
Brecht’s Mother Courage and her children is known as one of the finest examples of his alienation effect. However mother courage being a tragic play that leads to catharsis, this is exactly what the A effect tries to avoid because Brecht’s alienation effect is anti-Aristotelian and opposed to the tradition of tragedy which stirs the audience emotionally (Brecht and Brecht 2014). A play covers a large time span in its twelve scenes from 1624-1636 and runs across wide locations like Poland, Saxony and Sweden. The scenes are episodic which serves the purpose of the technique where mother courage’s interests at different moments of the play reflect her feelings of that particular time (Held 2017.). For example, in scene three, she abandons all natural feelings and in the very next scene four she is prepared to voice her anger for the soldiers’ ruthlessness. The bare stage in the play shocked the audience who were too accustomed in seeing well-decorated realistic sets. Brecht turned on all the lights in the set and the stage was flooded with light. This was a sharp contrast to the traditional style of lightning of the stage as per the moments being played on the stage (Brecht 2015). This was done consciously by Brecht to make the audience realize that they are watching a play where they are supposed to use their critical observation. The presence of songs and musicals also add to the breakdown of illusion since it does not let the audience connect to the otherwise tragic drama.
The next drama that the essay would analyze is Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and its shattering of the fourth wall. Modern drama signifies the struggle of humans for survival and freedom. Written in 1953 Waiting for Godot is the beginning of modern drama. It is a masterpiece of the modern existence breaking all barriers. The modern age dramatist broke away with several conventions and traditions of the past in every aspect of literature and art. The forth wall is a performance convention where an invisible wall separates the actors from the audience. While the audience is assumed to see through the wall into the actor, the actor is believed not to be able to see the audience. The actors ignore the presence of the audience, and are completely involved with their dramatic world. The breaking of the fourth wall violates the conventions by directly addressing the audience. The forth wall was frequently shattered in Elizabethan restoration drama when actors ran through the audience. In those plays, the actors directly interacted with the audience through asides, soliloquies and monologues. Shattering the fourth wall is when the characters in the play acknowledge the fictionality of their characters, by ways like directly or indirectly addressing the audience. They may also interact with the creator. By addressing the creator, the characters indirectly address the audience v as well. This is known as breaking the fourth wall, which is mostly used for comic purpose (Davis 2015). Waiting for Godot is one of the most meaningful plays of the 20th century. Waiting for Godot defeated the theory of natural liberalism that was dominating the theatre at the time. The naturalistic theatre put great emphasis on the naturalistic depiction of the stage. Waiting for Godot provided an empty stage, a tree and two tramps waiting and only waiting throughout the play. The empty stage was the symbol of the passage of time, of the passing of life, of hope and hopelessness, of despair and companionship and of loneliness (Wright 2016). Destructing the concept of the fourth wall that separates the actors from the audience Beckett moves from the realism of the theatre. He creates scenes that fracture the lines between the representation and the reality. He draws the audience into the theatre by blurring the boundary lines between the reality and representation making the play more powerful. In waiting for Godot, Vladimir and estragon decides to move on but then they do not move and they again want to move. This happens repeatedly. This unending circular loop makes the audience feel like they are seeing the same thing repeatedly as if a hallucination. The open-endedness of the play waiting for Godot adds to the timelessness of the play. It is Beckett’s way of not giving the play any resolution or an ending. The structure of the play remains static and stagnant (Chothia 2016). There are no developments in the plot. There are no conflicts. Beckett smashes every dramatic conventions in the play. Nobody comes or goes nothing happens in the play. The character keeps waiting for the arrival of Godot who never comes. The frustration and hopelessness, the bareness and futility of the modern age where every faith is questioned, every belief are shattered the waiting for Godot seems like the only hope for survival for the two trumps. In this context it is also important to mention the 2014 Oscar winning movie Birdman which used this technique when the characters moved directly into the audience and delivered their speech from amidst the audience.
Conclusion
The role and importance of audience in a performance is of vital importance all across the ages. From the medieval age when the audiences were mere spectators to the performances, to the Jacobean age when the audience were brought in along with the actors to participate in the masque, the importance of the audience increased in theatre (Leggatt 2014). The audience was no more a dumb observer to the play. In the modern age, the role of the audience underwent a sweeping change. With the development of the alienation effect by Brecht, the audience was no longer a receiver at the other end. However, they were expected to analyze and examine the characters in the play and judge the themes and the plot using not the emotional faculties but also their intelligence.
References
Anderson, S.L., 2018. Echo, Dance and Song in Jacobean Masques. In Echo and Meaning on Early Modern English Stages (pp. 67-97). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Anderson, S.L., 2018. Introduction: Echo and Meaning. In Echo and Meaning on Early Modern English Stages (pp. 1-22). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Bennett, S., 2013. Theatre audiences. Routledge.
Boecker, B., 2015. Shakespeare’s Elizabethan Audience in Seventeenth-and Eighteenth-century Shakespeare Criticism. In Imagining Shakespeare’s Original Audience, 1660–2000(pp. 12-30). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Brecht, B. and Brecht, A., 2014. epic theAteR. Brecht on Theater: The Development of an Aesthetic.
Brecht, B., 2015. Brecht Collected Plays: 5: Life of Galileo; Mother Courage and Her Children. A&C Black.
Brecht, B., 2016. Bertolt Brecht Journals, 1934-55. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Carr, E., 2015. Power and Display in Jonson’s Masque of Blackness. Diffusion-The UCLan Journal of Undergraduate Research, 2(2).
Charney, M., 2015. Style in Hamlet. Princeton University Press.
Chothia, J., 2016. English Drama of the Early Modern Period 1890-1940. Routledge.
Davis, N., 2015. ” Not a soul in sight!”: Beckett’s Fourth Wall. Journal of Modern Literature, 38(2), pp.86-102.
Frye, R.M., 2014. The Renaissance Hamlet: Issues and Responses in 1600. Princeton University Press.
Gale, C.L., 2016. A Study Guide for Edward Bond’s” Lear”. Gale, Cengage Learning.
Gibbons, B., 2017. Jacobean city comedy. Routledge.
Gregory, J., 2017. Imagining Shakespeare’s Original Audience, 1660-2000: Groundlings, Gallants, Grocers. Shakespeare Studies, 45, pp.233-237.
Heim, C., 2015. Audience as performer: The changing role of theatre audiences in the twenty-first century. Routledge.
Held, P., 2017. Alienation and theatricality: Diderot after Brecht. Routledge.
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Loxley, J., 2016. ‘Public feasts’: Ben Jonson as literary celebrity. Celebrity Studies, 7(4), pp.561-574.
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