Uses of Disorder and the Citizen Spectator

Abstract

Very broadly speaking, since the 1950s, in the west, there have been two contrasting visions of the theatre experience. These visions can be thought of as complementary or competitive, depending on how you view the associated value systems and the way public and private resources are divvied up between them. Theatre that adopts the well-ordered, institutional model takes place in specialized buildings and carefully separates the outside world from auditorium and stage. Such theatre is generally supported by the middle and upper classes and reflects the values of its patrons. The other model, which is often considered (by theorists and practitioners) to reflect an anti-institutional impulse, seeks a looser definition of theatre and constructs models that allow for a greater degree of spectator involvement. The first kind of theatre, in addition to limiting disruptive (or instructive) variables by isolating the audience from the outside world, seeks to dislocate the spectator from the particularities of local civic dynamics and situate her in a generic social “subset” that is like similar social subsets in other theatres and other cities. It creates a kind of “gated community” for its privileged patrons and virtually prohibits surprising encounters with difference. The material presented onstage may speak of difference, but audience demographics reveal sameness of social class.