ABSTRACT
I understand theatrical performance as an organized encounter between actor and audience. The definition is provisional, but not definitive, since, as I will argue in this chapter, the purpose of this arrangement is to change the nature of that encounter. The encounter is reciprocal, but not symmetrical. Actors act, that is, they present their corporeal art to us, their audience. We, their audience, have come to watch them perform. Although people can be forced to come to the theatre (prisoners, children, spouses, etc.), the nature of the theatrical encounter is voluntary, and the audience members can be, in principle, anyone. This spectator has the opportunity and the right to refuse to take up the role of spectator. Spectators may refuse to attend the performance even when they are unable to leave the performance. What is decisive is the fact of performing, that is, the specific situation that involves a certain relationship: it does not exist without a division between those who watch and/or listen (if I may limit myself to the senses most commonly used in theatre; I discuss others later) and those who give them something to see or hear. The latter may be either aware or unaware of their presence. In any case, they are treated as performers. The performance situation is thus, to a certain extent, socially and culturally conditioned, which does not mean that it reverts to some purely social or cultural functions. What interests people, both as artists and as audiences, in theatre is something that cannot happen in any other way, except in an encounter between performers and spectators. The Latin term interesse fortunately refers precisely to inter-being. Theatre shifts our attention to that in-between space, to the interest between beings and to the things that are created within it, and allows people to enjoy this space and view it as such. What happens and what is encountered in this in-between space must be intrinsically valuable and important. Otherwise, it would be inconceivable how, even today, in the age of mass media and sophisticated communication technologies, large numbers of people of all ages all over the world dedicate themselves to a hobby or profession aimed at conjuring up that something again and again. 1 Not to mention the many new cultures of performance, fuelled not least by the development of social media. It is a question of a specific desire to perform, which requires specific arrangements to be satisfied.
