gee-“'7: it} C ftH-‘Q.“a 4 /€‘s ABSTRACT THE INFLUENCE OF THRUST AND PROSCENIUM STAGE FORMS ON AUDIENCE RESPONSE TO A PRODUCTION OF HAMLET by Lorraine Haugk Gross Many people in the contemporary theatre advocate the use of the thrust stage theatre because of the actor-audience relationship which exists in this theatre form. Other theatre practitioners prefer the form of actor-audience confrontation found in the proscenium theatre. Preference for a given form is normally based upon a belief that form has a function in producing the "ideal" aesthetic response within the audience. However, a review of the literature shows little agreement as to the influence of stage form on audience response and no studies exist which deal specifically with the influence of stage form on audience response. As a result, this study was undertaken to compare the influence of the thrust and proscenium stage forms on audience re— sponse. The data for the study were derived from questionnaires com— pleted by thrust and proscenium theatre audience members viewing essen- tially the same production of Hamlet. The scale responses of the two audiences were compared by the extension of the median test to determine if the responses were significantly different. Scales examining com- ponents of the same aesthetic experience were ranked by each audience's median response to determine the relative importance of each component. Lorraine Haugk Cross The results of this study both support and refute concepts in the literature. A summary of the findings of this study follows: More respondents preferred the thrust than preferred the proscenium stage form. The major reasons cited for preferring the thrust stage were: it fostered audience involvement with the performance, natural- ness on stage, intimacy and better visibility. The reasons most cited for preferring the proscenium stage were: better focus, greater familiarity, and less awareness of other audience members. Stage form had some influence on audience response. However, there were also many instances when there were no significant differences in response due to stage form. In other instances the influence of stage form seemed to be negated or enhanced by special aspects of the production. For example, the non- illusionistic, raked stage thrusting through the proscenium arch may have negated the proscenium barrier effect. The audience's intellectual response was more important in the thrust theatre; while its emotional response was more important in the proscenium theatre. The illusion of reality was more effectively created in the proscenium theatre. Although exten- sive and more dominant in the proscenium than in the thrust theatre, enjoyment of the production as a theatrical performance was a relatively unimportant response. The focus of the audience was affected by stage form. Somewhat more emphasis was placed upon the technical elements in the proscenium theatre, and upon the actor and audience in the thrust theatre. Factors which combined to create a particular aesthetic response varied in the thrust and proscenium theatres. Often the con- tribution of a factor toward the creation of a given response reflected the importance of that factor in the particular theatre form. The thrust advocates' predictions of the effect of various experiences, such as the audience members' awareness of the floor, awareness of the audience, or imaginative involvement in the performance, upon the aesthetic response were often accurate. However, these effects often were achieved in both theatre forms. Lorraine Haugk Gross Because this study dealt with a relatively unexplored area, the results of the investigation should be of interest to all theatre artists. With a knowledge of the influence of stage form on audience response, the theatre practitioner could better utilize his art to evoke the audience reaction he desires. It should be noted, however, that this study has only begun the examination of the relationship of stage form to audience response. Because of the number of uncontrol- lable variables inherent in the performance situation, as well as the ephemeral nature of the aesthetic response, this investigation was limited to description. Specific interpretations of the findings do not extend beyond the cited examples. THE INFLUENCE OF THRUST AND PROSCENIUM STAGE FORMS ON AUDIENCE RESPONSE TO A PRODUCTION OF HAMLET By Lorraine Haugk Cross A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State university in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Theatre 1968 m K], Copyright by LORRAINE HAUGK GROSS 1969 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Grateful acknowledgment is extended to Dr. E. C. Reynolds, the author's major professor, for his invaluable aid. The author would also like to express her thanks to Dr. Brad Lashbrook for his aid with the data analysis; to Frank Rutledge in whose class the original idea for this study evolved; and to Edward Andreason without whose encouragement and inspiration she would never have been a theatre graduate student. The writer also extends special appreciation to her husband. Without his cooperation it would have been impossible to complete this work. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS AC MOWEDMNTS O O O O O C O O O I O O O O O O O O O O 0 LIST OF TABLES O O O D O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . LIST OF APPENDICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter I. II. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Statement of Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Objectives of the Study . . . . . . . . . . . . Organization of Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . Limitations of Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Significance of Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . REVI Ew OF LI TERATURE O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0 Influence of Stage Form on Aesthetic Experience Fundamental Differences Between Thrust and Proscenium Theatres . . . . . . . . . . . . . Two-Dimensional or Three—Dimensional . . . . . . Focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . General and Specific Focus . . . . . . . . . . Focus on Actor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Focus on Technical Elements . . . . . . . . . Focus on Audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Illusion and Anti-Illusion . . . . . . . . . . . Anti-Illusion and the Thrust Stage . . . . . . Illusion of Reality and the Proscenium Stage . Illusion and Anti-Illusion Unrelated to Stage Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Involvement Versus Detachment . . . . . . . . . Separation, Detachment and the Proscenium Theatre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Involvement and the Thrust Stage Theatre . . . Stage Form Not Important Factor . . . . . . . . iv Page iii vi viii ix O‘O‘U‘UIH 10 10 11 13 16 16 19 20 21 25 25 32 33 35 36 37 41 Chapter III. METHODS AND PROCEDURES . . Preliminary Investigations . . Research Design . . . . . . The Play . . . . . . . . . . . The Production . . . . . . . . Instrument Development . . . . Data Collection . . . . . . . Questionnaire Distribution . Questionnaire Return . . . . Coding . . . . . . . . . . . . Data Analysis . . . . . . . . Demographic Data . . . . . . Analysis of Stage Form Preference Analysis of Influence of Stage Form on IV. FINDINGS AND INTERPRETATIONS . The Respondents . . . . . . . Sex . . . . . . . . . . . . Age . . . . . . . . . . . . Occupation . . . . . . . . . Theatre Background . . . . . Respondents' Stage Form Preference Reasons for Preferring Particular Stage Form . . . Influence of Stage Form on Audience Response . . . Duration of various Aesthetic Experiences . . . Two-Dimensional Versus Three-Dimensional . . . . Audience Focus . . . . . . . Illusion and Anti-Illusion . Involvement and Detachment . Contribution of Various Aesthetic Experiences to Enjoyment of the Production . V. CONCLUSIONS 0 O O O O O O O O O APPENDICES O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0 LITERATURE CITED . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 45 45 47 47 48 48 54 54 56 57 58 58 59 59 64 64 64 64 66 68 70 72 75 75 81 84 92 106 121 131 135 161 Table 10. 11. 12. LIST OF TABLES Sex Distribution in Percentages Within Each Group of Respondents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Age Distribution in Percentages Within Each Group of Respondents . . . . . . . . . . . . . Percentage of Each Audience Indicating Member- ship in Various Occupational Categories . . . . . Mean Number of Plays Seen in a Year by the Respondents in Each Audience . . . . . . . . Percentage of Respondents in Each Audience Participating in Activities Related to Play Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Percentage of Respondents in Each Audience Participating in Formal Theatre Classes . . . . . . . Stage Form Preferred by Respondents Expressed in Percents of Total Respondents from Each Audience 0 O C O O O O O O O O O C O O C O O O O 0 Audience Ratings: Stage Type by Duration of Aesthetic Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aesthetic Responses Ranked by the Extent to Which They Were Experienced by the Thrust and Proscenium Audiences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Audience Ratings: Stage Type by Awareness of Production Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Production Elements Ranked by the Extent to Which They Were Observed by Thrust and Proscenium Audiences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Audience Ratings: Stage Types by Factors' Contributions Toward Creation of Illusion of Reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi Page 65 65 67 68 69 7O 71 77 82 85 90 94 Table Page 13. Ranking of Factors Contributing Toward the Thrust and Proscenium Audiences' Awareness of Production as ”Reality" . . . . . . . . . 97 14. Audience Ratings: Stage Types by Factors' Contributions Toward Creation of Theatricality . . . . 101 15. Ranking of Factors Contributing Toward the Thrust and the Proscenium Audiences' Aware- ness of Production as Theatrical Performance . . . . . 103 16. Audience Ratings: Stage Types by Factors' Contributions Toward Emotional Involvement . . . . . . 113 17. Ranking of Factors Contributing Toward the Thrust and the Proscenium Audiences' Emotional Involvement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 18. Audience Ratings: Stage Types by Factors' Contributions Toward Intellectual Involvement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 19. Ranking of Factors Contributing Toward the Thrust and the Proscenium Audiences' Intellectual Involvement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 20. Audience Ratings: Stage Type by Effect of Aesthetic Response on Enjoyment . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 21. Aesthetic Responses Ranked by the Extent to Which They Contributed to the Thrust and the Proscenium Audiences' Enjoyment of the Performance 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O. O 126 22. Reasons Cited for Preferring Thrust Stage . . . . . . . . 154 23. Reasons Cited for Preferring Proscenium Stage . . . . . . 157 24. Reasons Cited for Having No Preference in Stage Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 25. Reasons Cited for Giving No Response on Question Related to Preference in Stage Form . . . . . 160 vii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Illustration Page I. Hamlet at the Western Michigan University Theatre . . . 49 II. Hamlet at the F. A. Bower Theatre . . . . . . . . . . . 49 III. Hamlet at the Arts Theatre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 viii LIST OF APPENDICES Appendix Page I. Pretest Cover Letters and Pretest Questionnaires . . . . . 135 II. Questionnaire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 III. Reasons Stated for Stage Form Preference . . . . . . . . . 153 ix CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Statement of Problem Many theatre practitioners believe that the theatre of the future will be the non-proscenium, thrust stage theatre.1 The history of twentieth-century theatre architecture shows a gradual but definite evolution in theatre form from nineteenth century's proscenium theatre to the thrust stage theatre of the mid-sixties. Principles for building theatres of the future support the concept of the non-proscenium stage. Proposals for future theatres such as those of the Ford Foundation's Program for Theatre Design inevitably result in theatres with forms of thrust stages.3 Important new theatre buildings such as the Guthrie Theatre and the Vivian Beaumont Theatre at Lincoln Center are being constructed with thrust stages. This contemporary focus on the thrust stage is based upon the theory that a more ideal relationship exists between the player and the audience when the player is "thrust" into the midst of that audience than when he remains behind the proscenium frame. 1For the purposes of this study a thrust stage will be defined as a stage which is surrounded on three sides by members of the audience. 2Norman Marshall, "Principles for Building the Theatre of the Future," WOrld Theatre, IV, 3 (Summer, 1956). 3The Ideal Theatre: Eight Concepts (New York: The American Federation of Arts and October House Inc., 1962). 1 2 Thrust stage advocates maintain that this stage aids in pro- ducing the ideal actor-audience relationship by creating a form and degree of involvement and participation on the part of the audience members unobtainable in a proscenium theatre. These theorists believe that this occurs in a thrust stage theatre for a number of reasons: A thrust stage theatre allows the spectators to be elevated above and around the stage rather than being placed before it so that they see the actors, their gestures, and their move— ments three-dimensionally against the spacial area of the stage. The audience members' focus becomes more general and ever changing, thus forcing them to participate actively in the performance by following the point of anphasis which, by elimination of a complex setting, has become the moving actor. The lack of a completely illusionistic setting forces the audience members to utilize their imagination creatively and actively to "see" in their mind's eye more than is physically presented on the stage. The audience members are constantly reminded, through their view and contact with other audience members, as well as through 4Most advocates of the thrust stage present these ideas in some form. See Chapter II for a detailed analysis of the ideas. The fol- lowing were the major sources for this composite list: Ned Alan Bowman, Contemporary Theatre Architecture: Two Divergent Perceptual Influences (Pittsburgh: Publications on Theatre Technology, University of Pittsburgh, 1963). Ned Alan Bowman, "The Ideal Theatre: Emerging Tendencies in Its Architecture," Educational Theatre Journal, XVI (October, 1964), 29. Douglas Campbell, "Acting, Directing and the Guthrie Theatre," Drama Survey, III, 1 (Spring—Summer, 1963), 105-11. Tyrone Guthrie, ”A Director Views the Stage," Design Quarterly: The_Tyrone Guthrie Theatre, LVIII (1963). Tyrone Guthrie, A New Theatre (New York: MCGraw-Hill Book Company, 1964), 68-72. The Ideal Theatre: Eight Concepts. Richard Leacroft, "Actor and Audience: Part Two," Royal Insti- tute of British Architect's JOurnal, LXX (April-May, 1963), 149-204. Frederic McConnell, "Using the Open Stage: A Ten Year Experi- ment at the Cleveland Play House," The Theatre Annual, XVII (1960), 48-67. Richard Southern, The Open Stage (London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1953). 3 the lack of any attempt at completely illusionistic settings that they are watching a theatrical performance on a stage, not reality or life. The thrust stage form provides for the possibility of more in- timate contact between actor and audience by placing them in closer proximity, unseparated by any physical or illusionistic barriers. Thus they believe the theatre aesthetic experience in a thrust stage theatre is a unique but ideal theatre experience. Not all agree that the thrust stage is the ideal theatre form or that it provides for a more satisfying theatre experience than the proscenium stage.5 Whether it is a more three-dimensional form is questioned by some writers since any given audience member sees the action from a stationary point in space, Proscenium advocates object to the thrust stage because of the problem it presents in controlling ’the audience's focus since every audience member sees the actors from a very different vantage point. They also object to the focus upon other audience members which exists in the thrust stage theatre. All theatre practitioners agree that the proscenium stage makes it possible to create a more illusionistic picture. Many believe scenic illusion 5Advocates of the proscenium theatre advance contrasting ideas in some form. See Chapter II for a detailed analysis of their ideas. The following were the major sources for the arguments here presented: W. Bridges-Adams, ”Proscenium, Forestage and 0," Drama, No. 62 (Autumn, 1961). Ivor Brown, "What Kind of Stage?," Drama, No. 48 (Spring, 1958) 23. John Mason Brown, The Art of Playgoing (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1936). Norman Marshall. Arthur Risser, "Nine English‘Theatres Reflect a Philosophy of Theatre Design," Educational Theatre Journal, XIX, 2 (May, 1967). Horace W. Robinson, "An Approach to Theatre Planning," Educa- tional Theatre JOurnal, I (December, 1949). Kenneth Tynan, "The National Theatre," Theatre, II (New York: Hill and Wang, 1965). 4 aids in inducing an empathic state within the audience member and thus enhances his aesthetic experience; therefore they feel the proscenium stage is the more valid form. Although an audience member may be more intimately involved with the actor in a thrust stage than in a prosce— nium stage theatre, many proscenium proponents desire the audience member's detachment from the stage activities, believing the establish— ment of aesthetic distance to be of prime importance in the achievement of a truly satisfactory response within the theatre goer. Thus prosce- nium advocates offer a contrasting interpretation for the importance .and influence of each of the factors cited by thrust advocates as advantages achieved by the use of the thrust form. The fact that the thrust and proscenium stage forms are physi- cally different is undeniable and in itself unimportant. It is impor- tant, however, for the theatre practitioner to RN92 what effect each stage form has on the audience members' aesthetic experience. Which of the theories relating to the influence of stage form on audience re- sponse are valid? What is the effect of stage form on the audience members' emotional and intellectual responses to the performance? What is the effect of stage form on the audience members' perception of the production as "reality" or awareness of the production as a theatrical presentation? What specific factors inherent in the performance on a given stage are responsible for existing differences in audience re- sponse? Although many theatre practitioners have proposed answers to the questions raised here, their ideas have not been objectively reaffirmed by the audience members themselves. 5 Objectives of the Study The broad objective of this study is to examine the influence that thrust and proscenium stage forms have upon the audience members' . . 6 . . aesthetic experience. The spec1fic goals of this study are: 1. To describe the differences in audience members' perceived responses to a performance of Hamlet as presented in thrust and proscenium stage theatres. 2. To attempt to identify the factors inherent in each stage form which contribute to the differences in audience response. Organization of Study The research design for this study combined descriptive and analytical methods to study the influence of stage form on audience response. The research began with a comprehensive library survey of the available materials concerning the theatre aesthetic experience and the influence of stage form on this experience. Data for this dissertatnnnwerederived from the responses to a questionnaire com- pleted by audience members attending thrust and proscenium stage pro- ductions of Hamlet as presented by the Michigan State University Per- forming Arts Company. Chapter III fully describes the procedures employed in this study. The questionnaire responses were coded and the computer utilized to perform statistical analyses of the data. Findings and the investigator's interpretation of the findings are 6For the purposes of this study the terms "aesthetic experience" and "aesthetic response" refer to the sensations and emotions evoked within the audience member by the observation of the theatrical per- formance. 6 presented in Chapter IV of this dissertation. Conclusions are presented in Chapter V. Limitations of Study Because this study delves into an unexplored area of theatre re- search its methods must be exploratory and descriptive. No truly ex- perimental study could be designed because there are a number of uncon- trollable variables inherent in a performance situation and because no verified method has been developed to analyze the aesthetic experience. Thus interpretations of the findings of this research must be limited to the population studied. Although the findings suggest the possi- bility of formulating general theories concerning the influence of stage form on the audience member's aesthetic experience, these theories can not be offered as established facts without further verification. How- ever they do indicate areas needing further study under a more con- trolled environment. Significance of Study This study will delve into an area of theatre research, the importance of which is just beginning to be appreciated: the question of the influence of stage form on audience response. Originally stage- audience relationships were evaluated on purely physical basis. We now know this is not enough. Both stage apparatus and auditorium are complex technical organisms. At the same time they involve esthetic organization of a very subtle order. The positioning of actor and spectator in space, a basic requirement, cannot be solved by the scientific diagrams of the paths of sight and sound. Visibility, audibility, proximity, only yield basic yardsticks. 