ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the sequence for Expanding the Fiction, which builds upon the foundation introduced in the Activating the Body and Awakening the Listener series. It explores the pivotal ways that the audience can serve as mirror through the use of elliptical energy. Elliptical energy broadens the spectrum of the theatrical fiction by removing the fourth wall and allowing energy to move fluidly throughout the space. Within a fourth wall performance paradigm, the fiction remains intact behind the invisible fourth wall, through which the audience peers in voyeuristically to observe the fictional world. Within the fourth wall tradition, actors send their primary energy—the subject of the actor's focus—towards the partner on stage, who exists simultaneously within the fictional world. Elliptical energy enables the fiction to expand beyond the stage; it breaks down the fourth wall so that no divide exists between the actor and the audience.
