King Lear: relationships between performers and audience

King Lear: relationships between performers and audience

The Role of the Audience

• In King Lear, the audience plays a crucial role in experiencing and interpreting the various themes and motifs.
• Empathy is a key tool Shakespeare utilises within his play: the audience is encouraged to empathise with Lear’s tragic fate, and with the unjust treatments of Cordelia and Gloucester.
• The audience plays the part of silent observers, forced to witness the errs of pride and ambition, and the harsh consequences that follow.

Audience’s Knowledge and Understanding

• Through dramatic devices like foreshadowing and dramatic irony, Shakespeare allows the audience to possess knowledge ahead of the characters, deepening the audience’s engagement with the plot.
• The audience is also entrusted with the understanding of symbolism and imagery used throughout the play, such as the storm symbolising Lear’s internal turmoil.

Interaction with Characters

• Soliloquies and asides provide an intimate connection between characters and the audience, revealing hidden thoughts, motives, and feelings. Examples in King Lear include Edmund’s opening soliloquies revealing his plot against Edgar.
• Characters like the Fool exist as a conduit between the play and the audience, often communicating truths that others on stage fail to acknowledge.

Meta-Theatre

• King Lear includes elements of meta-theatre, enhancing the relationship between performers and audience. An example is the ‘play within the play’ during Gloucester’s mock trial of Goneril and Regan, highlighting the artifice of theatre.

Impact of Staging

• Staging directions and stage design allow the audience to engage with the action in unique ways. Spatial arrangements can highlight power dynamics between characters, thereby influencing audience perceptions.
• Depending on the interpretation of the director, the stage can either act as a divide or blur the line between performers and audience, affecting the level of emotional involvement for the audience.

Roles of Performers

• As interpreters of the text, performers’ decisions greatly influence the audience’s perception of the characters and the overall narrative.
• The use of body language, intonation, pacing, and projection can all affect how the audience understands and empathises with the characters.
• Performers’ interactions with the audience can also break down the ‘fourth wall’, fostering a dynamic relationship between the two.

Audience’s Responsibility

• The audience members carry the responsibility of active engagement, interpreting the text and performances in light of their own experiences and understanding.
• They are expected to respond to, reflect upon, and derive meaning from the narrative, thereby completing the cycle of communication in theatre.