THEATER TAKES PLACE IN THE AUDIENCE’S IMAGINATION.

THEATER TAKES PLACE IN THE AUDIENCE’S IMAGINATION. Theater audiences routinely make the imaginative leap that there is no fourth wall and and the imaginative leap that what they see is actually happening. They also willingly correct for imperfect special effects or poor acting. All-male or all-female productions of Shakespeare take only a couple minutes of getting used to. The all-male HENRY VI (or ROAD RAGE) was exhilarating. We saw an all female RICHARD III at the Globe Theater and the actresses playing Richard III and Buckingham gave wonderful performances.. I think New York theater has been handicapped in the last generation because some of the influential critics have brought a fussy literalism to their reviews. This was most notable in John Simon’s running joke that only beautiful actresses could play female characters who were supposed to be attractive. (It became a joke because the poor man was not joking).