Does audience reaction make or break a play? How does the interaction between actors and audience affect the quality of a performance?

This article emphasizes that the role of the audience in a play goes beyond being a mere spectator, and explains that the interaction between the audience and the actors can make or break a play.

 

The components of a play are often referred to as the play, the actors, the stage, and the audience. As you can see, theater is a collaborative art that involves a playwright, actors, director, and audience. The beginning of a play begins with the author’s creation, but its completion depends on the audience’s reaction. All art cannot exist without an audience. Theater, in particular, is unique in that it is always a direct, realistic encounter between actors and audience. Theater is not just an event that happens on stage, but a simultaneous art that is created by actors and audiences together. Therefore, theater audiences are more than just spectators or material supporters.
If we look at the history of theater, we can see that more masterpieces were created in the latter period than in the former, when the role of the audience was merely passive. This means that audience participation was more than just sitting in front of the stage; it had a direct impact on the mood and success of the play. It’s also easy to see that even when performing the same work, better performances were made when the audience was more engaged. The audience’s response is more than just a reaction; it is also a great stimulus and motivation for actors and playwrights. The key factor in the raison d’être of theater is the audience, rather than the people directly involved in the act of creation. Only when there is a material and psychological correspondence between them does theater come to life, because if the audience is unwilling to acknowledge the work, the performance is likely to end up as an act of self-gratification for the playwrights alone. Of course, this is not to say that only the audience produces theater, but the inner influence of the audience is an indispensable component of theater, and moreover, it is the ground on which theater blossoms.
If we think of theater from the production side, the creation of theater begins with the playwright’s painstaking creation. The playwright draws themes from social and cultural contexts, sets up characters and events, and creates a story that the audience can relate to. Throughout this process, they are constantly thinking about what message the play will convey to the audience and what emotions it will evoke. The director creates a stage that takes into account visual and aural elements while utilizing the playwright’s intentions, and the actors convey the playwright’s intentions and the director’s direction to the audience through their performances. However, this entire creative process can only be realized through the audience’s reaction. For nostalgic audiences, the act of theater begins with the willingness to travel to a distant theater and buy a ticket. An audience, whether active or passive, is a group of people who have chosen to engage in theater. However, unlike listening to a radio broadcast or watching a movie or television drama, theater requires a much stronger sense of free choice on the part of the audience. Choosing to see a play is more than just a leisure activity; it also plays an important role in how the audience understands and feels about the play. In this sense, theater has a much stronger sense of activism and participation.
These audiences develop a sense of community and collective psychology while watching theater. They react directly to the events that are happening in front of them, creating an unspoken communication between each other. At the same time, the audience repeatedly experiences feelings of identification and distancing themselves from the actors. In this process, the audience becomes deeply immersed in the events on stage, sometimes laughing, sometimes crying. The audience’s emotional response adds to the vibrancy of the play, and at that moment, theater is not just entertainment, but art. The uniqueness of theater is that these audience reactions are transmitted back to the actors and directly affect their performances. The actors feel the audience’s reaction and change their performance or become more immersed in it. Therefore, the quality of a play depends on the audience. In this sense, having a quality audience is the most important aspect of theater creation.