Audience Expectations of Autobiographical Performance

Abstract

The relationship between performers and the audience is built on the creation of fictional worlds by the actors and the acceptance of what is real or not within these worlds by both the performer and the actor. Metatheatre, or theatre that is self‐reflexive or aware of its theatricality, fosters a relationship with the audience that is more complex and nuanced than the one that occurs in regular theatre. The created worlds in metatheatre and the characters that populate them can collapse on themselves making the audience’s task of determining the truth more difficult. An audience’s relationship with the performer becomes convoluted when the play is an autobiographical solo show. In this circumstance, the audience expects realness and is less willing to see lines between worlds blur. This presentation will investigate why the audience needs such realness and truth from autobiographical solo shows when it is willing to overlook it so often in other performances. The talk will include an autobiographical performance to exemplify the audience‐performer relationship identified within the presentation.