7 A specific quality of the audience—performer relationship has to be met with spatial equivalence in the arrangement of seating and stage. . . By exploring the essential nature of the theater process, the concepts of architecture can go beyond the partial answers of the technical specialists. They can avoid the inevitable obsolescence of the purely technical and specific and project forms in lasting value. One of the major purposes of the Ford Foundation theatre project was to "stimulate architects, designers, and theatre people generally to continuing analysis about the stage and its environment.”8 Peter Larkin stresses the importance of studying the interrelationship of the physical theatre environment and the theatre aesthetic experience: Some directors prefer to elevate the actor above the MEAN auditorium level, some thrust him through the proscenium into the audience. . . .Actor-seating relationships should be made as a study in esthetics. Why look for intimacy and spectacle under the same roof? Why does one theatre seem more intimate, righter, than another? The Princeton University Conferences on Theatre research suggested a number of important areas for theatre research,some of which relate to the concern of this investigation. One suggestion by George Gunkle was the study of: Physical Relationship of Audience to Action: Specific variables here are distance of audience from action; angle of audience in relation to action. But what dependent variables should be chosen? In general, it may be well to note that so-called "audience response" studies are still rather virgin territory; there has never been a really good and useful determination of what 937 pendent variables are measurable, relevant, significant. What are the significant parameters of "audiences"? Or: what do we 7G. M. Kallmann, "Interiors Contract Series '56: Theatres," Interiors, 116 (September,1956), 109. 8The Ideal Theatre: Eight Concepts, 7. 9Ibid., 27. 8 want to have happen in the audience when a production is taking place?10 Harold Burris-Meyer suggested two areas requiring research which are touched upon in the present study. "We ought to study presentation techniques on the basis of audience response. This might give us some solid facts to help evaluate the bear pit stage or the cafetorium."11 Related to this is his suggestion to study "the effectiveness of various theatre forms as measured in audience psycho—physical response to standardized presentation".12 Thus there is a growing awareness among theatre practitioners and architects of the need for research in the areas here being investigated. The results of this study will add to the slowly developing body of knowledge concerning stage form and its influence on the theatre aesthetic experience. The findings should be of interest to theatre artists and architects. With the knowledge of audience response in relation to a given stage form, directors, actors and designers could more successfully plan their productions to achieve the responses they desire. Leon Shiman believes that in today's theatre the desired re- sponse is often unachieved because of the failure to consider the in- fluence of stage form. The meaning of a play is often distorted by its presentation. Many dramatic and musical works whose meanings depend on isola- tion and distance from the audience have been presented in arenas or with audience on several sides; while many meaningless as 10George Gunkle, "Possibilities for Experimental Research in Theatre," Educational Theatre Journal, XIX, 2A (June,1967), 280. 11Harold Burris-Meyer, "Research in Theatre Architecture," Educational Theatre Journal, XIX, 2A (June,1967), 281. 12Ibid. 9 illusion have been continually forced behind the wall of a pro- scenium. It is common to find a play calling for an actor to dominate the stage picture being seen in a theatre for thousands which dwarfs him by huge settings on a cavernous stage.13 Theatre architects, too, could design more satisfactory theatres if they were aware of the influence of theatre architecture on the audience response and if they could determine the form of response their client seeks. My experience has been that where something has gone wrong with the building, the building program, it's because the pro- gram was never really determined to begin with, because the owner said, ”I want to build a structure for the performing arts, or the fine arts,” and he never really enlarged upon it. . . . If the purpose of the theatre is not made clear from the beginning, you end up with what is prevelant throughout this country - the stages work, but not particularly well for any one thing. . . . The key thing is, "what kind of theatre, fellas?" For what purpose? . . .1 This study, then, is significant in that it delves into important, unex- plored areas of theatre. The results will be valuable to theatre people who are continually striving to better understand their art. 13Leon G. Shiman, "Theatres for Tomorrow,” Saturday Review, XXXXV'(April 28, 1962), 44. 14"The Changing Practice: Theatres," Progressive Architecture, XXXXVI (October, 1965), 166-167. CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE Influence of Stage Form on Aesthetic Experience Many twentieth century theatre practitioners have come to believe that one of the principle factors determining an individual audience member's aesthetic response is the form of the stage. Nicoll suggests that stage form is the primary factor influencing the aesthetic experi- ence: "The essence of the theatre rests in the relationship between stage and public."1 He speaks for many theorists when he writes that the tendency of our times to experiment with divergent forms of theatre architecture is . . based upon something which had hardly been fully appre- ciated before our time - the fact that the different theatre shapes and sizes not only are aptly harmonious with different kinds of production, but also create different impressions upon their audiences. Although the idea that stage form influences audience response has been widely accepted, no concensus has been reached nor has research clarified exactly what the specific effects of various stage forms are upon the audience member's theatre experience. As Thomas Creighton 1Allardyce Nicoll, The Theatre and Dramatic Theory (New York: Barnes and NOble, 1962), 29. 21bid., 195. 10 11 suggested, "the debatable and debated questions are many.”3 And most of the questions debated are verified or rejected primarily on the basis of the personal experiences of the individuals debating them. Fundamental Differences Between Thrust and Proscenium Theatres The fundamental physical difference between the thrust and pro- scenium stage theatres is fairly easy to observe, and is in itself not especially debatable. Ned Bowman contrasts the two forms by char- acterizing the proscenium theatre as including:4 (1) (2) (3) The establishment of a physical barrier to separate the world of reality from an ideally-conceived art world the arrangement of many spectators before the art work, each isolated from awareness of all others, in such a way that all view the play from as nearly the same ideal vantage point as possible the disposition of the art work behind the frame so that an ideal vantage point is directly across from the picture frame; and the thrust stage theatre as including: (1) (2) (3) the denial of any barrier between audience and art work the variable relation of action to audience space, with audience members arranged so the individual is frequently reminded of his involvement in an audience seated in a theatre the diminishing of the subtended angle between the playing area floor and the rake of a seating bank facing it, causing the spectator to look down onto the stage, rather than across into it; 3Thomas Creighton, "Theatre Design," Craft Horizons (March- April, 1962), 38. Ned Bowman, Contemporary Theatre Architecture: TWO Divergent Perceptual Influences, 1-2. 12 Etienne Souriau contrasts the two forms with an analogy to the cube and the sphere.5 This cube process entailing the complete bringing into con- crete existence of a smalli_well-defined fragmentigcut out of the universe of the work has three striking traits from the point of view of the theatre. In the first place, its realism. Everything within the limits of the cube must be incarnated or represented concretely - it may be more or less stylized, but it must be made apparent to the senses. . . . In the second place, its orientation or aspect. The little cube is open on the spectator's side. It faces him. It exerts a force over him, a dynamic force in a horizontal plane pointing like an arrow into the hall. If the actor turns his back on the audience for a moment, it is his back that exerts the force during that moment. . . . , And finally, its third trait: its predetermined confining architecture. This little piece of universe is internally organized, and the physical aspects of this organization are imposed from start to finish on everything that happens within the box. The whole incident, the comings and goings of the characters, all their stage business are constrained and given shape in advance according to the stage setting adopted . . And now let us pass on to the principle of the sphere. As you will see, it is entirely different. Its practical and aesthetic dynamism are not at all the same (of course, I am simplifying once more, and taking an exaggeratedly pure and extreme case). No stage, no hall, no limits. Instead of cutting out a 'predetermined fragment in the world that is going to be set up, one seeks out its dynamic center, its beating heart, the spot where the action is emotionally at its keenest and most exalted. . . . The actors or the group of actors who incarnate this heart, this punctum saliens, dynamic center of the universe of the work, are officiating priests, magicians whose power ex- tends outward indefinitely into open space. . . . There is no scenery either, Properly so-called, . . . Only what is needed to fix momentarily what will later become inten- sified and take on local significance in the world that is being suggested. . . . We do not find here, or at least we find the minimum of, face-to-face relationship, that arrow-like function of the actor with reference to the spectator. As much as possible, the spectators are in the cathedral or around the platform as par- ticipants; they are, so to speak, invited along with the actor to enter the universe that is being conjured up. . . . 5Etienne Souriau, "The Cube and the Sphere," Educational Theatre Journal, IV, I (March, 1952), 11. 13 Although Souriau's ideas are couched in a more theoretical framework than Bowman's, they only begin to suggest the influences that differ- ences in stage form have on the spectator's response. Stephen Joseph is perhaps more honest than any other writer in his assessment of the obvious differences between the two forms of theatre and the effect of these differences. In comparison with the enclosed stage, having the acting area in the same room as the auditorium inevitably means a loss in the amount of scenery that can be used, and a gain in proximr ity between actors and audience. The aesthetic advantages and limitations of each form need not be dealt with here. They are being hotly debated, and there are not yet enough examples of the new forms to lift the debate much above the level of airing theories and prejudices. But it seems clear that the new forms of theatre provide opportunities for simplicity in production and staging, placing considerable emphasis on the actors, and requiring comparatively modest buildings.6 These,then,seem to be the fundamental differences between thrust and proscenium theatres: a separation or lack of separation between spectator and actor, the arrangement of the spectator before or around the stage, the ability or lack of ability to provide realistic scenery, and a limited or limitless focal point. These differences are thought to result in different forms of perception and response by the spectators. Theories relating to these contrasting responses and the desirability of creating them are discussed in detail in the following sections. Two—Dimensional or Three-Dimensional The viewing of live sculptural three-dimensional actors is con- sidered to be a very important aspect of the theatre aesthetic experience. 6Stephen Joseph, Planning for New Forms of Theatre (London: The Strand Electric and Engineering Co. Ltd., Publishers, 1963), 6. 14 The prime advantage the theatre has over present rivals in the field of public entertainment - radio, movies and television - is the fact that it is the real thing, not a photograph or re— cording of it. This unmatched asset should be fully exploited.7 Most all theorists agree with Bel Geddes that the theatre "is the only form which can be entirely three-dimensional."8 However, they do not agree as to the specific influence of stage form upon the audience members' perception of the dimensionality of the actors and action. Thrust stage advocates insist that the audience members in thrust stage theatres perceive the actors and setting more three-dimensionally than do audience members in proscenium stage theatres. Richard Leacroft suggests that very early attempts to return to the stage of Shakespeare, the thrust stage, were influenced by the belief that things seem more three-dimensional on this stage. It was further considered that the important stage picture is that created by the movements, attitudes and gestures of the actor, and the relationship of the movements of one actor to those of the rest of the company as seen three-dimensionally on the spatial area of the stage. If this sculptural picture was to be fully appreciated then the actor must be drawn out from behind the picture-frame, and placed once more in the "auditorium”, where these movements could be fully appreciated by the surrounding audience.9 Discussing the importance of achieving three-dimensionality on stage, Bel Geddes wrote: . . . Performed on a stage that is not behind a hole in a wall, with an audience on three or all sides of the stage, a play 7Norman Bel Geddes, "Design for New Theatre," New York Times Magazine (Nov. 30, 1947), 24. 8Norman Bel Geddes, "Flexible Theatre," Theatre Arts, XXXII (June, 1948), 49. 9Richard Leacroft, 149. 15 will take on a character which cannot be achieved with a pro- scenium separating actors from the audience.10 The contrast between the two-dimensional proscenium and three-dimensional thrust is also cited by Guthrie as a reason for his preference for the thrust stage. In an age when movies and TV are offering dramatic entertain— ment from breakfast to supper, from cradle to grave, it seemed important to stress the difference between their offering and ours. Theirs is two-dimensional and is viewed upon a rectan- gular screen. The proscenium is analogous to such a screen by forcing a two-dimensional choreography upon the director. But the open stage is essentially three-dimensional with no re- semblance to the rectangular postcard shape which has become the symbol of canned drama. Not only is the thrust stage felt to be viewed more three- dimensionally than the proscenium, but often movement on this stage can be blocked more three-dimensionally than it can on a proscenium stage. In the proscenium theatre he [Guthrie] feels cramped and confined by having to compose movement and grouping so that the actors are facing the audience most of the time. He delights in the sense of freedom that he has on the open stage, where he is no longer limited to two-dimensional grouping. He finds that in scenes of action and excitement the big wheeling and spinning movements which can be made offer a choreographic freedom that is quite beyond the range of the proscenium theatre. Other theorists,however, do not agree that one stage form is more three—dimensional than another. I have heard it speciously argued that a projecting stage adds "a third dimension" to acting. What a grotesque abuse of 10Norman Bel Geddes, "Flexible Theatre," 49. 11Tyrone Guthrie, "A Director Views the Stage," Design Quarterly: Tyrone Guthrie Theatre, No. 58 (1963),4. J 12Norman Marshall, "Guthrie Here, There and Everywhere: A Portrait of a Man Who won't Stay Still," Drama Survey, III, 1 (Spring— Summer,1963),102. 16 language! All live acting is in three dimensions, as opposed to screen and television acting, which has two; and I cannot understand how the ability to see one's fellow spectators be- hind the actors materially adds to the sculptural roundness of the experience. If we erected a few rows of seats behind the actors on the stage of the Old Vic, would it really make the productions more three-dimensional? The truth, I suspect, is that proximity creates the illusion of an extra dimension, and in a theatre of reasonable size you don't need a tongue- shaped stage to achieve proximity.15 Even more logically and simply, Arthur Risser writes: Questionable are the claims made for the open stage in that the production is essentially three-dimensional as com- pared to the two-dimensional character of film, television, and the proscenium stage. Does the spectator from his fixed seat in an open-stage theatre see more, except other persons in the audience, than he does in the conventional theatre form with its direct confrontation?14 Focus _A far less uniform view of the performance is achieved in the thrust stage theatre with audience members seated around the stage than in a proscenium theatre,where audience members are seated before it. Various theories relating to the specific changes in focus which result from the differences in seating arrangements as well as to the importance of these changes have been advanced. General and Specific Focus The audience member's focus is felt to be more specific in the proscenium theatre and more general in the thrust stage theatre. Thus a theatre practitioner's belief in the desirability of general or 13Kenneth Tynan, 83. 14Arthur Risser, 150. 17 specific focus often determines his preference for the thrust or pro— scenium stage. The ability to concentrate the audience's attention on the stage from a fairly uniform vantage point is felt by many to be highly desir- able and they therefore prefer the proscenium theatre. Donald Oenslager, the American designer, is of the opinion that "to look across the acting area of an open stage and view the banks of spectators is most confusing and distracting. The picture stage can be effectively contrived so that the stage and theatre are more closely joined together". N. Laskaris, the Greek theatre architect, Alec Clunes, the English director and Walter Unruh, the German theatre engineer, are among those who are strongly in favor of the picture stage. Unruh considers that the optical limitation of the picture frame aids the con- centration of the audience. Horace Robinson summarizes the arguments for the specific focus afforded in the proscenium theatre: But if the auditor is to see and hear what has been provided for him to see and hear and nothing else, as is essential if the production is to have its proper and full effect, the theatre suructure must provide proper focus. It must insure that all the members of the audience will attend to the same thing at the same time. Is it not logical that the focus of a theatre audience be in front of the individual auditor? (As has already been pointed out, this is essential to the best audibility and visibility.) 'And yet one modern planner has listed among the advantages of his theatre "the proximity of the actor to his audience, his ability to walk around them rather than having to project his role from behind footlights." A theatre should be planned to provide not only proper focus but also unity of impression. It is not enough that the members of an audience all attend to the same thing; they should receive the same impression of it. The impression re- ceived by the auditor in the left front section should be the same as that of the auditor in the right rear, in the top row of the balcony, or on the opposite side of the acting area. As far as hearing is concerned, this is insured by relatively small dimensions and adequate acoustic engineering, but as far as seeing is concerned, unity of impression can be achieved only by a common point of view. All members of the audience 15Norman Marshall, "Principles for Building the Theatre of the Future," 6. 18 should view the performance as nearly as possible from the same point.16 Some theatre-goers and critics like the thrust stage simply be- cause it provides a different kind of focus than does the proscenium l7 theatre. "Change is the important thing." Others prefer the thrust stage because they believe the different kind of focus found there is also the more ideal kind. Norman Bel Geddes disagrees with the argu- ments set forth in favor of the focus of the proscenium theatre. I do not agree that the "best view of any animate object is from a position on a line at right angles to the predominant direction of the movement of the object." It is not the most dramatic view. Impact gains as an object comes toward the viewer. It is the visual crescendo. A common example is in movies such as a railroad train or an animal rushing toward the camera. This is infinitely more dramatic than to see the same train and the same animal rushing parallel with the camera. . . . Nor do I concur that "all members of the audience will attend to the same thing at the same time," assuming this means that every member of the audience must experience every- thing identically. One of the positive ways that the theatre differs from movies, radio, and television is that its audience does not have a single angle of view. In the theatre - especially with the elimination of the proscenium stage, but even with it - each individual in the audience has a slightly different angle of view.18 PerrottetVbn Laban offers an even more telling argument for the ever changing focus of the thrust; he believes contemporary man's eye is conditioned to pursue points of visual interest rather than to focus on a stationary point or area such as would tend to be provided by the proscenium. 16Horace W. Robinson, 98. 17Stephen Joseph, Actor and Architect (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, l964),96. 18"Theatre Planning: A Symposium," Educational Theatre Journal, II (March, 1950), 1-2. 19 Man himself has acquired a far greater degree of visual consciousness thanks to the more mobile and colorful rhythm of everyday life and to the modern visual media of informa- tion such as films, television and illustrated newspapers. The eye tends rather to pursue things than to retain them, the result of which is guicker perception and a greater sus- ceptibility to boredom. 9 General or specific focus, which is more desirable? Arguments are set forth in favor of each kind, but none of these arguments is supported by empirical evidence. Focus on Actor Thrust proponents argue that the elimination of elaborate settings and the closer proximity of the actor to the audience in the thrust theatre focuses the audience's concentration on the actor. Cer- tainly one of the important reasons for renewed interest in the Shakespearean stage was "that this form of theatre placed emphasis on the actor and the play."20 Saint-Denis explains in detail what effects he believes the thrust stage has on the actor. The thrust stage . . . presents the actor with certain advantages and diffi- culties which will be multiplied by the very fact of proximity. The actor has lost the security of the picture-frame stage. He is exposed: pierced by the eyes of the spectators, who are on all sides of him but one, he realizes that, at the same time, his power over the public has increased; but he also discovers that the full exercise of this power will depend much more on the authenticity of his acting than it did in the old "operatic" staging. His exposed position and proximity will immediately reveal artifice and theatrical cliches. Furthermore, the actor feels that the expressiveness of his back, of his entire body, becomes as important as that of 19PerrottetV’on Laban, "In Search of Valid Form," World Theatre, IV, 3 (Summer, 1955), 44. 