Theatrical Spectatorship in the United States and Soviet Union, 1921-1936

Book excerpt: Theatre scholarship often marginalizes the contribution of the spectator; this dissertation privileges the body as the first filter of meaning and offers new insights into how spectators contribute and shape live theatre, as opposed to being passive observers of an already-completed production. Taking account of historical circumstances, I apply theories of empathy, social affect, and group identification to each production, questioning how spectators helped create and gave meaning to these shows, along with the attitudes and identities that might have arisen from them. In my analysis, I expect to uncover moments in each nation's history where comic spectatorship reveals an emergent national identity--either collectively uniting in a moment of cultural or political promise, or splintering under social and economic distress. Furthermore, an interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of theatre production--one grounded in cognitive science, culture, and politics--provides a new perspective on the study of spectatorship in theatre history.