THE SHAPE AND THE DARKNESS
147
and theatre-conditions are good for such and such a plot or prob–
able sequence.
Consider some properties of the peep-hole theatre. The house–
lights are dimmed, the audience is silent Not only are the stage–
lights always brighter, but they belong to an independent system
of lighting and they illumine an independent space. The stage–
space is made distinct from the audience-space in other ways also:
is raised above it, framed in a proscenium, etc. Further, the sense
of an absent fourth wall gives the stage-incidents an independent
time and causality, for the stage-events can no wise act on or be
reacted on by the physical audience. But since the dimly-lit and
silent audience has no life of its own, its entire activity must con–
sist in mental projection into the stage-world. There, of course, it
has the liveliest interests,. interests which are indeed intimately
personal to each member of the audience; but these interests assert
themselves and are gratified under the conditions of phantastic
projection. In short, we might say the following: (1) The peep–
hole stage expresses an illusion of the total visual field. (2) It
keeps the audience all eyes. (3) The probability of the plot on
such a stage seems to be given entirely thru the actors, who are
self-subsistent and on their own, for there is no other continuous
reality. (3) The scenery must also add up to a self-subsistent
reality, tho of course it need not he realistic; but bare stage-boards
in
the manner of Orson Welles'
]
ulius Caesar
will not do. (4) The
audience-interest is given under the psychological conditions of
projection, as in day-dreams.
Now contrast such a stage with a daylight performance (of,
say, a masque) on a lawn or in an amphitheatre. Here there is a
continuity between the visible audience and the stage and actors;
and this might express, depending on the ethical tone of the plot
and the occasion, the sense that the actors are amateurish neigh–
bors, subject to running comment; or that they are heroic surro–
gates of the audience, perhaps in a religious act like the mass; or
that the play is a mere spectacle or pageant, an interesting object
a/,Qngside
the other sights in the total field of vision. The unity of
the whole, we must then say, is partly given by the audience's sense
of its relation to the play. (I do not mean this to be a description
of the Greek theatre, where the Chorus
both
unified and divided
the play and the public.)