20Richard Leacroft, 149. 20 his face on which can be read the slightest internal re- action.21 This focus on the actor is highly desired for . the actor surrounded by his audience on a stage where he is not dwarfed and dimmed by the scene painter is a solid and compelling figure; and he and the dramatist, creating every- thing between them, can reach a far more imaginative and in- timate relationship with the audience. However, not everyone believes that the elimination of the setting results in greater focus upon the actor. Arthur Miller suggests that although an actor surrounded by scenery may be lost in the scenery, an actor surrounded by audience members may become undifferentiable from the audience. It's hard to focus attention the actor as actor in those square theatres that are surrounded by seats. The actor becomes less and less differentiated from the people watching. Focus on Technical Elements Very little has been written about the relative importance of various technical elements on the proscenium stage. However, since the proscenium stage is accepted as the norm, much has been written sug- gesting how focus on technical elements in the thrust theatre differs from that in the proscenium theatre. The lack of scenery on the thrust stage is believed to result in greater emphasis on properties, lighting, and costumes. Percy Corry suggests that, in a sense, lighting can be 21Michel Saint-Denis, "Chekhov and the Mbdern Stage," Drama Survey, III, 1 (Spring-Summer, 1963), 78. 22Nicoll, 32. 23The Ideal Theatre: Eight Concepts, 11. 21 considered a substitute for scenery in creating atmosphere and illusion. You must decide whether or not you can dispense with suggestive scenery, or representational scenery, or scenery of any de- cription and allow the audience to imagine what the setting should be; and by sensitive lighting you can then help the creation of that imaginative concept. 4 Tanya Moiseiwitsch stresses the increasing importance of properties and costumes in the thrust theatre. I think that properties take on more significance when there is nothing else to show where the scenes take place. The texture and the decoration both of the properties and the clothes call for even more careful planning than on a prosce- nium stage where the footlights may help to keep the audience guessing.25 The audience is also thought to be much more aware of the details in the properties and costumes in a thrust than in a proscenium theatre. Where scenic items, furniture, clothing, etc., are used, the items must be perfect, as otherwise their nearness to the audience reveals any flaws, and the audience that is not carried away by the force of the acting may well become only too aware of the last minute safety-pin or the goose-pimples on an otherwise fair skin. Focus on Audience The audiences of thrust and proscenium theatres are thought to differ greatly in the extent to which they are aware of the other audience members. This difference is important because the extent and kind of awarenesses each audience member has of his fellow audience 24Stephen Joseph, Actor and Architect, 101. 25Tanya Mbiseiwitsch, "Problems in Design," Drama Survey, III, 1 (Spring-Summer,l963),114. 26Richard Leacroft, "The Open Stage,” Architectural Review, 125 (April,1959z 257. 22 members is thought to have a profound effect on his response to the per- formance. No consensus exists as to the ideal relationship between the individual and the total audience. In a world—wide inquiry Raymond Cogniat, an editor of World Theatre magazine, included the following series of questions: Should a spectator be left in the solitude of his own in- dividuality or should he be incorporated into that new entity, the audience? By what means? What lighting effects, what colours (dark or light)?27 Cogniat summarized the wide variety of responses he received thus: Mr. August Defresne writes: "the theatre is the art of the mass, the collectivity and not the individual, it is necessary that each member of the audience should be linked to that come munity and that, without losing his individuality, he should sense the general atmosphere and at the same time help to build it." Mr. Jo Mielziner confirms this: "It's impossible to be solitary in an auditorium with 1000 or 3000 other people. The enjoyment of theatre is basically a communal experience." Comparison with the cinema enables us to understand these ideas more clearly. At the cinema each spectator remains isolated: he is unaware of the presence of his neighbours and does not need their presence. At the theatre, on the contrary, this seems to be essential. Mr. Victor Glasstone declares that: "In the theatre the spectator is part of an audience. He should be aware of his fellows, they should be all around him, near to him, visible, audible." Mr. Edward C. Cole is one of the few to defend the opposite point of view: ”It is a personal belief", he says, "that conscious participation is not the purpose of the theatre-goer, but that he wishes rather to lose himself, to be carried away to be completely 'won over' by the performance and that the auditorium can contribute to this . . It should be possible for a spectator even to forget that there are people sitting all around him." Mr. Wim Vesseur gives a more subtle interpretation: "It is necessary", he says, "for the theatre-goer to isolate himself in his seat like the anony- mous end of an imaginary cone extending between his perception and the stage, but he must also feel he is the centre of the audience and, if he so desires, be able to embrace this audience in one glance and feel himself surrounded by it." Notice, for 27Raymond Cogniat, "The Theatre Facade, Entrances and Auditorium," World Theatre, VII, 2 (Summer, 1958), 101. 23 instance, how during the interval the audience rises and looks around the auditorium, seeking a kind of approval in this multiple presence. Because of the difference in the form of the auditorium, the thrust stage audience member is thought to have an increased awareness of his fellow audience members while the proscenium stage audience member can "forget that there are people sitting around him".29 Opin- ions differ as to the effect of an audience members awareness of other audience members on his reaction to the performance. Thrust stage advocates believe that the variations in audience viewpoints and audience members' awareness of themselves as a part of the audience result in a more satisfying theatrical experience. Wendel Cole char- acterizes the thrust stage audience as "an audience which participates in the production by being aware of itself as an audience and of its relationship to the staging methods."30 Tyrone Guthrie recognizes that audience members focus not only on the stage but also on other audience members in a thrust stage theatre. He believes the audience member's awareness of other audience members in a thrust stage theatre enhances his aesthetic response by making it impossible for him to for- get he is in a theatre and by forcing him to accept theatre as theatre rather than as an illusion of reality.31 28Ibid. 29Ibid. 30Wendel Cole, "Theatre in Three Dimensions," Players Magazine, XXXIX (Feb., 1963), 132. 31Illusion and anti-illusion are discussed in greater detail later in this chapter. 24 We're not aiming at illusion. We're aiming to present a ritual that is sufficiently fascinating and interesting to take the spectators out of themselves and make them go into the world of make believe; the reenactment of fiction by actors. And I think that experience is enhanced, not mitigated, if you're conscious of participating in it with other people: if you actually see - not in as bright a light as the actors, not as close to you as the actors, but beyond, behind, above and around them - the other people. The ideal auditorium for me would be like acting in the bottom of a saucer with the people going up and around you, piling in, but close, close, close. Bridges—Adams not only criticizes the variations in viewpoint which are found on a thrust stage theatre, but also suggests that being aware of other audience members does not enhance your enjoyment of the per- formance. It was of the essence of dramatic illusion that our Hamlet should have his audience on three sides of him at least; our forestage must jut out into the stalls. As to this contention I am still in doubt. For example you, sitting on Hamlet's left, are en- tranced by his To be or not to be, when for a moment you allow your gaze to wander from his noble face to his no less noble legs. Suddenly you find yourself looking between them into the eyes of my respected Editor, who is sitting on Hamlet's right. If you have the privilege of Mr. Ivor Brown's acquaintance, what is the drill? Do you give the nod - or smile - or recognition? Obviously you cannot wave your programme and say Hullo. But even if the eyes you encounter, framed in those noble legs, are those of a complete stranger, is your illusion heightened by an arrangement that gives you no more than an uncertain half- share in Hamlet's face? 3 Thus although he agrees with Guthrie that focus on the other audience members destroys the illusion of reality in a theatre,he does not agree that this enhances the theatrical experience. 32"From the Symposium," Theatre Arts, XXXXVI (May, 1962), 18. 33W. Bridges-Adams, 27. 25 Illusion and Anti-Illusion Because the focus in a proscenium theatre is considered to be specific and stage centered while the focus in a thrust theatre is con- sidered to be general, stage and audience centered, these forms of theatre are thought to differ fundamentally in that one is believed to be illu- sionistic and the other anti-illusionistic. The proscenium stage is deliberately designed to encourage the audience to believe that events on stage are "really" taking place, to accept a palpable fiction for fact; whereas the open stage discourages "illusion" and emphasizes that a play is a ritual in which the audience is invited to participate. The audience is so arranged that spectators can see one another around, and beyond, the more brightly lighted stage. This certainly does not encourage illusion. You can hardly be expected to believe that you are right there at the Court of King Arthur when just over Lancelot's left ear you can descry, dim but unmistakable, the Halversons, who keep the corner store. This, however, does emphatically, and I think valuably, imply that theatre-going is a sociable, a shared experience, and that the audience, unlike the audience for movies or television has an active part to play, has to do its share towards creating the performance, can make or mar the occasion.34 Anti-Illusion and the Thrust Stage One of the results of failing to physically separate the actor and audience in the thrust stage theatre is the inability to create an illusion of reality. On the scenic side - and here there is no qualification; you can never on the open stage provide scenery in such a way that an illusionistic picture is created and so that you may suppose you are looking not at actors on a stage, but at real people in a fragment of the actual world.35 34Tyrone Guthrie, A New Theatre, 69-70. 35Frederic McConnell, 54. 26 Most thrust stage advocates desire the loss of illusion created by this stage form, believing this loss of illusion to be a part of the new aesthetic related to this form. The following quotations emphasize thrust stage advocates' belief in the importance of eliminating the illusion of reality from the production. Naturalism and realism in the sense of "Belasco's Box" are limiting and crippling; photographic actuality is self-defeating and puts the emphasis in the wrong place.36 Whatever realities may be in the playwright's mind, they are best communicated to the audience by means of suggestion . . 7 and imagination, through the unconscious realization. We're trying to get away from the illusionism of proscenium theatre and to remove all traces of resemblance to the screen. . . . In the Guthrie theatre . . . the actors and audience share the same space, whereas in the proscenium theatre they occupy different spaces. The actors move about in a box; the audience sits in a bowl. Bring the actor out of his box and put him plumb in the middle of the audience and there is no illusionistic barrier between them. They breathe the same air; they live in the same world.38 There is no pretense that this is magic. You see, the whole idea of the thing is not to create illusion - I don't believe that is what the theatre is about. I don't believe people go to the threatre to be presented with a palpable fiction and think it's really happening.39 Rather than presenting the audience with an illusion of reality, the thrust stage makes it impossible for the audience members to forget that they are in a theatre. The open stage is a most promising architectural form today, because of its freedom from restriction - and especially the 36Ibid., 59. 37Ibid., 63. 38Douglas Campbell, 109. 39Stephen Joseph, Actor and Architect, 45. 27 restriction of illusion. . . . In an open stage theatre, the illusion that you are not in a theatre is hard to create; the anti-illusion that that is just where you are and that it is a reality is equally hard to suppress. 0 The thrust stage theatre,then,is theatre theatrical. They (new stages) are all more truly theatrical than the picture- frame arrangement. The theatre is a place for make-believe, a game which actor and audience share as willing collaborators and with a kind of mutual trust. That is why I am a little mis- trustful of the word illusion which suggests a conjuring trick aimed to deceive the audience. It is in the anti-illusion, in the theatricalism, in the awareness that the play is only a play, achieved in a thrust stage theatre that many thrust advocates find the real excitement of this stage form. The theatre experience is often compared with one's viewing of a painting. Leonardo, in painting the Mona Lisa . . . has not tried to create an illusion, to persuade you that this is a real woman, but to make a comment on real women in terms of paint laid on to canvas. Similarly, the theatre is endeavouring to make a comment on real life by symbolical re-enactment of real life, but not to create illusion. . . The thrust stage, many believe, replaces the illusion of reality, created on the proscenium stage, with ritual. The form of a theatre necessarily imposes a particular char- acter on the performances which are given in it, and as the theatre at Stratford is like a temple, there was a strongly ritualistic character about both Richard III and All's Well That Ends Well. . . .43 40Richard Southern, Seven Ages of Theatre (New York: Hill and Wang, 1961),288. 41Alfred Emmet, "Later Stages - A Reply," Drama, No. 48 (Spring, l958),25. 42Stephen Joseph, Actor and Architect, 45. 43Tyrone Guthrie, Robertson Davies, Grant Macdonald, Renown at Stratford (Tbronto: Clarke, Irwin and Company Limited, 1953L 120-121. 28 Guthrie consciously tries to achieve a theatre of ritual. We're not aiming at illusion. We're aiming to present a ritual that is sufficiently fascinating and interesting to take the spectators out of themselves and make them go into the world of make believe; the reenactment of fiction by actors.44 Davies describes this theatrical ritual which Guthrie seeks as: . . conventions of gesture, movement and dance performed within a prescribed area in order to evoke the essence of something greater than themselves. . . . Ritual is man's way of evoking what is too great for realistic portrayal. Ritual in these productions brings us a strong sense of the wonder, the beauty, the horror, the tenderness, the merriment and the overwhelming complexity, abundance and glory of life - in fact, it brings us to what is truly romance. . . .45 Other theorists suggest that the illusion of realism available on the proscenium stage is replaced on the thrust stage by some new kind of realism. When discussing the production of The Touch of the Poet at the Cleveland playhouse, a wide apron stage theatre which has eliminated the formal proscenium, Frederic MbConnell suggested that they had achieved a new kind of realism, . . . an inspired and transcendent communion between audience and players and a complete sense of the reality of their being characters in the play rather than mere real people masquer- ading as actors. Realism is as old as the hills. The theatre from the beginning served its community because at the outset it evoked certain realities which met response from its audience, a response, however, which was contingent on something more inherent than mere photographic illusion. We have for some years been preoccupied with a form of superficial naturalism of purely external implication. But also we have been groping for a deeper or nee-realism, representative of a deeper world and an art consciousness within us. Thus a play may embark upon the most mundane plane, yet have poetic style, a freedom of movement, intimacy and harmony between actor and audience. Modern realism is not merely an extension of the slide rule of 44"From the Symposium," 18. 45Tyrone Guthrie, Robertson Davies, Grant Macdonald, 121. 29 Belasco, Antoine and Zola, the closed-in slice-of-life school of disease, sin and corruption, but a profound penetration in terms of a maturing art and a salient interpretation of the realities of contemporary life. Suggested realism,fragmentary and selective illusion as executed on the open stage can assist in the projection of these values. Later McConnell describes this new realism as a kind of "poetic" realism: With light and the spacial freedom of the open stage, formaliza- tion and aesthetic unity contribute a concordant illusion which transcends material and external garnish. In our experience with the age old form we have learned to extoll the effective- ness as well as inspiration of poetic and spiritualized realism through light and substance.l'7 Douglas Campbell believes this new reality is a psychological reality. "What matters is not the physical but the psychological reality."48 Others believe that illusion is an important part of theatre and that the thrust stage theatre has simply changed the form in which the illusion is manifest. I personally love illusion. To be disillusioned seems to be part of my everyday life, and so I like to go to the theatre for its illusion. We seem to be moving into an age of experi- ment, and we may have to be tested to destruction in this pro- cess, without some of the aids we've become accustomed to through the proscenium and so on; . . . People may discover, it has been suggested, that their own powers of imagination can produce far more effective illusion than the many artifi- cial aids. 9 Peter Larkin believes that the new stages attempt to create a new illu- sion; an illusion which suggests that the audience member is a part of the actor's environment rather than an outside observer of that environ- ment. 46Frederic McConnell, 54. 47Ibid., 63. 48Douglas Campbell, 110. 9 4 Stephen Joseph, Actor and Architect, 102. 30 This effort to create an illusion in the audience of being "immersed in a selected environment" to maintain a unity of space between viewers and performers has been the most common objective of these projects and the most pointed aspiration of the modern theatre house in contrast to the old houses where no audience participation was expected.50 The inability to create an illusionistic setting on the thrust stage is thought to have some very positive effects on audience re- sponse. The lack of realistic setting on a thrust stage is believed to be a factor which forces the audience member to become involved in the performance. It's up to the actors to suggest what is missing of the real- istic setting. Actors always have to do this in some degree anyway, because, however real a setting may look it never is really real. An actor can suggest a great deal of physical reality - whether he's out of doors or indoors, for instance - by the way he behaves. Shivering and looking up in a particu- lar way can suggest being out in the cold. But the audience has to watch out for such signals and interpret them to get at the truth. And in doing this, it finds itself involved. If everything is spelled out in the setting, it takes the audi- ence much longer to get involved. If a complete picture is presented to it, it doesn't need to think.5 The audience members not only become involved, but their imagination is also thought to be stimulated by the lack of scenic background. The loss of elaborate scenery is in itself no great detriment, indeed its absence permits the imagination free rein undis- turbed by attempts at simulating realism with the conventional items of scenery. Vera Roberts says much the same thing: But the essence of theatre lies in the participation of audiences. Those who watch and listen are not mere eavesdrop- pers. They must have their minds challenged and their imagi- nations stretched by an artistic representation to which they can bring something of their own. The too-realistic stage 50The Ideal Theatre: Eight Concepts, lO. SlDouglas Campbell, 110. 52Richard Leacroft, "The Open Stage," 257. 31 setting is its own worst enemy, and besides, the motion picture can do this sort of thing much better than the stage can. By its very nature theatre must ask that its audience ”piece out our im- perfections with your thoughts." And lucky it is that this is so. For thus theatre is freed from literalness to artistic theatri- cality, and can take all times, places, and ideas for its province, evoking whatever thought or emotion it chooses by a judicious selection of stage decor, lighting, and music.53 Many thrust stage advocates insist that the removal of the illusion- istic setting enhances the acting. Early in the century, Antoine, the advocate of realism,expressed this idea. One The atmosphere is created with almost unbearable intensity - the public is no longer seated in front of a picture, but in the same room, by the side of the characters. This extraordinary impression has never before been produced to this extent; such a complete elimination of all "theatrical elements" makes for a detailed perfection in acting.54 critic found the lack of an illusionistic background has both ad- vantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, the anti-naturalistic staging gave a more in- tense reality to the expression of the characters and thus to the meaning of the play. I had lived with them, I had made the rounds, I had received from Astrov, from vanya, from Sonia, con- fessions which were more intimate, more aglow than ever before. On the other hand, thinking back upon it, it now seems to me that I received from the play a revelation that was strong, but harsher than is the work in its essence. Was it because of the excessive austerity of the settings in which these characters lived? They appeared to me to be separated from their furniture, from their familiar possessions . . . If, in this production, I was able to commune closely with the life of these people, I did not observe the life of things. I did not hear any of those silent conversations which can occur . . . Was it the absence of a back- ground which deprived us of perspective? Was it the lack of detail in the setting? I do not know. The experience was unforgettable, incomparable, but incomplete; there was missing a certain sensi- tivity, like a breath of the ephemeral.55 498. 