Stages and Playgoers

A discussion of the long, vital tradition of dialogue between stage and audience from mediaeval, through Tudor, to Jacobean drama. Janet Hill offers insights into techniques of addressing playgoers from the stage and how they might have operated under particular staging conditions.

---

The tradition of direct address has little to do with the frequently touted notion of the "fluidity of the Renaissance stage": the point is not that stage characters can talk to the audience but that they actually do reach out to the playgoers and in so doing import aspects of the audience world to the stage. These exchanges appear frequently in late-medieval drama and continue to be crucial stage strategies for Shakespeare, in whose work they grow and change. By examining a native dramatic tradition not fully explored before, Hill proposes new ways to imagine historical and contemporary performances. Stages and Playgoers will be invaluable for students of cultural studies, medieval and Renaissance studies, theatre history, and stagecraft.