TALKING TO THE AUDIENCE is study of the use of
chorus-like characters in modern plays who comment
on the action, participate in the action, interact
with the main characters and, in today''s theater,
are one of the main characters. This study discusses
such characters in plays by major American, and one
major British, playwright: Eugene O''Neill''s Strange
Interlude, Thornton Wilder''s Our Town, Tennessee
Williams''s The Glass Menagerie, both versions of
Arthur Miller''s A View from the Bridge, Wendy
Wasserstein''s The Heide Chronicles, Peter Shaffer''s
Equus and Margaret Edson''s Wit. The characters''
dilemmas are at once eternal and universal to the
human condition, yet specific to the various
protagonists and the challenges of life in the
century just ended and the one in which we now live
and strive.
chorus-like characters in modern plays who comment
on the action, participate in the action, interact
with the main characters and, in today''s theater,
are one of the main characters. This study discusses
such characters in plays by major American, and one
major British, playwright: Eugene O''Neill''s Strange
Interlude, Thornton Wilder''s Our Town, Tennessee
Williams''s The Glass Menagerie, both versions of
Arthur Miller''s A View from the Bridge, Wendy
Wasserstein''s The Heide Chronicles, Peter Shaffer''s
Equus and Margaret Edson''s Wit. The characters''
dilemmas are at once eternal and universal to the
human condition, yet specific to the various
protagonists and the challenges of life in the
century just ended and the one in which we now live
and strive.