53Vera Mowry Roberts, On Stage (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), 54McConnell, 50. 55Saint-Denis, 79. 32 Illusion of Reality and the Proscenium Stage Proscenium advocates believe that illusion is desirable and that the actor-audience separation created by the proscenium barrier is necessary for establishing the illusion of reality on stage. If the director is to have a chance of making his scenes life- like he must have this frame, sharply separating the stage picture from the spectators, so that these spectators may, from their darkened seats, enjoy a peep-show view of the solidly set and naturalistically illuminated spectacle put before them.56 Ivor Brown describes the importance of the proscenium in creating theatrical illusions, and his belief in the importance of such illusions: For my own part, I cannot understand the argument that theatrical work becomes more real or has more emotional impact if it is Spread among the audience. Acting is pretending, the creation of an illusion, and is therefore assisted by condi- tions which enable members of the audience in a theatre (which is the Greek word for "a seeing-place") to suspend their dis- belief. I do not find myself closer to King Lear if a lot of people pretending to be his Ancient British subjects or his enemies are swirling round my seat. I have had plenty of moments in the Assembly Hall during Edindurgh Festivals when I was submerged in combative Romans, Greeks or Highlanders who were storming the platform-stage jutting far out into the auditorium. These demonstrations, even under the marshalling genius of Tyrone Guthrie, have seemed to me more embarrassing than impressive, quite apart from the naturally arising appre— hension that the spear-shaking Shakespearians will be achieving actual casualties in the audience as well as mimic slaughter on the stage in their loyal ambition to be a genuine combat- force. With all the good will I can muster for the appreciation of open-stage performances, I find myself still attracted by the old partition of player and public. The phrase "magic box" applied to the theatre probably maddens the builders on new lines. They will say that they do not want to be boxed in: 56Allardyce Nicoll, The Development of Theatre (New Ybrk: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1957), 201. 33 that it is imprisonment. They want to flow out and attack us instead of luring our attention inwards. All I can say is that such external attack, for me, destroys the illusion at which theatre aims and that I have found far greater pleasure in the "magic" box than I have ever done in roofed arenas or unroofed gardens. C. E. Mbntague demonstrated long ago, when he reviewed Benson's productions of Richard II at Flint Castle, that going to the real spot is absolutely fatal to theatrical persuasion. On the artificially lit stage, with the actor in full potency, a property sword can be a sword indeed. Drama is art achieved with artifice and I see no reason why the artificial conditions of the proscenium arch and the picture- stage should be anything but beneficial to it.57 Proscenium advocates also argue that it is unnecessary to remind the audience members that they are in theatre. They know this. The anti-illusionist . . . keeps shouting at us that the stage is unreal and that we must not surrender to illusions, regardless of the fact that we are fully aware of this, and do not need Brecht to jump up and down in front of the Mona Lisa to remind us that it is only a picture. We like pictures.58 Thus, although proscenium advocates are less verbal about the desir- ability of illusion as achieved in this form of theatre, they indicate by their continued work in the proscenium form and by their occasional writing that they believe that a theatre in which one can forget one- self and become immersed in the make-believe realism of the play is a desirable form of theatre. Illusion and Anti-Illusion Unrelated to Stage Form As with all facets of the influence of stage form on audience response, the question of the creation of illusion has received only 57Ivor Brown, 22-23. S8Dennis Johnston, "Whats Wrong With the New Theatres," Theatre Arts,47 (August-September,1963),18. 34 a cursory examination by theatre aestheticians. Questions that are hardly considered are suggested by one comment of Ned Bowman. There is little evidence to suggest, however, that the tech- nology of illusion, as it is differentiated from the fixed picture—frame arrangement, will soon disappear from the spectator's view. In fact, if any generalization may be safely advanced about coming theatre forms, it is that some degree of scenic illusion is as vital to the living theatre as the mimetic impulse itself.59 Is there in fact no less illusion created on the thrust than on the proscenium stage? Does the audience member in any form of theatre accept the production as a theatrical illusion? Certainly the fact that thrust stage advocates are referring to new forms of realism and illusion indicates that these elements have not and will not be eliminated from theatre. Nor have thrust stage designers always used bare stages which require our imaginations to supply the setting. Rather, many have attempted to fill the stage with realistic detail. Proscenium designers,in contrast,have often filled their stages with non-illusionistic settings and settings which project beyond the pro- scenium frame. Do these settings provide the same values as the non- illusionistic thrust stage settings? Is the design of the setting rather than stage form the important factor? Thrust advocates do not believe so. In an auditorium built like an alley looking toward a view at the distant end, the surge over the orchestra pit does not alter the essential nature of the view: we are still looking at the actors against the scenery, we are looking at them flat.6O 59Ned Bowman, "The Ideal Theatre: Emerging Tendencies in its Architecture," 220. 60Walter Kerr, "The Theatre Breaks Out of Belasco's Box," Horizon,I, 6 (Julx,l959x 44. 35 The debates continue, but nothing has been done to verify or disprove objectively any of the arguments. Involvement Versus Detachment A feeling of detachment from the performance is thought to be fostered within the audience members in the proscenium theatre, while a feeling of involvement with the performance is thought to be created within the audience members in the thrust stage theatre. The fact that the proscenium stage is more illusionary than the thrust stage is often cited as one of the reasons for the difference. The audience member's unawareness of other audience members in a proscenium theatre, in contrast to his high degree of awareness of the other audience members in a thrust stage theatre, is suggested as another reason for this difference. Many writers speak of theatres of involvement and theatres of detachment. There are two kinds of theatres today. One is our legacy from the past, the proscenium. The audience peeks into the drama - there is implicit audience removal. The other is a theatre of participation in which audience surrounds the situation.61 Perrottet Vbn Laban compares these two theatres, attributing their dif- ferences to the differences in the societies in which they originated. In the 19th century the auditorium was still conceived as a stable structure. . . . Therefore in the 19th century theatres we find two distinctly separate areas - the stage and the auditorium. The latter is arranged as a large drawing room with three solid walls and a fourth no less substantial, with a hole in it beyond which the other world begins: the world of the stage. . . . People of that period liked to view from a certain distance that exciting distraction which life behind the scenes represented for them, that life of which the 61The Ideal Theatre: Eight Concepts, 109. 36 falsehood created a mirage of reality, but which never quite lost its disreputable flavour. What took place on the stage must create an illusion, but it was understood that it should remain an illusion; it must not grip the spectator too closely. The frontier between the unreal world of art and the real world of bourgeois society must never be questioned or effaced. The modern auditorium on the other hand is distinguished by the mobility and rhythmical fluency of its lines. It ceases to be simply a solemn picture frame and becomes the expression of its own ever changing function. It no longer offers aesthetic appeasement of a purely contemplative nature, but tunes itself to the physical and spiritual instability of those who frequent it.62 Separation, Detachment and the Proscenium Theatre The proscenium theatre not only makes possible more controlled focus than the thrust stage theatre, but it also creates a barrier be- tween the actor and the audience member. This barrier, the proscenium arch, causes many people to prefer the proscenium theatre. If one accepts that a dramatic performance involves a form of confrontation and has, or should have a directional quality and that some degree of separation between the stage and audi- torium (however subtle) is the essence of theatre, one would obviously favor an arrangement where this is possible.63 I prefer the stage with an adaptable proscenium because I am all for separating the world of the stage from that of the spectator. I do not like the mixture of the two worlds. John Mason Brown believes that the aesthetic distance estab- lished between the actor and audience member in the proscenium theatre 62Perrottet Vbn Laban, 43. 63Peter Moro, "Penultimate Thoughts on Theatre Design," TABS, XXIII, 1 (March, 1965), 26. 64Rene Hainaux (ed.), Stage Design Throughout the World Since 1950 (New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1964), 20. 37 by the separation of stage and auditorium is desirable in that it detaches us from the activities on stage. While we may want to know everything worth knowing about these men and women, we may often be comforted by the fact that we do not have to know them, . . . From the protection of the intervening footlights most of us derive a new courage and a new curiosity. We face what they illumine with an eagerness to see life whole such as few of us show, or are able to show, within the petty confines necessity has forced upon us in our own living. Our tolerance shows as our self-interest is temporarily dimmed with the lowering of the house-lights. Our egos are suspended with our disbelief. Our individual defenses are down. The sentinels who wear our liveries and ordinarily guard us are off duty. Our imaginations are set free. And in their new-found freedom they promptly put our everyday selves to shame by exceeding them in sympathy no less than valor.65 Percy Corry seems to agree with Brown while also disputing the idea that unity between actor and audience is destroyed by the proscenium arch. The competent actor finds no technical difficulty in estab- lishing that unity from behind a proscenium arch. It is his job to do so and he is, in fact, aided by the separation of his world of "realism" from the reality of the auditorium. . . . The emotional response is actually heightened by remoteness; a darkened auditorium and concentration on a lighted acting area induce greater emotional sensitivity and help to suspend rational judgement. . . . A semi-hypnotic state is voluntarily achieved and this helps to preserve the emotional unity between actor and audience. Involvement and the Thrust Stage Theatre The primary rallying cry for the thrust advocates is ”the aesthetic demand for a closer integration of actor and audience,"67 __ 65J'ohn Mason Brown, 118-119. 66Percy Corry, "That 'Intimate' Stage," TABS VII, 3 (1949), 5. 67Richard Leacroft, "The Open Stage," 256. 38 the demand for "togetherness.”68 So far all efforts to suscitate the "theatre of tomorrow" have had a common principle: to reinforce the contact between stage and spectators. It is the battle horse of all theorists, no matter what their proposals, and likewise of all architects.69 Certainly "an auditorium grouped around a stage rather than placed in front of a stage enables a larger number of people to be closer to the 70 actors." And these people are in the same room with the actors, not separated from them by a proscenium barrier. Theorists suggest that the thrust theatre audience's "togetherness” with the actors "involves the audience more directly in the dramatic 72 event,"71 makes "the audience feel [a] part of the show." In the thrust theatre "stage action and the room itself are interlocked, thus 73 binding the audience intimately to the play." Walter Kerr describes his experience as a thrust stage theatre audience member. Though we were perfectly aware of a vast blur of faces across the platform from us, the presence of our fellow men was not so much distracting as enlivening. We were, all of us, players and playgoers alike, at last in the same building. The actors were doing most of the work as usual, but we were engaged in a communal and reciprocal experience, a candidly acknowledging each other's presence, sharing the field on which battle was to be done, engaged and involved in a meeting that could not help 68Thomas GaGaetani, "Theatre Architecture - Or How Does it Look From Where Yodre Sitting? American Institute of Architects Journal, XXXVI (August, 1961), 71. 69Margo Jones, ”Theatre In-the—Round Over America," World Theatre, I, l (1951), 21. 7O Tyrone Guthrie, "A Director Views the Stage," 4. 71Thomas GaGaetani, 71. 72Richard Southern, 276. 73The Ideal Theatre: Eight Concepts, 10. 39 but straighten our spines, alert our ears, and heighten every capacity for response. Being thoroughly present and not merely eavesdropping, we longed to participate, and savored the sense of being permitted to.74 The sense of participation in the performance is thus felt to be an extremely rewarding experience. In this theatre we ourselves helped to evoke greatness. It was the effect of the temple, we were as necessary to the completeness of what was being done as were the actors and those who stood behind them. We were not spectators, we were part of a great ceremony of evocation and celebration. Was it any wonder, then, that when the plays were over, we were shaken and yet uplifted? We had moved through ritual to romance.7 Some theorists suggest that it is intimacy, not involvement, that is achieved in the thrust stage theatre. Many directors have been drawn to the thrust stage because of their desire for intimacy. I think that most forward-looking directors are trying to get away from the proscenium, not entirely because of the break with naturalism. Certainly, in my own case, (Guthrie writes) the dominant consideration is the great advance in intimacy, the fact that by bending the rows and getting them round an open stage you can get so many people close to the actors.76 Although many people agree with Guthrie when he says, "I feel that the intimate contact of the artist with the audience is an advan- tage, not a disadvantage,"77 others question the desirability of such intimacy. I was lucky in a ring-side seat; I could have touched Desdemona as she lay dead. But I also had to observe that she was still breathing heavily after her exertions. And had not there been a faint whiff of moth-ball when the tumultuous Cypriots came 74Walter Kerr, 45. 75Tyrone Guthrie, Robertson Davies, Grant Macdonald, 121. 76Stephen Joseph, Actor and Architect, 47. 77Ibid., 104-105. 40 charging down this bridge that had been so cunningly devised to carry illusion across the curtain-line? Here was all the illusion, and disillusion, that extreme intimacy can give.78 Although discussing an experience in an arena theatre, another critic, W. A. Darlington, also felt the proximity to the actors disconcerting: I felt it a bit disconcerting to find myself sitting be- side the household garbage can. I couldn't adjust myself to the fact that the garbage can was in the play and I was not. Also I found it disconcerting . . . when people were being murdered or raped right under my nose, and among my feet.79 Certainly many of the New York theatre critics felt that the first pro- ductions at Lincoln Center were offensive in that they stressed sexual stage business. Although none of the critics blamed this on the stage form, it is possible that these things were so close, and therefore so real to them that they were offended. Do we need distance in order to accept realistic action? One critic, David Scase, suggests that detachment can be achieved while still creating audience involvement in an intimate theatre but with psychological, not physical methods. I know that most people haven't had ladies raped between their feet. However, most of us have sat next to garbage cans, and most of us have observed perspiration at fairly close quarters. The cinema would go all out to try and create a sense of the proximity of perspiration or of rape, or of gar- bage cans, to make us feel right on top of these events; but somehow one remains detached and can watch this without embar- rassment. But when you achieve this in the theatre, and have real proximity it does provoke in many people a sense of embarrassment. I don't know why this is so. I must say, however, in answer to the question, that when I have seen theatre in the round at its best, it has produced more excite- ment in the audience, particularly in the twenty minutes after leaving the theatre (which is the important time) than the proscenium theatre at its best. . , . But ,.,., no one should 78Bridges-Adams, 28. 79Stephen JOseph, Actor and Architect, 103. 41 be asked to sit actually on top of the garbage cans! . . . There should be a moat, if you like, a psychological moat, which allows the actor to be close with just that gap be- tween. In contrast to the writers previously cited, Kitchin believes that intimacy is achieved in proscenium theatres while involvement occurs in thrust stage theatres: Entrances made down the aisles, actors within touching dis- tance, are not intimate in effect as many advocates of this type of staging maintain, any more than the boxing ring is intimate. In fact, Guthrie's production of Priestley's Dangerous Corner, near the start of his career and on a picture- frame stage, probably conveyed the illusion of intimacy far more closely. Involvement is what occurs on a good open-stage production, as in Waitinggfor Lefty, and when Correction made his entrance in The Thrie Estaites the entire audience seemed to share the alarm of amblers interrupted by the police in a vast, illegal casino.8 Stage Form Not Important Factor Although interest in new stage forms is very high at the present time, there are a few whispers that perhaps changes in stage form do not produce changes in the theatre aesthetic experience. Robert Brustein stresses the idea that the "ideal theatre" sought by many will not be achieved by merely changing theatre's physical form. The whole proscenium controversy, then, strikes me as an elaborate evasion of the real problems of our theatre, shifting our attention to purely formal considerations when we should be examining Broadway economics, Broadway timidity, Broadway opportunism, the hit-flop mystique, the general imitation of what is current and fashionable, and the absence of any commit- ment to anything higher than mere survival and success. Chekhov - who is now almost as maligned by the critics as the theatre he wrote for - probably had the last word to offer the 801bid., 104-105. 31 1960),93. Laurence Kitchin, Mid-Century Drama (London: Faber and Faber, 42 detractors of the proscenium when, sixty-four years ago, he had his Treplev say, "I come more and more to the conviction that it is not a question of new or old forms, but that what matters is that a man should write without thinking about forms at all, write because it springs freely from his soul." It is this urge of the spirit and strength of conviction alone - and not formal experimentation or new theatre buildings - that will turn our theatre at last from a cheap and gaudy side show into a temple of enduring art and truth.82 Peter Jay suggests that a person's preference for a particular stage form is perhaps influenced now by custom and the desire to be "up to date" than by any change in the aesthetic response he experiences in the different forms. . . . Whatever may be said about the theatre of "the detached spectator" (the end and proscenium forms) and the theatre of "the participating audience" (the peninsular and island forms) this would seem to be a matter of basic temperament as modi- fied by custom and the often conflicting desire to be thought up to date.83 Some theorists credit other components of the theatre production with having far more power to influence the spectators' response than has stage form itself. René Allio believes that it is the use made of the stage that is important. More than the form of the stage and the theatre, it is the way in which one makes use of this space (from the point of view of decoration as well as production and acting) that will determine whether the nature of the performance given will be one of illusion or not, one of participation or of alienation. The problem of theatre architecture as it is generally raised today is thus seen in its true light; it is a false problem. "Alienated" theatre is possible on an Italian-style stage, and make-believe theatre on an apron stage. It depends on what use is made of the stage and has nothing to do with its specification.84 82Robert Brustein, ”Scorn Not the Proscenium Critic," Theatre Arts,XLIV, 5 (May, 1960), 9. 3Peter Jay, "Theatres: Stage and Auditorium," Architectural Review,l33 (March, 1963), 177. 84Stage Design Throughout the World, 20. 43 Thus it is the directors, actors, and designers who determine the effect of a production on the audience member. R. C. Morpeth, the secretary of the New Zealand Drama Council, considers that the answer to the problem of whether plays can be made to fit both open and frame stages depends largely upon the imagination of the director. Johan Falck the Swedish director makes the same point when he says: "The magic of the theatre depends upon the imagination and the artistic power shown by producers and actors, a power that must be adaptable to any kind of stage."85 Others, like Oscar Budel, believe the actor-audience contact a play achieves lies inherently in its script, and therefore the playwrights, not the architects or theatre artists, are responsible for achieving the desired form of actor-audience relationship. Does the cause of this loss of contact (with the audience) not lie too deep for a mere change in the outer form of theatre to remedy? Such a contact can never be one sought on the basis of psychologically undifferentiated atmosphere between stage and audience, since it eliminates a priori the tension between the two cells of theatre, and therefore their very existence. Does a remedy, then, not lie first and foremost in the very vehicle of theatre, its repertoire? Do not the playwrights rather than the architects have the primary responsibility here?86 It is also possible that the spectator's physical distance from the stage has more influence on his response than the stage's form. The question of distance has generally been ignored unless it was coupled with that of stage form. However, Richard Leacroft has recog- nized the problem. What then is "close-enough", and what is the maximum extreme from the stage that may be considered to fall within this definition? Definitions vary: John Conway of Seattle requires 85Norman Marshall, "Principles for Building the Theatres of the Future," 7. 