The Fall and Rise of the Theatre Critic

In his essay on the “Emancipated Spectator,” (2009), Jacques Rancière is asking for an active spectator, who epitomizes both Artaudian and Brechtian spectator, someone who will be released from the passivity of the viewer, who will be fascinated by the appearance standing in front of him, and who will identify with the characters on the stage. This position is quite unique and very important for the new theatrical configuration, because now the spectator is standing in front of the production like “in front of an enigma” and has to investigate the reason for that strangeness and therefore, from the passive viewer, he or she will switch to the status of an active critic, someone who observes phenomena, interprets them and looks for their cause. On many occasions, Brecht stressed that “the audience is a collection of individuals, capable of thinking and reasoning, of making judgments even in the theatre; it treats them as individuals of mental and emotional maturity, and believes it whishes to be so regarded.” (Brecht, 1978) But at the same time, the spectator must be dragged away from his delusive mastery, drawn into the magic power of theatrical action where he or she will exchange the privilege of the rational viewer for the possession of its true vital energies. And this is the paradox of the new spectator, because on the one hand, the spectator has to become more distant, but at the same time he/she has to loose any distance.