Audience Participation: Essays on Inclusion in Performance

240 Pages·2003·0.755 MB·English

by  Susan Kattwinkel

AUDIENCE
PARTICIPATION:
Essays on Inclusion
in Performance
Susan Kattwinkel
Editor
PRAEGER
AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION
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AUDIENC(cid:1)E PARTICIPATION
Essays on Inclusion in Performance
Edited by Susan Kattwinkel
ContributionsinDramaandTheatreStudies,Number101
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Audienceparticipation:essaysoninclusioninperformance/editedbySusanKattwinkel.
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Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN0–313–31671–6(alk.paper)
1.Performingarts—Audiences. I.Kattwinkel,Susan. II.Series.
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ISBN:0–313–31671–6
ISSN:0163–3821
Firstpublishedin2003
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CopyrightAcknowledgments
Theauthorandthepublishergratefullyacknowledgepermissionforuseofthefollowing
material:
ExcerptsfromaninterviewSusanKattwinkelheldwithFelixRuckert.Usedwithpermission.
ExcerptsfromaninterviewPatrickTuiteheldwithEamonnDeane.Usedwithpermission.
ExcerptsfromRobertAlexander,LettertoanActress,LivingStageArchives.Usedwith
permission.
ExcerptsfromMarkWeinberg,“Community-BasedTheatre:AParticipatoryModelforSocial
Transformation,”TheatreSymposium:APublicationoftheSoutheasternTheatreConference,
Vol.8,pp.22–33.PublishedbytheSoutheasternTheatreConferenceandTheUniversityof
AlabamaPress,2000(cid:1)2000byTheUniversityofAlabamaPress.
Everyreasonableefforthasbeenmadetotracetheownersofcopyrightmaterialsinthisbook,
butinsomeinstancesthishasprovenimpossible.Theauthorandpublisherwillbegladto
receiveinformationleadingtomorecompleteacknowledgmentsinsubsequentprintingsofthe
bookandinthemeantimeextendtheirapologiesforanyomissions.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction ix
1 Ethics of the Witness: The ParticipatoryDances of Cie
Felix Ruckert 1
Joshua Abrams
2 Reaction Tactics: Redefining Postmodern Spectator
Response and Expectations 15
Katherine Adamenko
3 Still Signaling through the Flames: The Living Theatre’s
Use of Audience Participationin the 1990s 23
David Callaghan
4 It Matters for whom You Dance: Audience Participation
in Rasa Theory 37
Uttara Asha Coorlawala
5 Audience Participationin the Eighteenth-Century
London Theatre 55
Judith W. Fisher
6 The Challenge of Participation:Audiences at Living
Stage Theatre Company 71
Susan C. Haedicke
vi CONTENTS
7 Manipulation of the Mind: Fiction in the Performances
of Penn and Teller 89
Susan Kattwinkel
8 Looking at Looking (at Looking): Experiments in the
Interrogation of Spectating 101
Joanne Klein
9 The Audience in Cyberspace: Audience-Performer
Interactivity in Online Performances 115
Nina LeNoir
10 Once upon a Time: The Story of the Pantomime
Audience 133
Dawn Lewcock
11 Audience at Risk: Space and Spectatorsat Feminist
Performance 149
Judith Sebesta
12 “Walking in the Steps of Your Forefathers”: Locating
the Actor and the Audience in Derry’s Siege Pageant 167
Patrick Tuite
13 Community-BasedTheatre: A ParticipatoryModel for
Social Transformation 185
Mark S. Weinberg
14 The (Oc)cult of Personality: Initiating the Audience
into The EdwardianMysteries 199
J. Lawton Winslade
Index 213
AbouttheAuthors 217
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks, first of all, to the authors in this volume. They were, without
exception, prompt in all replies, flexible with my editorial requests, and pa-
tientwhileIjuggledthesedutieswithteachinganddirectingprojects.Thanks
especially to Judith Sebesta, who stepped briefly into editorial shoes to help
mewiththeIntroduction.
The Theatre Department at the College of Charleston provided me with
resources and time to work on this volume, and I am also grateful for the
patienceofmyeditorsatGreenwoodPress.
Finally, as always, much love to my parents, John and Phyllis Kattwinkel,
andtomysister,LindaKattwinkel,fortheircontinuingloveandsupport.

INTRODUCTION
Weknowthataudiencesaffectperformancesthroughtheirreactions—laugh-
ter, sighs, restlessness—and in most traditional Western theatre, those re-
sponses are generally polite and unobtrusive. Audiences also have influence
as new professional productions are tinkered with to some extent following
“preview”performances.Andalthoughtheatreisrecognizedasbeingincom-
pleteuntilanaudiencewitnessesitandcreatesitforthemselvesintellectually,
spectatorsaregenerallyrelegatedto“receiver”status,havinglittleimpacton
theprocessofperformanceexceptinstandard,structuredresponse.Thepas-
siveaudience,ofcourse,isarelativelynewconditionoftheatricalexperience,
but nevertheless has become so prevalent that it is the status quo for most
theatre in the West. The passive audience really only came into being in the
nineteenth century, as theatre began its division into artistic and entertain-
ment forms. Practitioners and theorists such as Wagner, with his “mystic
chasm,” and he and Henry Irving with their darkened auditoriums, took
someofthemanysmallstepsinthenineteenthcenturythatpsychicallysepa-
rated the audience from the performance and discouraged spectatorial acts
of ownership or displeasure, or even vociferous approval.1 This expectation
ofthesilentaudiencehasbecomesoacceptedthatina1991NewYorkTimes
article on the bad manners of theatre patrons, the columnist Alex Witchel
did not even mention the history behind his demand for politeness or ac-
knowledge that truly good theatre often inspires in its spectators just the
opposite of the motionless silence he desired.2 This polite, awed reception
hascometobethenorm.
Buthistoricallyandinagrowingvarietyoftheatricalformstoday,ithasbeen
a very different matter. For the theatre and dance performances investigated