86Oscar Budel, "Contemporary Theatre and Aesthetic Distance," Brecht, ed. Peter Demetz (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1962), 82-83. 44 no more than three rows of seats surrounding the Penthouse acting area: at Stratford, Ontario, the number of rows is in- creased to 15 or 16, with a total distance of some 60 ft. 0 in. from the stage to the extreme seats. Between these two ex- tremes lies a factual point, a distance that should not be exceeded, and this is probably the most important item on which it is essential that a large scale survey should be carried out. . . .87 These people then, seem to suggest that there should be no dif- ference in audience response to a given production simply because of a change in stage form. Others also feel this way. However, since changes in stage form are the rule today, the idea that the stage form itself makes little difference is seldom discussed. 87Richard Leacroft, "Actor and Audience Part II," 201. CHAPTER III METHODS AND PROCEDURES Preliminary,Investigations This research evolved from the investigator's interest in the thrust stage. Why was a performance viewed in a thrust stage theatre a more exciting theatrical experience for me than one viewed in a proscenium theatre? Why was this stage form being so quickly and widely accepted? What changes would this stage shape have on the con- cepts, practices, conventions and aesthetics of theatre? In an attempt to answer these questions a comprehensive review of the literature re- lating to the thrust stage was undertaken. The Stratford Festival Theatre at Stratford, Ontario, and the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre were visited during a number of different seasons to observe the utilization of this stage form. Personal observation and the literature suggested that the key to the interest in the thrust stage was the contrast in the actor-audience relationship this stage form offered in relation to that found in a proscenium theatre. However, contradictions between theatre 1 practitioners' opinions concerning the aesthetics of the thrust stage, 1See Chapter II. 45 46 conflicts between recorded theory and observed practice,2 as well as the fact that the theorists were attempting to explain audience re- sponse by their personal response, indicated that a more objective, audience-oriented approach to the problem was needed. During the summer of 1962 the writer was a member of a special committee of three students in a graduate seminar in Arena Staging and Production which undertook to develop, administer and analyze an audience questionnaire as a means of gaining more information about the aesthetics of arena theatre.3 The questionnaire was distributed to July, 1962, audiences of Michigan State University's Summer Circle Theatre. A second, informal audience survey was undertaken by the writer at Michigan State University's Summer Circle Theatre in 1965.4 During this season Summer Circle had been converted to a thrust stage theatre; thus the responses on this second survey reflected feelings of audience members in a thrust stage theatre. The collection of valuable and in- formative data through both of these studies indicated that audience members were willing to cooperate in such endeavors. These studies 2Theory suggests that illusionistic scenery is neither necessary nor desirable on the thrust stage. However, in the 1965 production of The Country Wife at Stratford, Ontario, for example, the neutral stage floor was covered with black and white squares. Elaborate properties and stage dressing were added for specific scenes. To illustrate, the scene at the town square utilized elaborate storefronts, push carts and the like. There was little doubt that the designer, Desmond Heeley, was presenting the audience with more than a suggestive setting. 3Lorraine Gross, Marilyn Steegstra and Roger Long, "Summer Circle Audience Questionnaire." Unpublished paper offered as part of the requirements of a seminar in Arena Theatre at Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, July, 1962. 4Lorraine Gross, "Thrust Stage Theatre Audience Survey." Un- published study conducted at Summer Circle Theatre, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, July, 1965. 47 also raised a very important question: What influence did the form of the theatre in which the respondent was viewing the performance have on his responses? Research Design The design for the present research evolved from the desire to attempt an objective study of the influence of stage form on audience response. Thus a questionnaire which could be quantitatively analyzed was selected as the data collection instrument. Because the researcher believed that no valid audience response study could be conducted un- less the audience being investigated was a natural audience in a real performance situation, actual audiences in performance situations were used. This meant there would be some random variables inherent in the situation. The exploratory format of the research and the lack of a completely controlled experimental situation necessitated that the study be descriptive in nature. Thus the research design for this study utilized descriptive methods to describe and analyze variations in audience members' responses to essentially the same, but not clinically the same, theatrical production when viewed on either a thrust or proscenium stage. The Play Hamlet was selected as a suitable play for use in this study be- cause Hamlet has had countless successful productions in both thrust and.proscenium stage theatres,beginning with successful thrust stage Productions by the Lord Chamberlain's Company. 48 The Production The production of Hamlet utilized as the vehicle for this study was Michigan State University's Performing Arts Company's production, which toured to 21 communities and played to 15,385 people during its 1965-1966 season. Actors, director, costumes, and general interpretation were un- changed throughout the tour. It should be noted that the setting was not a typical proscenium stage design. Rather, the setting utilized on the proscenium stages, through the use of a raked platform, tended to exhibit certain aspects of the thrust stage. See Illustrations I, II, and III. The setting had to be altered slightly to accommodate itself to the varia- tions in stage size between the two proscenium theatres utilized for data collection. In the thrust stage theatre the ramp was eliminated, for it would have blocked the vision of various audience members. The play was reblocked for the performance in the thrust stage theatre in order to pro- vide a production suited to that stage form. To implement the changes in blocking, the director held a blocking rehearsal and a run-through of the new blocking on the stage the afternoon of the performance. Instrument Development A questionnaire was selected as the data collection instrument. It was anticipated that a questionnaire would be the most ideal data collection instrument for this study for the following reasons: 1. Questionnaires could be distributed to all audience members; thus a larger sample size could be obtained through their use than through the use of more costly and time consuming interviews. It was felt that a large sample size would help to negate any bias which might result from the inclusion of atypical audience members. 2. All respondents could complete the questionnaire within the same relative time span and as soon after viewing the performance as they were free to do so. 49 Illustration I figmle£_at the Western Michigan University Theatre Illustration II Hamlet at the F. A. Bower Theatre 50 Illustration III Hamlet at the Arts Theatre 51 3. Questionnaires insure uniformity in presentation to all respondents because question wording, question order, and instructions are exactly the same on every questionnaire. 4. Questionnaire respondents have anonymity and therefore do not attempt to give answers they believe to be desired or "right." 5. In this particular study it was deemed desirable for the respondent to be able to compare his responses on various questions, for it was hoped that his selection of a given point on the scale would have the same relative meaning throughout the questionnaire. Non-verbal line scales rather than descriptive, verbal scales were used on all forms of the questionnaire for four reasons: 1. The nature of the phenomenon being investigated, the aesthetic experience, was not clearly measurable as a yes or no experience, but required some form of continuum on which to evaluate its degree or extent. 2. The difficulties which might result from variations in respondents' word interpretation would be minimized by use of a divided line rather than a number of descriptive adjectives. 3. The repeated use of the same scale would eliminate the necessity for extensive directions and thus save respondents time and en- courage them to continue to the next scale. 4. Responses on the scales could be evaluated quantitatively. Ideas derived from the literature, from previous question- naires and from personal observation relating to the influence of stage form on audience response were utilized in formulating the pre- test questionnaires. Scales, fill in and open-ended questions were included. See Appendix I for samples of the pretest cover letters and questionnaires. The original form of the questionnaire was tested during the opening run of Michigan State University's Performing Arts Company's production of Hamlet at Fairchild Theatre on NOvember 30th and December lst, 1965. Prior to the performance, season coupon ticket holders were contacted by phone and asked to cooperate in the instrument 52 development procedure. An effort was made to include the three kinds of audience members in the pretests: students, faculty, and towns- people. The cooperating patrons picked up their questionnaires at the box office before each performance. A cover letter repeating the instructions given by phone and a stamped return envelope were in- cluded with each questionnaire. The respondents returned the com- pleted questionnaires to the investigator or ushers after the per— formance or later by United States mail. Form B, a second form of the questionnaire, was tested during the December 3rd and December 4th performance at Fairchild Theatre. This form of the questionnaire differed from Form A primarily in format, question order and wording to determine if such changes would have any effect on response. Suggestions culled from early returns of Questionnaire A were also utilized in developing Form B. Administration procedure for Questionnaire B was the same as that for Questionnaire A, described above. However, the cover letter of Form B attempted to explain the use of the scales more thoroughly than had that of Form A. The final questionnaire, the instrument used for data collec- tion for this study, incorporated theory from the literature on theatre aesthetics and stage form and the results of Questionnaires A and B. See Appendix II. The open-ended questions on the earlier questionnaires were used to identify many of the factors which affect audience members re— sponses. Question type, wording and order were also finalized after examining pretest responses and studying pretest respondents' comments. The final questionnaire differed significantly from the previous ones 53 in that a greater attempt was made to identify the audiences' responses as they related to the basic qualities of the theatre aesthetic experi- ence rather than as they related to specific moments or actions in this production of Hamlet. Thus it was hoped that the respondents would not attempt to specifically criticize or praise this particular production, but rather, given this production, would indicate the type and quality of their aesthetic experiences during the performance, as well as attempt to identify the factors which contributed to their particular aesthetic responses. Questions concerning awareness of production elements which, it was hypothesized, might be influenced by stage form were retained in the final questionnaire. All but two of the open-ended questions were eliminated from the final questionnaire, because pretest respondents indicated open-ended questions required an excessive amount of time to answer. Specific questions on the final Questionnaire were designed to obtain answers to each of the following questions concerning the in- fluence of stage form on audience response: Why do theatre goers prefer a given stage form? Will the audience members perceive the production as being more three-dimensional in the thrust than in the proscenium theatre? How will stage form affect the audience members' focus on the various production elements? Will the thrust stage audience members be more aware of them- selves as members of an audience than the proscenium stage audience members? What is the effect of the audience members' awareness or lack of awareness of their fellow audience members on their enjoyment of the performance? Will the thrust stage audience members be more aware of the pro- duction as a theatrical presentation than as "reality," while the 54 proscenium stage audience members are more aware of the produc- tion as "reality" than as a theatrical performance? What factors will contribute toward the achievement of the illusion of reality on stage in each form of theatre? What factors will contribute toward reminding the audience members that they are watching a theatrical performance in each form of theatre? What is the effect of audience members' perception of the produc- tion as an illusion of reality or as a theatrical performance on their enjoyment of the performance. Will the thrust stage audience members be more involved in the performance than the proscenium stage audience members? What is the effect of audience members' involvement with, or de- tachment from, a performance on their enjoyment of the performance? How will stage form influence the audience members' intellectual response to the production? How will stage form influence the audience members' emotional re- sponse to the production? What factors will contribute toward the audience members' intel- lectual response to the production in each form of theatre? What factors will contribute toward the audience members' emo— tional response to the production in each form of theatre? What are the effects of the audience members' emotional and intel- lectual responses on their enjoyment of the performance? Data Collection Qgestionnaire Distribution The final questionnaire was distributed to audiences in three of the theatres to which the Performing Arts Company's production of Hamlet toured. The theatres selected for the study were the Western Michigan University Theatre at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan, the F. A. Bower Theatre at Flint Community College in Flint, Michigan, and the Arts Theatre at Waterloo University in Waterloo, 55 Ontario. The theatre at Waterloo was a thrust stage theatre; the other two theatres had proscenium stages. The thrust stage theatre at Waterloo had a 504 seat house; the theatre at Kalamazoo had a 348 seat house; and the theatre at Flint had a 352 seat house. However, the seating of the theatre at Flint was arranged in Continental style.5 Thus, although neither of the proscenium theatres had a house as large as that of the thrust stage theatre, the distance from the back row to the stage at Flint was similar to that at Waterloo. At all theatres a plain envelope, with a questionnaire and a stamped return envelope inside, was distributed to each audience member as he entered the auditorium. The first page of the questionnaire in- cluded two paragraphs explaining the project to the audience member thus: We are asking tonight's audience to cooperate in a study de- signed to measure the responses of individual audience members to a theatrical performance. We realize that this request is rather unusual; however, we hope you will take the time to aid us in our research, for it is only with your assistance and the assistance of every audience member that we can do any depth analysis of the factors which combine to form the theatre aesthetic experience. Since this study is concerned with measuring the responses of every individual audience member, please record YOUR responses to the questions as you interpret them. There are no correct or better answers because each individual's aesthetic response is uniquely personal and ex- tremely valuable to our study. Please do not complete the questionnaire beyond the first page until after you view tonight's performance. After completing the questionnaire you may find it interesting to compare your responses to those of the other members of your theatre party. DO NOT, however, allow others to influence your answers. There was a staple on the upper left corner and a seal on the lower right corner of the questionnaire to encourage the audience member to 5Continental style seating is a seating arrangement in which the rows of seats are widely spaced to provide easy access across every row without disturbing seated patrons. 56 refrain from reading the questionnaire proper before viewing the per- formance. Observation indicated that most audience members did not break the seal to read the questions before viewing the performance. In tota1,1711 questionnaires were distributed. The following is a breakdown of questionnaire distribution: Location Date Number Distributed Kalamazoo Saturday, January 8, 1966 309 Kalamazoo Sunday, January 9, 1966 315 Flint Friday, January 14, 1966 305 Flint Saturday, January 15, 1966 322 Waterloo Saturday, January 22, 1966 460 Questionnaire Return Questionnaires were returned by cooperating respondents in a pre-addressed envelope to Michigan State University, Department of Speech. Approximately one-third of the distributed questionnaires were returned. The following breakdown indicates the number of returned, valid questionnaires from each audience. Per Cent Location Day and Date Number Returned of Distributed Kalamazoo Saturday, January 8, 1966 106 34 Kalamazoo Sunday, January 9, 1966 106 33 Flint Friday, January 14, 1966 83 27 Flint Saturday, January 15, 1966 90 28 Waterloo Saturday, JanUary 22, 1966 151 33 57 Most respondents completed the questionnaire fairly soon after viewing the performance. Postmarks indicated that 13.81% of the re- turned questionnaires were mailed within 24 hours of the performance, 64.75% were mailed within 3 days, while 84.54% were mailed within a week after the performance date. No follow-up letters were planned or attempted as a method of encouraging further replies for two reasons: 1. Anonymity necessarily would be lost if questionnaires and audience members had to be identified. 2. Mbre importantly, an audience member completing a questionnaire after receiving a follow-up letter would be completing his question- naire some time after the performance. It was believed that this time lag would impair his ability to recall and evaluate accurately his aesthetic experience. Coding Responses on the returned questionnaires were coded and trans- ferred to IBM cards for processing by Michigan State University's Control Data Corporation 3600 computer. Each blank on the scale was given a numerical identification from 1 to 7: l 2 3 4 5 6 7 The respondent's answer was then coded as a l, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7, depending upon which blank he marked. Unanswered and undeciferable answers, such as those which had two checks on one scale, were coded as 9's. The open-ended questions such as, "Why do you prefer the form selected above," were coded by the investigator by assigning an identi- fication number to each variation in response that was identified. Selected additional information, such as the amount of time which had 58 lapsed between the questionnaire's distribution to the respondent and the postmarked date of the return envelope, were also coded onto the data card. Data Analysis Demoggaphic Data In an effort to describe the respondents accurately, the demo- graphic data were tabulated separately for each of the performances during which data were collected. Therefore, the demographic data are reported for five groups listed as Proscenium l which is the audience at Kalamazoo, Saturday, January 8, 1966; Proscenium 2 which is the audience at Kalamazoo, Sunday, January 9, 1966; Proscenium 3 which is the audience at Flint, Friday, January 14, 1966; Proscenium 4, which is the audience at Flint, Saturday, January 15, 1966; and Thrust, which is the audience at Waterloo on Saturday, January 22, 1966. Demographic data tabulated include the respondent's age, occu- pation, sex, and theatre background as a spectator, participant and scholar. The per cent of the respondents from each group who identified themselves as falling within a particular category is reported. Be— cause this is a descriptive study and because many intangible factors influence an audience member's response, no attempt was made to match members of the various audiences when analyzing the scales. Rather, the similarities and differences between audiences merely are reported. 59 Analysis of Stage Form Preference The stage form preferences of the respondents from the various audiences were tabulated. Their stated reasons for preferring a given stage form were also reported. Analysis of Influence of Stage Form on Response In order to determine the influence of stage form on the audience members' aesthetic response, the scale responses of the I proscenium theatre audience members were compared with those of the thrust theatre audience members. For this purpose the proscenium re- spondents from all the proscenium audiences were combined into a total proscenium audience. The Scales The researcher viewed these scales as ordinal scales,as defined by Siegel: It may happen that the objects in one category of a scale are not just different from the objects in other categories of that scale, but that they stand in some kind of relation to them. Typical relations among classes are: higher, more pre- ferred, more difficult, more disturbed, more mature, etc. Such relations may be designated by the carat ( > ) which, in general, means "greater than." In reference to particular scales, > may be used to designate is preferred to, is higher than, is more difficult than, etc. Its specific meaning depends on the nature of the relation that defines the scale. . Since any order-preserving transformation does not change the information contained in an ordinal scale, the scale is said to be "unique up to a monotonic transformation." That is, it does not matter what numbers we give to a pair of classes or to members of those classes, just as long as we give a higher number to the members of the class which is "greater" or "more preferred." . . . 