The Cambridge Introduction to Theatre Studies

Roland Barthes's characterization of Western theatre's dominant spatial configuration as deceitful and voyeuristic is both overstated and accurate at the same time. In the context of his discussion of Japanese Bunraku puppet theatre, the European proscenium does indeed seem to hide the spectator from the stage. Yet the ‘spectator hidden in the shadow’ is, historically speaking, a late development (dating from the late nineteenth century), and is therefore by no means inherent in the Italian-style stage. Barthes's comment does, however, point to a question of central interest to theatre studies, and that is the close relationship between stage forms and spectatorial attitudes. In this respect, this chapter is in part a continuation of the discussion of spectators and audiences begun in Chap. 2. It will, however, concentrate primarily on the physical conditions of performance, and outline ways in which the discipline of theatre studies has studied this problem.