ABSTRACT
Early modern dramatic representations of playgoers, this chapter argues, often come in two forms: positive and negative exemplum. Positive exemplum attempts to show the audience how they should behave in the theater. Plays such as Ben Jonson’s Epicene and Richard Brome’s The Antipodes accomplish this positive portrayal of audiences by collapsing the onstage audience and the playhouse audience, thereby including the playhouse audience in the onstage performance. Thus, when the onstage audience is shown that they are not expected to react to a performance, the playhouse audience is also taught to be non-reactive. Other plays, such as Philip Massinger’s The Roman Actor, William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Francis Beaumont’s Knight of the Burning Pestle provide negative examples by satirizing unruly and reactive playgoers. Drawing on assumptions, often articulated by antitheatrical writers, about the tendency of women to respond to naturalistic drama, these plays stage female playgoers overreacting to realistic drama. This satire stigmatizes both naturalistic techniques and reactive, unruly playgoers.
