The Fourth Wall

I’ve had several topics that I’ve been meaning to blog about. For instance I still have yet to write about my experience playing Beatrice. But that and other such topics must be put aside, for I find I have to respond to a disturbing trend. Last year I posted links on my facebook page to a couple blog postings from theatre critics bemoaning performers breaking the fourth wall. One came from Christine Dolen of the Miami Herald. This opinions in her post were seconded by Elizabeth Maupin of the Orlando Sentinel. Dolen says that interactive theatre makes her “uncomfortable.” Maupin agrees that she wants to stay on the “safe” side of the fourth wall. Both of them write as though this whole audience interaction is a new, scary idea rising up against the established convention of a fourth wall.

My pretentious side wanted to dismiss these opinions as merely coming from unenlightened arts writers in Florida, but just today Peter Marks posted a blog in the Washington Post putting forth the exact same opinion.

Marks says that breaking the fourth wall is “one of the most annoying trends in modern theater.” Sigh. Audience interaction is not a modern theatre trend. The fourth wall is a modern theatre trend coming from the advent of realism, spreading during the 19th and 20th centuries. Prior to that were centuries of theatre without the fourth wall. And you don’t have to know very much about theatre history to know this – the most famous playwright of all time wrote for a theatre that interacted directly with its audience. (That would be Shakespeare, if you hadn’t figured it out).

First of all, I am troubled that these critics, who are set up as experts on the theatre, only seem interested in one very specific type of theatrical experience (and clearly a middle-class, western one at that). How can we trust theatre critics who deny the great majority of theatre history? But it troubles me much, much more that these critics seem to be against the very quality that makes theatre special. Isn’t the very reason we go to theatre for that live human connection? If we aren’t looking for that very alive and present exchange between an actor and an audience, why see a play? Dolin says, “Just sitting there in the dark, listening and reacting and thinking, is fine by me.” Marks writes about wanting to be "left alone." If that’s all you want, sit in a movie theatre, or in front of your television.

What is the point of theatre that is “safe”? Don’t we want our theatre to be alive? To challenge and surprise us?

Sure, there is a right way and a wrong way to interact with an audience. And it is a fine line that not every actor can figure out. Or every director. I had a director who told the cast that if an audience member seemed uncomfortable or wasn’t responding when we talked to them, to keep going back to that same person and force them to respond. I really don't think that's the way to go about it.

I am well aware that there are plays where audience interaction is entirely inappropriate. I understand that different productions have different styles. I once for a Shakespeare play and was not cast and had another cast member ask me how I would have dealt with doing the show since I would have disagreed with the decision not to talk to the audience. I told him I would do exactly what I did in the last play we did together (which was fully of the school of naturalism) and ignored the director’s wishes and talked to the audience anyway. He was confused and said, “I don’t remember you doing that,” clearly not being able to pick up on my sarcasm.

Not every play needs the actors to look into an audience member’s eyes and speak directly to them. But even without that element, a play is still interactive. It has to be. The audience is there, the actors are there, and each group affects the other. Therefore ALL theatre is interactive. That’s what makes it theatre. If theatre doesn’t make a connection, it’s either badly written or badly performed, or both.

I can absolutely accept that some people do not like audience interaction, especially the more extreme versions of it. But these people probably shouldn’t be the ones writing about theatre. Sure, there are audience members that just want to sit back, laugh at a show, then go home and forget all about it. Fine - there are certainly plays that will allow those audience members to do so. But it’s not the kind of theatre I want to see. It’s not the kind of theatre I want to do. And it’s not the kind of theatre that matters. It’s not the kind of theatre that lasts. And theatre that matters, theatre that lasts, theatre that makes an impact – isn’t that the type of theatre that should interest our critics?