at the turn of the previous century often focused on what would maintain
or disrupt illusion. Thus, on the naturalist side, Ibsen could write to the
director ofAn Enemy of the People, demanding that the staging should not
disturb‘the illusion that everything is real and that one is sitting and
watching something that is actually taking place in real life’; Bruisov the
symbolist could argue, in contrast, that‘the more lifelike the sound [of
crickets chirping in a performance ofUncle Vanya], the less convincing
the illusion’.^52 These (often heated) debates testify to the significance of
this kind of illusion in theatre.
The claim that going under the spell is central to theatre must be
qualified in two ways. First, as many writers on the subject have noted, it
is not a binary matter of either being or not being under the spell.
Stendhal and Coleridge (for example) are clear that one drifts in and out
of this state to varying degrees during the course of a performance.
Second, it is not necessarily the case that the more effective the illusion,
the better the play. I’ve said that plays are unsuccessful (or, if successful,
highly unusual) if they do not produce a certain quantity of illusion of this
kind; but that doesn’t mean that the more, the better. Breaking the spell, or
manipulating its intensity, may well be part of a successful performance.
Thus, for example, Lessing notes that tragedy depends far more heavily
on illusion than comedy: breaking the spell can be a good way of making
people laugh, but a bad way of making them cry.^53 For Coleridge, some
modes of breaking the spell may be very effective near the beginning of
the action, but disruptive at its height (for others, vice versa).^54
The spell of theatre is clearly distinct both from visual illusions (the
Fraser Spiral, the‘brick’wall) and from Houdini-type illusions. Coleridge
rightly says of the spectator under the spell that‘it is at all times within
his power to see the thing as it really is’.^55 This does not hold for the
other types of illusion discussed so far.
One question that we have about the spell phenomenon is whether the
spectator under the spell genuinely (but mistakenly) believes that the imi-
tated action is real. As we have seen, the presence or absence of deception is
not necessarily a helpful way of establishing whether or not the spell counts
as an illusion; but because the discussion of illusion often veils a discussion
of false belief, it is appropriate to say something about their relationship.
The main point to make is that it’s difficult to tell what the spectator
does and does not believe.^56 After all, how could we settle it? A standard
(although notflawless) way tofind out what someone believes is to ask
her; but asking someone who is under the spell is going to break the
spell. Another way (again, hardly perfect) of finding out what people
believe is to look at their behaviour. Do people watching plays behave as
if the plays are real? Unfortunately, the behaviour of spectators who are
highly absorbed in what they are watching (especially those who weep
64 From the World to the Stage