Ironic Distance and the Theatre of Feigned Madness

The basic premises of drama are rife with ironies. The actor abnegates himself a part which the audience willingly accepts as real while it is being reminded by the proscenium arch that it is witnessing an artificial construct. This irony is a given of most traditional dramatic forms. However, there are plays that go beyond this simple paradox by testing the relationship between actor and audience and by never allowing the audience to settle in at a fixed distance from the action. Irony is the dramatist's most effective tool to achieve this end for it disallows the reassuring conventions of audience expectation and creates a shifting ground between audience and action. The greater the levels of irony, the greater the uncertainty and the greater the distance

Art · Literature · Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism · Theatre and Performance Studies