Audience

Work:: Audience (S1989876351)

Ontroerend Goed have a reputation for playing around with its audience. Throughout the Personal Trilogy (The Smile Off Your Face, Internal & A Game of You), all theatrical action was centred around the spectator. Audiences were singled out, touched, directed, mirrored, confronted with other audience members and challenged to explore their boundaries. In Teenage Riot, the company projected audiences onto a white box and virtually pelted them with tomatoes. In Audience, they highlight the audience again, playing the part they're most familiar with: the audience. In Audience, armed with a camera and backed by a screen, Ontroerend Goed register every move the audience makes, instils thoughts into their minds and takes a sneak through their wardrobe. The audience is warmed up and taught how to applaud differently. It's tested how strongly people stick together and how susceptible they are to group manipulation. Though you always know it's a game, how far will you get carried away? Audience doesn't address us as an individual, but as a group. The performance shifts the focus from the stage to the seats - to you. Why did you gather here? Why do you form an audience? Where does that come from and how does it actually work? Inspired by analyses of mass behaviour, management-techniques and rhetorical tricks, Audience creates an experience somewhere between euphoria and aloofness.

Listing:: L1580711003

Courtyard Theatre

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Production details

Developed with the National Theatre Studio. Courtyard Theatre