MJ Smith

OATS Project Act Three:

Gabe Carter
15 November 2017
Discussion of Findings:

There is no doubt that the theatre is comprised of things that are possible to understand

and things that aren’t. The relationship between the audience and the performer is one aspect of

the theatre that is complex, and at times very confusing. Both audience member and performer

come to the theatre for a common purpose, the desire to escape the world that they are living in.

But somehow it is as if they work in opposition. This hunch, that the audience unknowingly has

preconceived ideas and motives when coming to the theatre that instantly set the performer up

for ridicule and judgement, leading them to sink further into the dark space inside them and away

from the ability to escape, was the basis for my research.

First my attention went to the audience’s motivation for going to the theatre, and I found

a research study by Ben Walmsley of University of Leeds on audience engagement. Walmsley

makes a series of points as to the motivations that drive the audience to the theatre. The audience

believes that theatre is a singular experience, and that is one major factor in the clashing of

audience and performer motivations. Walmsley goes in depth regarding the four main

motivations for which audiences’ flock to the theatre, showing how they contradict with the

performers. “Bergadaà and Nyeck extrapolated four motivational typologies for theatergoing:

escapism and entertainment; edutainment; personal enrichment; and social hedonism” (336).

These motivations are critical to understand because looking at them, they are all about the

individual. Not one has to do with showing appreciation, understanding or compromise with
anyone else. This idea that the audience has very personal motives that don’t align with the

performer is also displayed in the book Audience as Performer: The Changing Role of Theatre

Audiences in the Twenty- First Century by Caroline Heim.

The motivations of the audience are not the only forces at play in my hunch. There is so

much hidden from the public concerning the inner workings of the theatre, especially the life of

the actor. They are commercialized, any hint of truth left out. If one looks on social media rarely

are the late hours, endless rehearsals and eight shows a week talked about. That is why I was so

surprised when I found an article on a current working actor that wasn’t all dishonest. In A

working life: The actor by Mark King, the account on Robert Angell’s life is one of many that

are not talked about. In it Angell talks about the many aspects of life that the actor gives up for

the success of their career, such as "If you are with a touring group, you often find you are living

out of a suitcase, bouncing around from one hotel to the next, as a result I've not been able to

lead a normal life and my personal life has suffered hugely.” (Angell). If these stories were

shared with the audience, the audience would in turn change their own views on the theater.

Going even further, it can be said that the clashing of performer and audience lies in the nativity

of the audience, the unwillingness of the bigwigs to publicize such stories, and the actor’s fear to

talk of it themselves. This back and forth between the audience and the performer is as much the

performers fault as theirs. The performer would rather continue to do what they are passionate

about rather than stand up for what they deserve from the theatre, an ability to escape, to truly

play on the stage.

The sentiments expressed above are ones that I especially noted after talking with my

current director Jim Lortz about his life in the theatre. When I interviewed him, after hearing all

his stories, I couldn’t imagine what reasons he would have for staying. He was constantly
ridiculed during his career in the theatre; and when he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, instead

of dying away, the ridicule increased. There was this constant pressure placed on him, and

countless other performers by the audience to be inhumanly perfect. This also connects to the

idea that the audience never really sees the full picture. The theatre has become one large mess of

people fighting for the same thing but unable to acknowledge the other. It was then that it all

began to make sense and my theory, The Invisible Pressure, was born.

My theory is that the audience, due to their nativity and selfishness, places upon the

performer pressures that are demanding and rob the performer of the right to live and escape in

the theatre. The inability for a real connection between the two always ends with the performer

on the losing side.