ABSTRACT
While theatre may occur with just a single person watching, what happens to understanding (of the performance) when an audience is composed of two (or more) people? With multiple viewers, the viewing of performance raises a fundamental epistemological question: what is the relationship between receiving common data and having the same experience? Contrary to many presumptions, I claim that viewing performance is not a shared experience. Given that viewers come to each performance with differing amounts and types of knowledge, each viewer has a different “probability calculus”—or makes a different bet—as to how the performance will unfold. And because of these differences in the viewing experience, knowledge surrounding performance is intersubjective; often modified by other viewers and often after the performance event, knowledge of performance is made more accurate by triangulating (or, superimposing) the experiences and justified beliefs of multiple viewers.
