148
PARTISAN REVIEW
Consider, again, the Elizabethan stage with much of its
action on the apron ;-I am speaking more of the stage of Marlowe
than of Shakespeare, and more of the chronicle-plays than of the
tragedies. Suppose on this stage the poet violates the unities of
space and time at will, brings forth his speakers on the apron or
on the inner-stage as suits his purpose, etc. Such a stage makes
more indirect the illusion of a presented world, it introduces effects
of narration into the drama. (At the same time there is still the
illusion of a world, tho with indefinite geography and perspective.)
Psychologically, there is a more direct communication between
the poet and the audience; the unity is partly in the poet's inter–
ventions and juxtapositions, whether for rhetorical or lyrical effect,
or reportage, or to tell a story. Here elaborate asides to the audi–
ence and topical jokes do not seem out of place. It is interesting
to observe how the conventions of the Living Newspaper, like
vaudeville before it, have tried to adapt the architecture of the
peep-hole stage to the direct communication of the Elizabethan
platform.
The expressionists, as I have mentioned, sometimes neutralize
the sense of an (imitated) physical world entirely. The revolving
stage, the spiral stairs that rise from the flat on which men ordi–
narily converse, the timeless masks and costumes-these all speak
in terms of theory or inner perceptions; there is still a self-con–
tained visual pattern and therefore the imitation of a total field,
but the pattern is more abstract and indeed tends to spread out to
include the architecture of the theatre itself, which is preferably
styled according to the same canons.
Quite another effect, again, is that of the audience-participa–
tion theatre, for here not only are the play and the public physi–
cally and psychologically continuous, but-in the ideal case--the
overt reactions of the audience ought to alter the events of the play.
Strictly speaking, this is not a "theatre" at all. Here we enter the
realms of political meetings, religious revivals, and parlor con–
versations; and have come a long way from the hush, the three
knocks, and the footlights lit, before the curtain rises.
I have introduced these few remarks only to demonstrate that
the flat oblong of the peep-hole stage is by no means due merely to
the fact that human-beings do not fly, but especially to the fact
that its peculiar properties, which are not the properties of the
