theatrical performance can go wrong in a way that afilm can’t: actors can
get put off, forget lines, corpse; equally, actors may put on a better or
more inspired performance one night than they do the next. Improvisa-
tions or fortuitous slips can frequently be adopted in later performances.
The performance of thefilm actor is mediated by the camera and by the
editor in a way that the performance of the stage actor cannot be; hence,
Walter Benjamin writes that, in the case offilm (not theatre),‘the audi-
ence’s identification with the actor is really an identification with the
camera’.^17 ‘Liveness’also entails that the theatre audience can have more
of an effect on the artwork than can, say, viewers of paintings orfilms.
Actors respond to audiences differently on different nights. Even conven-
tional, passive audiences have a role to play in creating the artwork. Many
spectators identify the excitement of theatre with its liveness–the sense
that their cooperation is required, that the experience is shared. Similarly,
others describe a feeling of awkwardness or an acute awareness of the
pretence of theatre, which they do not associate withfilm. In my experi-
ence, bad theatre produces an embarrassment on the part of the spectator
that does notfind its equivalent in badfilm: you mustn’t look too bored
or too distracted, because they cansee you.^18 It’s a peculiar feature of
theatre, then, that you can offend the artwork.^19
Theatre in the narrow sense and theatre in the broad sense
We have seen why some art forms should not count as theatre. Notice,
though, that if a piece of‘theatre’is an artistic event that takes place in a
particular location, with mutually aware performers and spectators
engaged in some kind of play, then theatre, as defined, includes opera,
dance and performance art. There is a sense in which this is absolutely
right; I’ll call this category of artistic performance‘theatre in the broad
sense’. Much of what we said about theatre, compared withfilms and
novels, also applies, say, to dance: one can offend dancers; dance perfor-
mances change from one evening to another; dance is live. But clearly,
‘theatre’also has a narrower sense–one that has the function ofdistin-
guishing a theatrical performance (the performance of a play) from an
opera, a dance performance or a piece of performance art. Pinning down
just what it is that distinguishes theatre in the narrow sense is particu-
larly difficult and may well be best described in cultural and historical
terms, rather than in the abstract. Plenty of instances of theatre in the
broad sense couldfit under a number of different categories, including
performance art, theatre (in the narrow sense) or dance.
However, there are some general trends. Opera suggests an emphasis on
music; dance, of course, on dance. As for theatre in the narrow sense, a
‘play’typically suggests more of an emphasis on the spoken word than do
8 What is theatre?