60 The statistic most appropriate for describing the central tendency of scores in an ordinal scale is the median, since the median is not affected by changes of any scores which are above or below it as long as the number of scores above and below remains the same. With ordinal scaling, hypotheses can be tested by using that large group of nonparametric statistical tests which are sometimes called "order statistics" or ”ranking statistics."6 Because these are ordinal scales the median was used as the index of central tendency. The median is the point on the scale which has 50% of the cases below it, or as Blalock defines it, "a number which has the property of having the same number of scores with smaller values as there are with larger values."7 The thrust and the proscenium audiences' median response to each scale was computed using the formula Md=1+————N/2-Fi f where F = cumulative frequency corresponding to lower limits f = number of cases in interval containing median 1 = lower limit of interval containing median i = width of interval containing median8 The blanks on the scales were given numerical values from 1 to 7, going from left to right when coding; therefore, a lower median on a scale indicates a median response to the left on the scale, while a higher median indicates a response more toward the scale's right end. 6Sidney Siegel, Nonparametric Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1956), 23-25. 7Hubert M. Blalock, Jr., Social Statistics (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1960), 49. 8Ibid., 56. 61 Extension of Median Test In an effort to determine the influence of stage form on the audience members' responses to the questions, the responses of the total proscenium audiences, thus of all the participants in the study from the Kalamazoo and Flint theatres, to each scale on the question— naire were compared to the responses of the participants from the thrust stage theatre at Waterloo. The extension of the median test was used for the comparison. This test is described by Siegel. The extension of the median test determines whether k inde- pendent groups (not necessarily of equal size) have been drawn from the same population or from populations with equal medians. It is useful when the variable under study has been measured in at least an ordinal scale. Method To apply the extension of the median test, we first deter- mine the median score for the combined k samples of scores, i.e., we find the common median for all scores in the k groups. We then replace each score by a plus if the score is larger than the common median and by a minus if it is smaller than the common median. (If it happens that one or more scores fall at the common median, then the scores may be dichotomized by assigning a plus to those scores which exceed the common median and a minus to those which fall at the median or below.) We may cast the resulting dichotomous sets of scores into a k x 2 table, with the numbers in the body of the table repre— senting the frequences of pluses and minuses in each of the k groups. . . . To test the null hypothesis that the k samples have come from the same population with respect to medians, we compute the value of x2 from formula: r k . .. 2 x2: ,3 2: (011mm) i=1 j=l 3 where Oij = observed number of cases categorized in ith row of jth column Eij = number of cases expected under H0 to be categorized in ith row of jth column 62 directs one to sum over all cells "MN "MW i 1 j 1 It can be shown that the sampling distribution under Ho of x as computed from formula is approximated by the chi-square dis- tribution with df = (k - l)(r - l), where k = the number of columns and r = the number of rows. In the median test, r = 2, and thus df=(k-1)(r-1)=(k-1)(2-1)=(k-l) . . . If the observed value of x2 is equal to or larger than that . . . for the previously set level of significance and for the observed value of df = k - 1, then Ho may be rejected at that level of significance. For this study, the .05 level of significance was selected as the point at which the Null hypothesis of no difference between responses would be rejected. Since this is exploratory research the investigator believed it would be more desirable to err in reporting a difference where none existed rather than to err in rejecting the possibility of a difference when in fact one did exist; i.e., to commit a type I error rather than a type II error. Ranking Although the respondents had been primarily concerned with rating, not ranking, their attention had been called to the relative relationship between responses on scales within a given group. The questionnaire instructions stated: "Please indicate on the scales below the degree of your AWARENESS of each of these elements. When rating each element, consider the degree to which you were aware of that element in relation to all other elements listed." As a technique 9$iege1, 179-180. 63 for further examining the influence of stage form on audience response, the responses of the thrust and the proscenium audiences on scales concerned with the same general questions,such as their degree of aware- ness of various production elements, or the factors contributing to their emotional involvement in the performance were ranked. The median response on each scale for each audience was used as the criterion for determining the ranking order. A comparison of the resulting hierarchy of factors from the thrust and proscenium stage audiences was then made. CHAPTER IV FINDINGS AND INTERPRETATIONS The Reepondents The respondents from the various theatres studied were similar in many respects. They were primarily young students or teachers who had had various kinds of previous contacts with theatre. Differences in male-female ratio, age groupings and average numbers of plays seen per year were the most obvious differences between the audiences. Sex The ratio of males to females in the various proscenium stage audiences was similar, but the male to female ratio varied considerably between the thrust and proscenium audiences. Respondents from all 'proscenium theatre audiences were predominantly female, while respond- ents from the thrust audience included slightly more males than females. No explanation could be found for this difference. Table 1 lists the percentage of males and of females in each audience. Ass There was no similarity in age distribution among the various audiences. See Table 2. However, in all theatres over 50% of the re- spondents were under twenty-two years of age. The thrust audience 64 65 TABLE l.-—Sex distribution in percentages within each group of respondents Audience* Sex Prosc. 1 Prosc. 2 Prosc. 3 Prosc. 4 Thrust Male 33.96 27.36 26.51 32.22 52.32 Female 64.15 67.92 68.67 66.67 45.03 unknown 1.89 4.72 4.82 1.11 2.65 *Prosc. l is the January 8, 1966 audience at Kalamazoo, Michigan. Prosc. 2 is the January 9, 1966 audience at Kalamazoo, Michigan. Prosc. 3 is the January 14, 1966 audience at Flint, Michigan. Prosc. 4 is the January 15, 1966 audience at Flint, Michigan. Thrust is the January 22, 1966 audience at Waterloo. TABLE 2.-—Age distribution in percentages within each group of respondents Audience Age Group Prosc. l Prosc. 2 Prosc. 3 Prosc. 4 Thrust Under 18 12.26 38.68 28.92 38.89 3.97 18-22 46.23 38.68 22.89 25.56 57.62 23-30 14.15 9.43 24.10 22.22 27.15 31-40 12.26 5.66 6.02 4.44 9.27 41-50 13.21 3.77 9.64 3.33 .66 51-60 1.89 2.83 4.82 4.44 1.32 over 60 - .94 3.61 1.11 - 66 varied least in age, in that 57.62% of these respondents were between eighteen and twenty-two. But, the thrust respondents differed from the proscenium respondents in that only 3.97% of the thrust respondents were under eighteen while 29.69% of the proscenium respondents were under eighteen. The students age when entering the university undoubtedly contributed to this difference. Michigan university students enter a university a year earlier than Ontario students, for Ontario students continue through grade thirteen in their local high schools. Thus Michigan universities have younger students than Ontario universities. Occupation Although forty—nine specific occupations were listed by the re— spondents, thirty of these were listed only one time and nine more were listed only twice. The ten occupations identified by more than two people were: college student, high school student, college or univer- sity faculty, elementary or high school teacher, housewife, secretary, registered nurse, librarian, engineer and social worker. When the respondents' occupations were organized into broad occupational cate- gories, the audiences showed a generally similar occupational makeup. See Table 3. There was one major discrepancy, however. Although the majority of the respondents from all audiences were students, the thrust stage respondents included very few high school students, only 3.4%; while high school students comprised 25.6% of the proscenium stage respondents. This difference in the percentage of high school respondents in each audience may have had an influence on the results 67 of the study, for the younger students seemed to empathize strongly with Hamlet in this production. TABLE 3.--Percentage of each audience indicating membership in various occupational categories* Audience Occupation Prosc. l Prosc. 2 Prose. 3 Prosc. 4 Thrust College student 51.0 43.3 30.4 31.5 72.5 High school student 9.6 38.5 24.1 30.3 3.4 Nursery, Elementary or High School Teacher 9.6 4.8 12.6 16.8 7.4 University Faculty 4.9 2.9 3.8 0.0 3.4 Professional 14.9 8.9 10.1 7.7 4.63 Housewives 7.7 1.0 8.9 5.6 3.4 Blue and White Collar Wbrkers (stenographers, meter readers, etc.) 2.9 1.0 10.4 7.7 4.63 *Percentages here include only those audience members who re— ported occupations. 68 Theatre Background Plays Seen Most of the respondents had seen a number of theatrical perfor- mances. As can be seen from Table 4, the thrust audience members in— dicated that they saw an average of approximately 8.69 plays in a year, which was the highest mean number of plays seen by any audience. The Proscenium 3 and 4 audiences from Flint averaged the least number of performances attended per year. The Proscenium 1 respondents again differ most from the other proscenium respondents,in that they saw more plays on both kinds of stages per year than did the members of any other proscenium audience. TABLE 4.--Mean number of plays seen in a year by the respondents in each audience Audience Theatre Attended Prose. 1 Prosc. 2 Prosc. 3 Prose. 4 Thrust Proscenium Theatre 6.33 4.98 4.59 4.84 3.99 Thrust Theatre 1.22 1.17 1.07 1.09 4.70 All Theatres 7.55 6.15 5.66 5.93 8.69 Participation in Theatrical Productions The portion of audience members who had actively participated in theatrical performances was lower than the proportion which might be considered active theatre goers. However, over 50% of all respondents had participated in theatre productions in some way. See Table 5 for 69 the percentage of respondents who had participated in the various activities related to the production of a play. Acting was the activity in which the largest percentage of the audience members had partici- pated. The next most popular activities, in order, were working on crew, non-professional designing and non-professional directing. Very few respondents had been reimbursed for their theatrical activities. Acting was the.activity for which the largest portion of the respond- ents, 3.76% of them, had been paid. Although a slightly smaller per- centage of the thrust stage audience members had actively participated in theatre productions than had the proscenium stage audience members, the difference does not appear great enough to have influenced their response. TABLE 5.--Percentage of respondents in each audience participating in activities related to play production Audience Activity Prosc. l Prosc. 2 Prosc. 3 Prosc. 4 Thrust Acted for fun 56.60 71.70 56.63 55.56 53.64 worked on crew 48.11 58.49 40.49 45.56 41.06 Designed for fun 23.58 31.13 24.10 27.78 21.19 Directed for fun 16.04 13.21 13.25 13.33 17.88 Acted for pay 3.77 5.66 3.61 1.11 4.64 Designed for pay 3.77 2.83 4.82 - - Directed for pay 2.83 .94 3.61 1.11 2.65 70 Participation in Formal Theatre Classes Slightly more than 18% of the thrust, the Proscenium 3 and the Proscenium 4 audiences had formal classes in theatre,while more than 27% of both the Proscenium l and Proscenium 2 audiences had taken such classes. A very small percentage of the respondents, an average of 1.95% of the proscenium respondents and 2.65% of the thrust respondents, had taught formal classes in theatre. The exact percentages of each audience participating in formal theatre classes, as students and as teachers, are included in Table 6. It is possible that those respond- ents who had participated in formal theatre classes were more sophis- ticated in analyzing their reactions to a theatre performance. TABLE 6.--Percentage of respondents in each audience participating in formal theatre classes Audience Activity Prosc. l Prosc. 2 Prosc. 3 Prosc. 4 Thrust Took formal classes 28.30 26.42 18.07 18.89 18.54 Taught formal classes .94 .94 4.82 1.11 2.65 Respondents'Stage Form Preference The respondents were asked to indicate their preference in stage form. With the exception of the Proscenium 1 audience, the largest percentage in each theatre audience preferred the form of theatre they were in. See Table 7. The fact that audiences prefer the stage form of the theatre they are in reinforces the findings of earlier, more 71 informal surveys.1 The survey of the Summer Circle Arena audience had indicated the 37% of that audience preferred arena theatre, 13.6% pre- ferred proscenium theatre,while 48.3% indicated no preference. The Summer Circle Thrust Stage Audience Questionnaire indicated that 65% of those respondents preferred the thrust stage, 21% preferred the arena stage,while only 14% preferred the proscenium stage. There was no previous survey of stage form preference conducted in a proscenium theatre. TABLE 7.--Stage form preferred by respondents expressed in percents of total respondents from each audience -— —‘:—: Audience Preference Prosc. 1 Prosc. 2 Prosc. 3 Prosc. 4 Thrust Proscenium stage 40.57 49.06 46.99 55.56 3.97 Thrust stage 41.51 37.74 37.35 28.89 91.39 No response 15.09 11.32 13.25 10.00 3.97 No preference 2.83 1.89 2.41 5.56 .66 Although audiences tend to like the form of theatre they are in, the non-proscenium stage seems to be the preferred stage form. Of the total respondents in this study, 47.38% indicated a preference for the thrust stage while 39.23% preferred the proscenium theatre. Familiarity With the thrust stage theatre apparently causes people to prefer this form. Only 3.97% of the thrust respondents indicated a preference for ‘ 1Gross, Steegstra and Long, "Summer Circle Audience Question- naire" and Gross, "Thrust Stage Theatre Audience Survey." 72 the proscenium theatre, while 36.37% of the proscenium respondents in- dicated a preference for the thrust stage theatre. Reasons for PreferringgParticular Stage Form In an open-ended question the respondents were asked why they preferred the stage form they did. Not all respondents were able to analyze the reasons for their preference; others, however, were able to give more than one definitive reason. Those who preferred the thrust stage appeared to have stronger, more definite reasons for preferring that form than did those who preferred the proscenium stage. Respond- ents preferring the thrust stage cited 38 reasons a total of 348 times to explain their preference. Only 25 reasons were cited a total of 176 times by respondents explaining why they preferred the proscenium stage. The reason cited by the greatest number of respondents for pre— ferring the thrust stage is that greater audience involvement and par- ticipation occurs in thrust stage theatres. This was also the major reason cited by many theatre critics and practitioners for preferring the thrust stage. The reason cited by the second greatest number of respondents for preferring the thrust stage is that in the thrust theatre they feel more a part of the action and of the performance. Thus there seems to be a strong concensus between thrust advocates and audience members who prefer thrust stages that this form of theatre aids in creating a different kind of involvement with the performance than that achieved in the proscenium theatre. Many of the reasons cited for preferring the thrust theatre emphasize its differences from the 73 proscenium. The belief that there is a closer contact between actor and audience was suggested in a number of ways: "Audience closer, thus greater visual and emotional contact;" "More intimate;""Closer actor- ' and "Breakdown of aesthetic distance." Eighty audience relationship;' respondents used these or closely related phrasings to indicate their belief that the thrust differed from the proscenium in its degree of actor-audience contact. Forty-two respondents indicated they believed the action to be "more natural," ”more believable," "less artificial” ' A reason for preferring the thrust stage seldom or ”more lifelike.' cited by the writers was cited by thirty-five audience members: "Better visibility." A number of advantages of the thrust stage found in the literature were cited by smaller proportions of the respondents as reasons for preferring this stage form. These included: "More three-dimensional," which was cited by nine respondents; "Action and actors take on greater importance rather than set," which was cited by four people; "Audience uses imagination to fill in for scenery," which was cited by only three people; and "MDre a part of audience," which was cited by only two respondents. All the reasons cited for preferring the thrust stage are listed in Appendix III. The reason most often cited for preferring the proscenium stage was "Better focus - actors face audience;" was cited by sixty respondents. Four respondents simply stated that the proscenium theatre offered "Better visibility." All other reasons cited for preferring the proscenium stage, with the exception of the fact that they had not seen a thrust stage performance, were cited a total of only fifty-eight times. Thus focus is definitely the major see Appendix III. This reason 74 reason audience members in the sample preferred the proscenium stage. Proscenium advocates, unlike these respondents, do not appear to offer any one reason for preferring the proscenium stage form. The reason cited by the second largest number of respondents, sixteen, for pre- ferring the proscenium theatre was "familiarity." Other factors often mentioned by the critics and also cited by the respondents as reasons for preferring this stage form include: "Less aware of audience" cited by seven respondents, "Better establishment of aesthetic distance" cited by six respondents, "Setting more effective" cited by five re— spondents, "More believable — More lifelike - More natural” cited by four respondents, "More suited to most scripts" cited by four respond— ents, "Maintains sense of theatre - of stage identity" cited by two people, "Captures imagination more easily" cited by two people and "More illusionary" cited by only one respondent. The factors listed above, however, did not seem to be as strongly influential on the audience members' preference for the proscenium as the literature in- dicated. The production studied did not utilize the proscenium wall to establish aesthetic distance nor did it utilize "realistic" scenery. Therefore,the fact that greater establishment of aesthetic distance and greater possible illusion of reality were not cited by more respondents may relate to their response to this particular production. This would indicate that the style of the production has an important bearing upon the audience's response, a point which theorists too often overlook. A number of respondents either failed to indicate a preference in stage form or indicated that they had no preference in stage form. See Appendix III. The major reason cited for the lack of response 75 or preference was that they had "Never seen a thrust stage performance." The other reason cited by nine people was that it depended upon the script and/or production. Three more respondents wanted variety and therefore like both forms. Although the primary concern is with stage form at this point in theatre history, a few theatre practitioners do agree with these respondents in suggesting that it is the production in relation to the stage form which determines the total impact.2 Influence of Stage Form on Audience Reeponse The major portion of the questionnaire consisted of scales. On thirty-nine of these scales the thrust and proscenium stage audiences' responses differed significantly at the .05 level when analyzed by the extension of the median test. These thirty-nine scales indicate the areas in which stage form influenced audience response in this study. The thrust and proscenium audiences' ratings of the contribution of selected factors on various facets of their aesthetic experience were ranked by median response. The resulting hierarchies also shed light on the influence of stage form on audience response. A detailed analysis of the influence of stage form on audience response follows. Duration of various Aesthetic Experiences This researcher felt that it was of primary importance to deter- mine if the aesthetic responses of the thrust and proscenium audience members truly differed. For this reason the questionnaire asked 2Supra, pp. 41-44. 76 respondents to estimate the length of time during the performance they experienced some of the more common aesthetic reactions. The portion of the questionnaire which asked them to analyze the strength of their aesthetic experiences read: For what portion of the performance did you experience each of the following: Throughout Not at performance all To facilitate analysis numerical values were assigned to the blanks on each scale thus: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 . Comparison of Scale Responses by Extension of Median Test The results of the extension of the median tests comparing thrust and proscenium stage audiences' responses to these scales, as well as the median response of each audience, are included in Table 8. There were no significant differences between thrust and pro- scenium audience members' ratings of the portion of the performance which they enjoyed as a ”theatrical performance." These findings are contrary to ideas expressed in the literature. Because the thrust stage theatre is thought to be more theatri- cal than the proscenium theatre the kinds of audience involvement are thought to differ. In an attempt to determine if this is true, two contrasting kinds of involvement were studied: emotional involvement and intellectual involvement. The thrust and proscenium stage audience members' responses indicate they experienced no significant differences in the length of time in which they were "emotionally" or "intellec- tually" involved in the performance. TABLE 8.