For the Audience

What really stood out to my in watching a Midsummer Night's Dream at the Castle Theatre was the audience participation and what elements were included specifically for the audience's reaction.  The part that I believed drew in the most audience participation was during the scene with Pyramus and Thisbe.  

What seemed to enable this audience participation the most was first, that it was a play within a play.  That enables there to be two different audiences.  However, this is where it becomes very different between the live production at the Castle Theatre and the 1964 ITV version.  The latter obviously had a disconnection between the real audience (us who are watching it through the tv) while the live version was able to break the barrier of the play by first going into their first audience to talk to them and ask for participation and then to break a second barrier when they asked for our participation.  Because of the smaller audience accessible in the 1964 version, it seems like the humor couldn't go as far.  Yet in the live version, there was way more humor and dramatizing because of how the larger audience was reacting.  I think this really draws on the idea of how plays are performed differently according to the audience.

I also noticed in the film version as the play of Pyramus and Thisbe was taking place, those actors were making eye contact with the actors in the audience.  Yet, they never made eye contact with the camera like they were specifically pulling us into the audience.   In comparison, in the live play, the actors in Pyramus and Thisbee made just as much eye contact with us as they did with the actors who were acting as their immediate audience.  Especially during the death scene of Thisbe, the audience took part in helping her (him) to kill herself.  That made for a lot of laughs and more enjoyment on the true audience’s part than the somewhat quick death scene that took place in the film. 

Overall, this seems to suggest that the audience ultimately makes the play what it is.  If the audience hated the play the whole way through it, would the actors ask for audience participation, even if there were no audience barrier?  If the audience loves the play, yet the actors pretend the audience isn’t even there, would it be as enjoyable?