A Return to Tradition

Outside the theater, vendors sell food and drink that may be taken inside; while inside, many of the audience must sit in hardwood pews, some smack up against the upper reaches of the stage structure. Others find comfort where they can in the pit which surrounds the low, protruding stage. On that stage there is no shield of illusion to protect the actors, no proscenium arch dividing their world from that of the spectators. If the play or the performance is bad, the actor will be as exposed as a nut on a soapbox in a crowded city square.

Thus one might describe the Globe Theater in Shakespeare’s time. As it happens, the description also fits the Broadway Theater during the current run of the refurbished musical comedy version of Candide. The similarity is neither superficial nor accidental. For many years the theater in America has been plagued with a variety of gimmicks in the name of “audience participation.” For the most part, they have been unsuccessful attempts at bolstering otherwise weak productions with cheap trickery, whose effect has been not so much to entertain the audience as to embarrass it. This new production of Candide invites and challenges the audience in a way that recalls the true nature of theater.

DS

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David Sparkman

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Outside the theater, vendors sell food and drink that may be taken inside; while inside, many of the audience must sit in hardwood pews, some smack up against the upper reaches of the stage structure. Others find comfort where they can in the pit which surrounds the low, protruding stage. On that stage there is no shield of illusion to protect the actors, no proscenium arch dividing their world from that of the spectators. If the play or the performance is bad, the actor will be as exposed as a nut on a soapbox in a crowded city square.

Thus one might describe the Globe Theater in Shakespeare’s time. As it happens, the description also fits the Broadway Theater during the current run of the refurbished musical comedy version of Candide. The similarity is neither superficial nor accidental. For many years the theater in America has been plagued with a variety of gimmicks in the name of “audience participation.” For the most part, they have been unsuccessful attempts at bolstering otherwise weak productions with cheap trickery, whose effect has been not so much to entertain the audience as to embarrass it. This new production of Candide invites and challenges the audience in a way that recalls the true nature of theater.