Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2011
Abstract
The paper aims to explore the crucial role of the audience in the artistic strategies of Forced Entertainment, a leading contemporary British experimental theatre troupe. The paper attempts to highlight the shift of the role of audience towards the spectator as a witness, raising thus further ethical issues.
Furthermore, the company's insistence on the presence, realness and "failure" framed by the tools of postdramatic theory and the umbrella of Live Art create a new reading of the endless interplay between the theatre and its audiences, which is illustrated on two recent performances of Forced Entertainment, Showtime (1996) and Spectacular (2008).