--Audience ratings: 77 stage type by duration of aesthetic response Aesthetic Response Chi Square Thrust Prosc. Emotional involvement in the production 3.56 3.15 2.97 Intellectual involvement in the production 2.81 2.76 .01 Imaginative participation in the production 3.71 3.20 11.80** Enjoyment of production as theatrical performance 2.96 2.59 2.63 Enjoyment of production as "reality" 4.34 3.48 ll.ll** Awareness of yourself as an audience member 5.18 5.45 3.96* Complete involvement in the production 4.15 3.32 13.27** *Significantly different at the .05 level. **Significantly different at the .01 level. Three questions were included in the questionnaire to analyze the extent of the audience members' emotional response in another way. The first question asked: If you identified with Hamlet during the performance what was the intensity of your identification? Very intense Very slight The responses of the two audience groups to this question differed significantly. With a median response of 3.18 the proscenium audience indicated it identified more closely with Hamlet than did the thrust 78 audience,whose median response was 3.65. There was also a significant difference between the thrust and proscenium audience responses to the question which asked: To what extent did you find yourself responding to the performance by assuming a position or muscular tension related to the activities on stage? Throughout Not at performance all Here,too, the proscenium audience rated itself as experiencing such responses throughout more of the performance than did the thrust audi- ence. However,the medians of 3.71 and 4.55,respectively, indicate that neither audience felt they had responded in this way for the major por- tion of the performance. The audience members were then asked: What was the intensity of these responses? Very intense Very slight There was a significant difference between the responses of the two audiences on this scale. Although the medians, 3.73 and 4.38, indicate that neither audience believed its responses were extremely intense, the proscenium audience again had the lower median. The results on these scales indicate that the proscenium audience in this study was emotionally involved with the performance to a greater extent than was the thrust audience. Both proscenium and thrust stage advocates would accept this as true and desirable. Thrust advocates believe the audi- ence should experience a new, although not precisely defined3 form of involvement or communion with the performance rather than a purely ¥ 3Supra, pp. 37-41. 79 emotional reaction, while proscenium advocates desire an emotional response. Although the estimates of the two audiences as to their "emo- tional" and "intellectual" involvement had not differed on the major scales in this series, their estimates of their "Complete involvement in the production" differed significantly. However,it was the pro- scenium stage audience, not the thrust audience, which rated itself as being completely involved in the production for a greater portion of the time. This is contrary to what the literature suggests, for as has been indicated, the thrust stage is lauded for creating a more total and complete form of involvement. The literature suggests that one of the reasons thrust audience members are more involved in the performance than proscenium audience members is that the thrust form forces a greater imaginative participa- tion upon them. The thrust and proscenium audience responses to the scale which asked them what portion of the performance they "Imagina— tively participated in the production" differed significantly. However, it was the proscenium audience which rated itself as most imaginatively participating in the production. Thrust advocates also suggest that the thrust audience members are more aware of themselves as audience members than are proscenium audience members. The findings of this study verified this idea. The two audiences' estimates of the duration of the performance that they were aware of themselves as audience members differed significantly. However, thrust advocates also believe that because of this awareness of the audience the thrust audience members are more aware of the 80 production as a theatrical performance and experience different, stronger forms of involvement with the performance than the proscenium audience members. These ideas were not borne out by the scales in this series. Thus awareness of other audience members was not as important a response as the literature suggests. While the thrust stage is thought to foster a conscious aware- ness of theatricality within the observer, the proscenium stage is be- lieved to aid in establishing an illusion of reality. The proscenium respondents in this study perceived the production as "reality" for a much larger portion of the performance than did the thrust respondents. The median proscenium response on the scale rating the duration of their "Enjoyment of the production as 'reality'" was 3.48, while the median thrust response was 4.34. Since the midpoint on the scale would be indicated by a median of 4.00, it can be seen that the "average” proscenium audience member felt he viewed the performance as "reality" for slightly more than half the time, while the "average" thrust audi- ence member felt he viewed the performance as "reality" for slightly less than half the time. No explanation was found for the surprising number of times the proscenium audience members rated themselves as experiencing the various responses for a greater portion of the performance than did the thrust audience members. 81 Hierarchy Resulting from Ranking by Median Response When the scales on which the audience members rated the per- ceived duration of their various aesthetic responses were ranked by median response, it was found that the resulting hierarchies for each audience were very similar. See Table 9. Only the aesthetic responses ranked first and second differed between the two audiences. The thrust audience indicated that the reaction it experienced for the greatest duration of the performance was its intellectual involvement and that the reaction it experienced for the second greatest duration of the performance was its enjoyment of the production of a theatrical per- formance. The proscenium audience reversed the ranking of these two responses. This similarity in ranking indicates that, although there may be a difference in the exact duration of the various responses in the thrust and proscenium theatre, there is no difference in the rela- tive duration of each response. Two-Dimensional Versus Three—Dimensional Although proscenium advocates disagree, thrust stage advocates believe that one important advantage of that stage form is its three- dimensionality in contrast to the proscenium stage's two-dimensionality. The audience's greater ability to perceive actors' movements up and down stage as well as across the stage is offered as one proof that the thrust stage is indeed more three-dimensional than is the proscenium. 82 m¢.m senses ouaowoom so w~.n senses monogram am am mdomusoz mo mmosoum3< .5 mm Madonna» no mmocouma< .n ma.m :suaammuz em.e =saasmou: mm cofiuusuoua no uaoahoficm .0 mm cofiuosooua mo ucoshoficm .o mm.m acouusuooa m~.¢ coauusvoum ecu cw ucoEo>~o>cfi woodmaoo .m one so ucoam>uo>c« ouoamaoo .m o~.m Goduusuoum onu no Hm.m noduoauoua ecu ca coHummqoauuma o>wumcfiwmaH .e coHuomgoauumm o>HumcwwmaH .q m~.m noduoaoooa onu om.m coauuaooum ecu ca ucmsm>~o>ca Hoseauoam .m cw ucoao>~o>c« “meaguoam .m on.~ acauusvouo one no om.~ oucmauowuoo Hmuwuumosu ucoao>~o>ca Hmsuomafioucu .N we acauosuoum mo ucoamohcm .N mn.~ oucmauomuon amuwuumonu Hm.~ aoHuuauoum ago a“ mo newuosooua no ucoahoficm .~ ucoEo>Ho>c« HosuuoaaoocH .H suave: uncommom ouuonumo< suave: uncommon ofluonumo< anacoomoum uneasy mooaoausm adgcoomoum can unsucu ecu an voocouooaxm some more nouns cu uaouxo one an ooxcmu noncommou ofiuoaumowuo< .o an.~ mucous mo «a.N mucuom mo ucoao>oa one cowuwmom zoom .m ucoao>oe use oowuwmon moon .n No.~ mucous mm.~ A.ouo .wcfiouom .mHOuomv mo coammmuaxm assume .6 message swoon Hosea .e mm.~ A.ouo .wcwuuom .thuomv ouauowm mwmum umDOH .m mm.m wcwusmwa .m mm.~ oosouwxomo o~.~ mucous Hmosuomuwnowm Ho vacuum .N no oonmoHaxo Howomm .N «N.~ moESDmoo .H m¢.m measumoo .H cmaumz ucoaoam :ofluoaooum segues uaoaoflm cowuosooum Bowooomoum unsunH moonwauam Bowcoomoua use umsocu xn om>uomoo mums mace nugss cu ucouxo ecu he ooxcmo muaoaofio :oHuosooumul. fia mqmauo< mcuouumm unto>oe macaw .mu6uu< A.ouo .ousuwcusw .mouosmv mmfluuoaoum moasumoo so soon .xudoaon .muoom .¢H .mH .NH .HH .o~ mm.m em.¢ mm.< m~.¢ mm.m oc.m ~o.m Nn.m woon mofiuuoaooo one wcwuuom CH magnumn mocowos< venouwxomn Honouomufinoum no oacoom mxomo .mu0u64 mauouuma ucmao>os msouw .muOuo< A.uuo .ousuficusw .mpuosmv moouuoaoum moaoumou co Baku .mofioaofi .muoom .Q~ .NH .HH .oH 92 was tied for second in importance in the proscenium theatre, in fourth place. There were significant differences in the way the two audiences rated awareness of the three factors which ranked at the bottom of both hierarchies: "Floor," "Audience" and "Details in setting and properties." Although in thirteenth place in both hierarchies,”Details in setting and properties" was rated, according to their median responses and analysis by the extension of the median test, as being in greater focus on the proscenium than on the thrust stage. The thrust audience was less aware of the floor than of any other factor,while.the proscenium audience was less aware of the audience than of any other factor. Illusion and Anti-Illusion The proscenium theatre is often called the theatre of illusion, while the thrust theatre is considered the theatre of anti-illusion.6 Writers credit various factors inherent in the proscenium theatre with enhancing its illusionary qualities. They also credit differing factors inherent in the thrust theatre with emphasizing a production's theat- ricality.7 The following sections report the findings of this study relative to the influence of selected factors on the creation of an illusion of reality and on the audience members' awareness of a per- formance's theatricality in the thrust and proscenium theatres. 6Supra, p. 25. 7Supra, pp. 26-27. 93 Factors Contributing Toward Creation of Illusion of Reality As has been stated, the proscenium respondents perceived the activities on stage as ”Reality" for a greater duration of the per- formance than did the thrust respondents.8 The next question to be answered concerning the creation of the illusion of reality in the thrust and proscenium theatres is, "What production factors contribute toward the creation of this illusion on each stage form?" Comparison of scale responses by extension of median test.--Thrust and proscenium stage audience members' perception of the contribution of various factors toward "the creation of the illusion of reality on stage" differed significantly on eight of the nine scales included in this group. See Table 12. The only scale item which both audiences rated in similar ways was "Facial expressions and mannerisms of actors." This, then,was the only factor, given the conditions of this study, which had no significantly different effect on the creation of the illusion of reality in the thrust or proscenium theatre. It has often been suggested that one of the great benefits of the thrust stage theatre is the lack of separation between actor and audience. The advantages of this lack of separation are not always explained. In this study the "Feeling of closeness to actors and stage" was rated by the thrust audience as making a far greater contribution toward the creation of the illusion of reality on stage than it was by the proscenium audience. 8Supra, p.80. 94 TABLE 12.--Audience ratings: stage types by factors' contributions to- ward creation of illusion of reality Medians Factor Chi Thrust Proscenium Square Acting 2.17 1.85 8.32** Facial expressions and mannerisms of actors 2.51 2.29 2.04 Scenic or architectural background 5.19 3.38 63.44** Details in setting and properties 4.87 4.01 10.75** Costuming 3.24 2.64 13.87** Boots, jewelry, trim on costumes 4.06 3.46 4.84* Feeling of closeness to actors and stage 2.49 2.88 l3.54** Feeling of separation from actors and stage 6.56 6.05 3.99* YOur imaginative augmentation of setting 4.15 3.55 6.04* *Significant at .05 level. **Significant at .01 level. The proscenium audience median responses were lower than the thrust audience median responses on all other scales in this group. Thus the proscenium audience rated all of the other factors as making a greater contribution toward the creation of the illusion of reality on stage than did the thrust audience. There was a significant difference between the two audiences' ratings of the influence of "Scenic or architectural background" on the 95 creation of the illusion of reality. There had also been a significant difference in the two audiences' ratings of their awareness of the scenic or architectural background.9 Thus, the proscenium audience was not only more aware of the background than the thrust audience, but it perceived this background as having a far greater influence on the creation of the illusion of reality. These findings support the ideas of writers who claim that the proscenium stage setting creates a far greater illusion of reality than does the thrust stage setting. Since all settings in this study were similar and non-realistic,such features of the proscenium theatres as the proscenium frame and the frontal view of the setting must have aided in giving the proscenium stage settings a greater essence of reality than the setting achieved on the thrust stage. It is thought that the role of the setting in creating an illusion of reality on the proscenium stage is taken over by the costumes and properties on the thrust stage. In the present study this was not found to be true. Rather,"Details in setting and properties," ' and "Boots, jewelry, trim on costumes," were all rated as "Costuming,' making a greater contribution toward the creation of the illusion of reality on stage by the proscenium audience than by the thrust audience. Acting,too,is thought to take on greater importance in the thrust stage theatre,where it will provide a true "theatrical" reality. In this study the proscenium respondents rated acting as making a greater contribution toward the creation of the illusion of reality on stage than did the thrust respondents. 9Supra, p. 84. 96 The "Feeling of separation from actors and stage" was credited with contributing more toward the creation of the illusion of reality by the proscenium than the thrust respondents. This is predicted by the writers. However, it should be noted that the median response of the proscenium audience to this scale was only 6.05,indicating that their feeling of separation from actors and stage was making only a minimum contribution toward the creation of the illusion of reality. The literature suggests that the thrust stage audience's greater imaginative involvement in the performance would aid in producing a very effective form of illusion. However, the proscenium audience also rated "YOur imaginative augmentation of setting" as making a greater contribution toward the creation of the illusion of reality than did the thrust audience. As has been stated, the proscenium respondents credited seven of the nine scale items with making greater contributions toward the creation of the illusion of reality on stage than did the thrust re- spondents. The proscenium respondents had also rated themselves as viewing the production as reality for a far greater portion of the per- formance than did the thrust respondents. Hierarchy resulting from ranking by median response.--The factors which the respondents had rated as to their "Contribution to- ward the creation of the illusion of reality on stage" were ranked by median response of each audience. Two different hierarchies resulted, indicating that the thrust and proscenium audiences perceived these factors as being of different degrees of importance in the creation of the illusion of reality. See Table 13. 97 sauwaeou: no seguuavoum mo mmmcmumsm .moucoovsw sswcmumoua use uneasy on» euaaou wcausnauucou mucuomu mo wcaxeomun.m~ manfiumafimman .n was mowuuom ow waamuon .m oq.m oESDooo m~.e magnum» no so soon .moHoSofi .muoom .o cowumuaoawsm o>wumofiwmaH .o mm.m vasoowxomo oo.¢ measumoo amosuoouanoue no oacoom .m co afiuu .muaosofi .muoom .m mw.N swoon use mucous cu mmocomoHu mo woodman .e «N.m wcaasumoo .e Hm.~ mucous mo «o.~ weasdumou .m mamouoccea use accommoumxm .m m~.N mucous mo m¢.~ omega was mucous mamwuoccma one accommoumxm .N cu mmmaomoflo mo moauoom .N mm.a meauu< .H NH.N weaaue .H suave: neuomm segue: “Queen anacoumoom Deanna 98 Both audiences did rank acting as being of primary importance in the creation of the illusion of reality. There was, however, a signifi- cant difference in the responses of the two audiences to this scale. The audiences' median responses indicate that the proscenium audience rated acting as being of even greater importance than did the thrust audience; the median response for the proscenium audience being 1.85, while that for the thrust audience was 2.17. Both audiences rated their "Feeling of separation from actors and stage" as being of least importance in the creation of the illusion of reality. Again, however, there was a significant difference in their response.11 The thrust audience rated this feeling as having even less influence on creating an illusion of reality than did the proscenium audience. It is thought that the separation created by the proscenium frame is of great importance in the creation of an illusion of reality on the proscenium stage. With medians of 6.08 and 6.56,both proscenium and thrust audiences rated their feeling of separation as being unimportant in the creation of the illusion of reality. Other than the two factors discussed above, the hierarchies of the thrust and proscenium audiences differed completely. As might be expected, the thrust audience rated its "Feeling of closeness to the actors and stage" as second in importance in the creation of the illusion of reality on stage. The proscenium respondents rated this as fourth in importance. The proscenium respondents continued to stress the actor by rating "Expressions and mannerisms of actors" as of second in 10Supra, p. 95. 11Supra, p. 96. 99 importance in the creation of the illusion of reality. The thrust audience rated this as third in importance. Contrary to what most theatre practitioners might predict, "Costuming" ranked above "Scenic or architectural background" in both thrust and proscenium hierarchies. The proscenium respondents ranked both costumes and setting as being more important in the creation of the illusion of reality than did the thrust respondents. The thrust respondents, in contrast, credited the details in costumes, setting and properties with having greater influence on the creation of the illusion of reality than did the proscenium respondents. The greater importance of the total costume and setting in the proscenium theatre and on the details of costumes, setting and properties in the thrust theatre relates to ideas in the literature. Their "Imaginative augmentation of setting" was not rated as being particularly important in the creation of the illusion of reality by either thrust or proscenium respondents. The thrust respondents rated this as sixth in importance,while the proscenium respondents placed it seventh on the hierarchy. Factors Contributing Toward Theatricality Theatre audience members do not always perceive the production they are watching to be "Reality"; rather,they are often aware that it is a theatrical performance. In this study there was no significant difference in the duration of the performance during which each audience perceived it as a theatrical performance. A special series of scales was included in the questionnaire in an effort to determine the 100 influence of stage form on the contribution of various factors in reminding the audience members that they are watching a theatrical performance. Comparison of scales by extension of median test.--No signifi- cant difference was found between the thrust and proscenium audiences' responses to half of these scales. See Table 14. Thus the "Acting," the "Scenic or architectural background," the "Costuming" and the "Feeling of separation from the actors and stage" were not found to make significantly different contributions toward reminding the audi- ence members that they were watching a theatrical performance in thrust and proscenium theatres. As the literature had suggested, the thrust stage audience members' awareness of the surrounding audience made a greater contribu- tion toward reminding them that they were watching a theatrical per- formance than did the proscenium audience members' awareness of their fellow audience members. The proscenium respondents, by contrast, rated their awareness of the floor as making a greater contribution toward reminding them that they were watching a theatrical performance than did the thrust audience. The proscenium audience had also been more aware of the floor than had the thrust audience. The results of this study would indicate that it is not stage form, but rather emphasis upon the stage floor by any means,that results in the floor aiding in the creation of a more theatrical Presentation. The proscenium audience members also rated their "Feeling of czloseness to actors and stage" as making a significantly greater 101 contribution toward reminding them that they were watching a theatrical performance than did the thrust audience members. Since the proscenium audience members expect to be separate from the stage, a feeling of closeness to it would at times remind them that they were in a theatre. TABLE l4.--Audience ratings: stage types by factors' contributions to- ward creation of theatricality Medians Factor Chi Thrust Proscenium Square Acting 3.18 2.72 1.42 Scenic or architectural background 3.07 2.85 1.25 Costuming 3.64 2.96 3.15 Awareness of floor 5.30 4.18 11.34** Awareness of audience 3.81 4.83 10.36** Feeling of closeness to actors and stage 4.97 4.22 6.09* Feeling of separation from actors and stage 4.94 4.88 .03 Your imaginative augmentation of setting 4.70 4.11 4.95* *Significant at the .05 level. **Significant at the .01 level. The third factor which the proscenium audience members credited with having more influence on reminding them that they were watching a theatrical performance than did the thrust audience members was "YOur imaginative augmentation of the setting." This finding was contrary to expectation. Thrust stage advocates suggest that thrust audience 102 members become both more involved in the production and are at the same time constantly reminded that they are watching a theatrical performance because of their imaginative augmentation of the setting. It is in- teresting to note that in this study the proscenium audience members' imaginative augmentation of the setting contributed more to their per- ception of the production as reality and as a theatrical performance than it did to the thrust audience members. They had also been imagi- natively involved in the production for a longer time. These findings suggest that the audience members' imaginative augmentation of the setting produces these responses in any theatre form. It is possible that the degree of imaginative augmentation of the setting determines the extent of its influence on other aesthetic responses. Hierarchy resulting from ranking by median response.