Incorporating the Audience into Performance

The audience is an essential component of theatre performance. While actors perform on stage, the audience often contribute to the actions and activities of the performance by clapping, singing, and dancing (rhythmically shaking the body) or wooing the performers, as the case may be, or in other ways. Beyond these levels of participation, the audience can be fully incorporated into theatre performances. They can be made to perform, almost like the actors and actresses, in the play. Therefore, using Femi Osofisan’s Once Upon Four Robbers, the study investigates how the audience can be incorporated into and be made active in theatre performance. Apart from using the script of the play, the study engages the performance of the play, which was directed by Toyin Ogundeji and staged at the Pit Theatre of Obafemi Awolowo University in 2007. The essay argues that the incorporation of the audience into the play and their participation in the actions of the theatre piece enabled them to critically decide how the play should end; whether the robbers should be openly vindicated or publicly executed, after they (the audience) had seen the socio-political and economic jeopardy of Nigeria which actually led the robbers to the acts of crime and robbery. The essay concludes that the incorporation of the audience into the play helped to facilitate a convivial interaction between spectators and actors

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