ABSTRACT
This chapter applies Robert Weimann’s concepts of flexible dramaturgy—the imaginary and interactive spaces of the early modern theater—to YouTube, drawing particular attention to audience responses facilitated by the platform’s comment feature. Weimann’s claims for actor–audience interactivity as influential on performance reception play out on YouTube. YouTube comments evince a range of affective responses to the transnational and transhistorical flow of localized Shakespeares. This chapter explores how user comments on Shakespeare-adjacent actors, directors, language, music, and performance influence video reception. Weimann’s theory offers a lens through which to glimpse the conditions of, and responses to, Shakespeare’s transglobal reach.