--When the scale items contributing toward reminding the audience members that they were watching a theatrical performance were ranked by median audience response,the resulting hierarchies for thrust and proscenium audiences differed. See Table 15. The medians indicate,however;that no factors were rated as making exceptionally strong contributions toward reminding the respondents that they were watching a theatrical performance. ' The thrust audience members rated "Scenic or architectural back- ground" as the most important factor in reminding them that they were watching a theatrical performance. They rated their "Awareness of audience" as fourth in importance in creating this aesthetic response. Both of these factors are suggested as important in creating the anti- illusion present in a thrust stage theatre. 103 I ooomBhowuom umoauuoosu no :oHuosvoum mo mm.q owmum use mucous Boom :oHumuomom we waaaoom .w om.m Hoon mo mmocoums< .w no.q owmum use mucuom mm.¢ oucowUSm mo mmoaouma< .n cu mmocomofiu mo wcfiaoom .m NN.¢ owoum use mucuom «m.¢ ensue one mucuom cu mmocomoHo mo wcauoom .o Boom coHumummom mo wcwaoom .o oa.e meauuom mo w~.q ocean mo mmoaouma< .n coHumucoawsm o>aumcwmmaH .m HH.q weauuom mo coHumueoswsm o>auesawmaH .e Hm.m oucowosm mo mmocoum3< .e oa.~ weassumoo .m so.m meassumoo .n mm.~ ocaouwxoen Housuooufinuum no uacoom .~ m~.m wcuuu< .N no.n ucsouwxomn Nu.~ wcauo< .H gouauoouanoum no vacuum .A suave: heaven segue: neuumm anacooooum unausa \4IL neocouosm .moucoavsm Edwooomown one one unsunu one vowsou wcaudnauuaoo mucuoow mo wcqxdmm|n.nu mqmfiumcfiwoBH .w cofiumucoawsm o>wumowwmeH .m qfi.m mucuom cu mmocomofio mo wcHHmom .m mw.m ooummoo zuoaoou mo scamsfifiH .m o~.m mucous Nw.N moumouo zooamou mo cofiwsaaH .0 OD mmocomofio wo wcwaoom .o mo.m moouomumno ofiwwoomm rows cofiumowwfiucooH .m oo.m owmum co woxmuoooa :ofiuo< .m om.~ muooomumno om.m owmum co ooxmouuoa cofiuo< .o owwfloomm :uH3 cofiuoofimwucooH .q Hm.m momuooomso co.m moouomumsu ofiuwoomm you aromaszm .m owwfioodm you anumaahm .m mm.H ecoumuoomooucg m.u0uu< .m Hm.m ecoumumuaooucfi m.o0uo< .N mm.~ owmum co oohmuuoOQ coHooam .H m~.~ owmum co ooxmouuom scoooam .d swoop: ocuoom suave: ocuumm adwcoomoum unsuna ucoao>~o>:« HonoHuoso .moucofiosm anacoomoum onu use Deanna onu ouoSOu wcwusoauu:0u mucuomw mo wcwxcmm|1.5H mgmHuenaweaH .o nofiueuneawne o>auenuweaH .o oo.m mucuoe oo.e mucuoe cu omenemoHo mo wnaaeem .n so moonemoHo mo wnfiaeem .n mo.m meanness ~m.m moneauouued Heouuueeso one wefluoeooum .wnwuuem me nanosecond mo omeneue3< .o no umeuounw Heoaumfienn .o N~.m messumoo one mefiuuedoua .wnnuuom mm.m euneauownen Heowuueezu no umeueunw Heoauhaene .m we coauonoouo mo emeneue3< .m mm.~ uneae>os one neauue NH.m unoao>oa one neauue n“ umoueunu aeoaumflen< .N no umeueunw Heuuumfiene .N aN.N noHueuououeun« m.uouoe n~.~ nodueueuoueunu e.u0uoe cw omeneunu aeoaumaen< .H no omeuounw aeoauzuen< .H canoe: ocuoeh neueuz ocuoem ananeoeoum Deanna uneao>~o>nw .725 00.. Iguana .meonoaone ananeumoun ecu one genus» enu vue30u wnwunnauunoo mucuoeu mo wnwxnemll.ma uqm .0 we newuosooum mnwsefi> .o om.m oeueeuo zueaauna mo wnaaoom .m mw.m oeueouu Augueeu mo newonada .m wa.~ ooueeoo huwfieeo we nonnaaH .o wm.m ooueeuo hueaaunw mo mngfieem .o om.~ nofioosooun wm.m nonuosoouo nH unoeo>ao>nn e>HuenwmeaH .m on unoEo>~o>n« e>auenawesu .m no.N nowuusooud Hm.~ neauonooum cu uncommon HesuuoadeunH .N cu uncommon geneauoam .N no.~ neauunooun oo.~ nofiuonooum cu mononeou geneauoam .H cu mononmeu aesuoeaueunH .a nefioez mononuedxm oauasume< canoe: ounewuonxm uuuenumoe anqneoooum uonunH euneauowued enu mo uneahofino .oouneaone ananoomoud ecu one unsung esu cu oeonouuunoo has» nouns cu unouxe ecu mo oexneu momnonmeu oauenumo1Slightly aware Please rate on the scales below the degree of your awareness of each of the described kinds of stage movement. Highly aware H Slightly aware Movement across the stage from left to right or right to left Movement from the front to back or back to front of the stage Movement between the upper and lower stage platforms A production of a play can be broken down into elements such as acting, costuming and setting. Please indicate on the scales below the degree of your AWARENESS of each of these elements. When rating each element, con- sider the degree to which you were aware of that element in relation to all the other elements listed. Highly aware ‘—> Slightly aware COSTUMES LIGHTING SCENIC OR ARCHITECTURAL BACKGROUND FLOOR PROPERTIES (SWORDS, FURNITURE, ETC.) _______ BOOTS. JEWELRY. TRIM ON COSTUMES _______ DETAILS IN SETTING AND PROPERTIES _______ AUDIENCE TOTAL STAGE PICTURE (ACTORS.SETTING.ETC.) VII ACTORS'_GROUP MOVEMENT PATTERNS BODY POSITION AND MOVEMENT OF ACTORS _______ FACIAL EXPRESSIONS OF ACTORS _______ ACTIVITIES OP NON-SPEAKING ACTORS _______ ACTORS' BACKS What effect did your awareness of the actors' backs have on your enjoyment of tonight's performance? Enhanced enjoyment Detracted from enjoyment n. '150 3 VIII To what extent did you imagine complete settings for the various scenes? Mentally "saw" . Saw settings just as very complete settings they were presented What affect do you believe the addition of more varied, detailed, realistic scenery and properties would have had on your enjoyment of the play? Would have en- _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Would have enjoyed it joyed it much more far less Did you find that to imaginatively add to the setting (augment the setting) involved you in the performance or did you find that the necessity for imaginatively augmenting the setting was distracting? Involved me in Distracted me from the performance performance IX Please rate the contribution of each of the following factors in the crea- tion of the illusion of REALITY on stage tonight. Maximum ‘ I Minimum contribution contribution ACTING FACIAL EXPRESSIONS AND MANNERISMS OF ACTORS SCENIC OR ARCHITECTURAL BACKGROUND _______ DETAILS IN SETTING AND PROPERTIES COSTUMING BOOTS. JEWELRY. TRIM ON COSTUMES FEELING or CLOSENEss TO ACTORS AND STAGE FEELING OF SEPARATION FROM ACTORS AND STAGE YOUR IMAGINATIVE AUGMENTATION OF SETTING X Please rate the contribution of each of the following factors in reminding you that this was a THEATRICAL PERFORMANCE. Maximum ‘4, ‘1 Minimum contributiOfi C5ntributinn ACTING _______ SCENIC OR ARCHITECTURAL BACKGROUND _______ COSTUMING AWARENESS OF FLOOR AWARENESS OF AUDIENCE FEELING OF CLOSENESS TO ACTORS AND STAGE FEELING OF SEPARATION1FROM ACTORS AND STAGE YOUR IMAGINATIVE AUGMENTATION OF SETTING 151 .2 XI One can be both emotionally and intellectually involved in a theatrical performance. Please rate the contribution of each of the following factors toward your EMOTIONAL INVOLVEMENT in the performance. ACTOR'S INTERPRETATION ACTION PORTRAYED ON STAGE EMOTION PORTRAYED ON STAGE YOUR IDENTIFICATION WITH SPECIFIC CHARACTERS YOUR SYMPATHY FOR SPECIFIC CHARACTERS YOUR FEELING OF CLOSENESS TO ACTORS YOUR FEELING OF SEPARATION FROM ACTORS ILLUSION OF REALITY CREATED YOUR IMAGINATIVE AUGMENTATION OF SETTING Maximum contribution Minimum contribution XII Please rate the contribution of each of the following factors toward your INTELLECTUAL INVOLVEMENT in the performance. ANALYTICAL INTEREST IN ACTOR'S INTERPRETATION ANALYTICAL INTEREST IN ACTION AND MOVEMENT ANALYTICAL INTEREST IN SETTING, PROPERTIES AND COSTUMES YOUR FEELING OF CLOSENESS TO ACTORS YOUR FEELING OF SEPARATION FROM ACTORS AWARENESS OF PRODUCTION AS THEATRICAL PERFORMANCE YOUR IMAGINATIVE AUGMENTATION OF SETTING Maximum contribution XIII If you identified with Hamlet during the performance what of your identification? Minimum contribution was the intensity Very intense Very slight XIV To what extent did you find yourself responding to the performance by assuming a position or muscular tension related to the activities on stage? Throughout performance What was the intenSity of these responses? Not at all Very intense Very slight 152 XV Did you feel that you were an integral part of the performance or did you view the performance as being an entity separate from yourself?_ Integral part Separate from of performance performance XVI When viewing the performance did you focus completely on the stage action or were you also aware of the surrounding audience? Oblivious to Aware of audience audience XVII Aesthetic reactions to a theatre performance are highly personal. Some people's enjoyment of a performance is enhanced by one experience, Others by an entirely different experience. We are interested in determining the approximate effect each of the experiences listed had on YOUR ENJOYMENT of tonight's performance. When rating each, please try to consider its influ- ence relative to all the other experiences listed. Maximum ' Minimum contribution contribution FEELING OF INTIMACY CREATED _______ FEELING OF REMOTENESS AND FORMALITY CREATED _______ YOUR EMOTIONAL RESPONSE TO PRODUCTION _______ YOUR INTELLECTUAL RESPONSE TO PRODUCTION‘ YOUR IMAGINATIVE INVOLVEMENT IN PRODUCTION ____ ___ ___ ‘___ .___ YOUR FEELING OF BEING A PART OF THE AUDIENCE _ __ __ _ ILLUSION OF REALITY CREATED VIEWING PRODUCTION AS THEATRICAL PERFORMANCE XVIII For what portion of the performance did you experience each of the following: Throughout ,‘___,,Not at all performance EMOTIONAL INVOLVEMENT IN THE PRODUCTION INTELLECTUAL INVOLVEMENT IN THE PRODUCTION IMAGINATIVE PARTICIPATION IN THE PRODUCTION ENJOYMENT OF PRODUCTION AS THEATRICAL PERFORMANCE ENJOYMENT OF PRODUCTION AS "REALITY" AWARENESS OF YOURSELF AS AN AUDIENCE MEMBER COMPLETE INVOLVEMENT IN THE PRODUCTION Thank you for your cooperation. Please return the questionnaire in the enclosed envelope DEPARTMENT OF SPEECH MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY ml APPENDIX III REASONS STATED FOR STAGE FORM PREFERENCE 154 TABLE 22.--Reasons cited for preferring thrust stage Number of Reason Cited* giiizgdggi: Reason Greater audience involvement and participation . . . . . . 66 Feel more a part of the action of the performance . . . . 41 Better visibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 More believable - more life-like - more natural . . . . . 34 Audience closer, thus greater visual and emotional contact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 More intimate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Closer actor - audience relationship . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Possibilities of more interesting, more varied, more imaginative and more effective staging . . . . . . . . . 11 MOre three-dimensional - more depth . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Audience identifies more easily with play . . . . . . . . 5 Depends on script - on production . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Greater freedom Of movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Better for Shakespeare and Classics . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Action seems more natural - actors seem more free . . . . 5 Breakdown Of aesthetic distance . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Action and actors take on greater importance than the setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Variety of viewing angles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Forces actors to do a better job . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 155 TABLE 22--Continued Reason Cited* Novelty - less traditional - less conventional . . . . . . More details of performance revealed . . . . . . . . . . Mere variety possible - allows for free interpretation . . Less artificial - less like television - no picture frame O O O O O C O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0 Audience uses imagination to fill in for scenery . More a part Of audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Larger stage - more space for action . Audience participates while Observing . . . . . . . . . Setting more realistic and three-dimensional . . . . . . . Audience more easily and completely captivated - absorbed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Better establishment Of aesthetic distance . Familiarity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Liked experience of viewing thrust performance . Makeup, action, etc. is more realistic, less exaggerated . . . . . . . . . . . . . Actors and interpretation more important than Stage form 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0 Better viewing angle, like looking down on stage . Easier to hear . . . . . . More flexible . . . . . . . . . . . . . Number Of Respondents Citing This Reason 156 TABLE 22-Continued Number Of Respondents * Reason Cited Citing This Reason Stage has more varied uses - i.e. concerts . . . . . . . . 1 Other interesting things to Observe if play doesn't hold attention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 *The reasons are recorded, as much as possible, in the respondents' own terminology. Thus some of the reasons, such as "Mere intimate" and "Closer actor—audience relationship," could be interpreted as having the same basic meaning. 157 TABLE 23.—-Reasons cited for preferring proscenium stage Reason Cited* Better focus - actors face audience . . . . . . . . . . Never saw thrust stage performance . . . . . . . . . . Familiarity O 0 O O O O D O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0 Less aware of audience . . . . . . . . . . . Better establishment of aesthetic distance . . . . . . . Setting more effective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . More believable - more life-like - more natural Better visibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . More suited to most scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . Maintains sense of theatre - of stage identity . . . . Captures imagination more easily . . . . . . . . . . Can not judge - saw only few thrust stage performances . mre 111USionary O O I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0 Greater audience involvement and participation . . . . . Audience closer thus greater visual and emotional contact 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O C O O O I O D O O O Disliked limited thrust stage experience . . . . . . Novelty - less traditional - less conventional . . . . . Depends on script - on production . . . . . . . . . Possibilities of more interesting, more varied, more imaginative and more effective staging . . . . . Number of Respondents Citing This Reason 60 51 16 158 TABLE 23--Continued Number of . Respondents * Reason Cited Citing This Reason Actors less conscious of audience and thus do a better job . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Less audience participation and involvement necessary--this is desirable for audience should observe, not participate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Forces actors to do better job . . . . . . . . . . . . . . l Easier to hear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . l mre flexible O O O O O O O C O O O O O O O O C O O O O O 1 Easier to comprehend scope of play . . . . . . . . . . . . l *The reasons are recorded, as much as possible, in the respondents' own terminology. 159 TABLE 24.--Reasons cited for having no preference in stage form Number of Reason Cited* giiizzdgfii: Reason Never saw thrust stage performance . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Depends on script - on production . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 variety desirable so both types important . . . . . . . . 3 Thrust better for serious drama, for tragedy . . . . . . . 1 Actors and interpretation more important than r stage form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Depends on your seat location, not stage type . . . . . . l *The reasons are recorded, as much as possible, in the respondents' own terminology. 160 TABLE 25.--Reasons cited for giving no response on question related to preference in stage form Number of Respondents * Reason Cited Citing This Reason Never saw thrust stage performance . . . . . . . . . . . . l4 Depends on script - on production . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 No preference 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 2 Can not judge - saw only few thrust stage Performances 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O l O O O O O O O O 1 Actors and interpretation more important than Stage form 0 O C C O C O O O C O O O O O O O O I O O O O 1 Proscenium better suited to tragedy . . . . . . . . . . . l Thrust better for serious drama - for tragedy . . . . . . l *The reasons are recorded, as much as possible, in the respondents' own terminology. LI TERATURE C I TED 162 Books Blalock, Hubert M. Social Statistics. New York: MCGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1960. Bowman, Ned Alan. Contemporary Theatre Architecture: Two Diveggent Perceptual Influences. Pittsburgh: Publications on Theatre Technology, University of Pittsburgh, 1963. Brown, John Mason. The Art of Playgoing. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1936. Budel, Oscar. "Contemporary Theatre and Aesthetic Distance," Brecht, ed. Peter Demetz. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice- Hall, Inc., 1962. Guthrie, Tyrone. A New Theatre. New York: MCGraw-Hill Book Company, 1964. Guthrie, Tyrone, Davies, Robertson, and Macdonald, Grant. Renown at Stratford. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin and Company Limited, 1953. Hainaux, Rene (ed.). Stage Design Throughout the World Since 1950. New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1964. The Ideal Theatre: Eight Concepts. New York: The American Federation of Arts and October House Inc., 1962. Joseph, Stephen. Actor and Architect. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1964. . Planning for New Forms of Theatre. London: The Strand Electric and Engineering Co. Ltd., 1963. Kitchin, Laurence. Mid-Century Drama. London: Faber and Faber, 1960. Nicoll, Allardyce. The Development of Theatre. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1957. . The Theatre and Dramatic Theory, New York: Barnes and Noble, 1962. Roberts, Vera Mowry. On Stage. New York: Harper and Row, 1962. Siegel, Sidney. Nonparametric Statistics for the Behavorial Sciences. New York: MCGraw-Hill Book Company, 1956. Southern, Richard. The Open Stage. London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1953. . Seven Ages of Theatre. New York: Hill and Wang, 1961. 163 Articles Bowman, Ned Alan. "The Ideal Theatre: Emerging Tendencies in Its Architecture," Educational Theatre JOurnal, XVI (October, 1964), 220-229. Bridges-Adams, W. "Proscenium, Forestage and 0," Drama, No. 62 (Autumn, 1961), 24-28. Brown, Ivor. "What Kind of Stage?,” Drama, No. 48 (Spring, 1958), 21.—23o Brustein, Robert. "Scorn Not the Proscenium Critic," Theatre Arts, XLIV (May, 1960), 8-9. Burris-Meyer, Harold. "Research in Theatre Architecture," Educational Theatre JOurnal, XIX, 2A (June, 1967), 254—259. v1 Campbell, Douglas. "Acting, Directing and the Guthrie Theatre," Drama Survey, III, 1 (Spring-Summer, 1963), 105-112. "The Changing Practice: Theatres," Progressive Architecture, 46 (October, 1965), 164-220. Cogniat, Raymond. "The Theatre Facade, Entrances and Auditorium," World Theatre, VII, 2 (Summer, 1958), 85-107. Cole, Wendel. "Theatre in Three Dimensions," Players Magazine, 39 (February, 1963), 132. Corry, Percy. "That 'Intimate' Stage,” TABS, VII, 3 (1949), 25-27. Creighton, Thomas. "Theatre Design," Craft Horizons (March-April, 1962), 38. De Gaetani, Thomas. "Theatre Architecture, or: How Does It Look From Where You're Sitting," American Institute of Architects' JOurnal, XXXVI (August 1, 1961), 71-76. Emmet, Alfred. "Later Stages - A Reply," Drama, 48 (Spring, 1958), 23-25. "From the Symposium," Theatre Arts, 46 (May, 1962), 18. Gunkle, George. ”Possibilities for Experimental Research in Theatre," Educational Theatre JOurnal, XIX, 2A (June, 1967), 277-279. Guthrie, Tyrone. "A Director Views the Stage," Design Quarterly: The Tyrone Guthrie Theatre, No. 58 (1963). 164 Jay, Peter. "Theatres: Stage and Auditorium," Architectural Review, 133 (May, 1963), 175-185. Johnston, Dennis. "What's Wrong With the New Theatres," Theatre Arts, 47 (August-September, 1963), 18. Jones, Margo. "Theatre In—the-Round Over America," WOrld Theatre, I, 1 (1951), 17-24. Kallmann, G. M. "Interiors Contract Series '56: Theatres," Interiors, 116 (September, 1956), 108-119. Kerr, Walter. "The Theatre Breaks Out of Bilasco's Box," Horizon, I, 6 (July, 1959), 41-48. Leacroft, Richard. "Actor and Audience: Part Two," Royal Institute of British Architect's Journal, (April-May, 1963), 145-155, 195- 2040 "The Open Stage," Architectural Review, 125 (April, 1959), 254-262. Marshall, Norman. "Guthrie Here, There and Everywhere: A Portrait of a Man Who Won't Stay Still," Drama Survey, III, 1 (Spring- Summer, 1963), 96-103. "Principles for Building the Theatre of the Future," World Theatre, IV, 3 (Summer, 1956), 4-10. MCConnell, Frederic. "Using the Open Stage: A Ten Year Experiment at the Cleveland Play House," The Theatre Annual, XVII (1960), 48-67. Moiseiwitsch, Tanya. "Problems in Design," Drama Survey, III, 1 (Spring-Summer, 1963), 113-116. Moro, Peter. ”Penultimate Thoughts on Theatre Design," TABS, XXIII, 1 (March, 1965), 25—27. Risser, Arthur. "Nine English Theatres Reflect a Philosophy of Theatre Design," Educational Theatre JOurnal, XIX, 2 (May, 1967), 149-165. Robinson, Horace W. "An Approach to Theatre Planning,” Educational Theatre JOurnal, I (December, 1949), 98-101. Saint-Denis, Michel. "Chekhov and the Modern Stage,” Drama Survey, III, 1 (Spring-Summer, 1963), 77-81. Shiman, Leon G. "Theatres for Tomorrow," Saturday Review, 45 (April 28, 1962), 44. 165 Souriau, Etienne. "The Cube and the Sphere," Educational Theatre Journal, IV, 1 (March, 1952), 11-18. "Theatre Planning: A Symposium," Educational Theatre Journal, 2 (March, l950),1-7. Tynan, Kenneth. "The National Theatre," Theatre, II (New York: Hill and Wang, 1965), 81-83. Von Laban, Perrottet. "In Search of valid Form," World Theatre, IV, 3 (Summer, 1955), 42-50. Unpublished Papers Gross, Lorraine. "Thrust Stage Theatre Audience Survey." Unpublished study conducted at Summer Circle Theatre, MHchigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, Ju1y, 1965. Gross, Lorraine, Steegstra, Marilyn, and Long, Roger. "Summer Circle Audience Questionnaire." unpublished paper offered as part of the requirements of a seminar in Arena Theatre at Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, July, 1962.