Otherness and the Interludes: actors and audiences

The topic of ‘Otherness’ has made possible an investigation into the distance between audience and performance. The actors themselves are essentially strangers to the onlookers and during a performance this separation is exploited as part of experience of theatre, as a contribution to entertainment as well as meaning. By considering the theatrical characteristics of four sixteenth-century interludes we find that the separation can be effective, but it is also apparent that these plays have ways of working across the gap to make use of the intimacy which can be established. Besides consideration of some of the typical features of interludes, there is attention to theatrical conventions, including the role known as the Vice, to the ways of using the performance space, and to comic routines and wordplay. It becomes apparent that the audience can never be allowed to forget that they are watching a play and not real life, and that the distance between actors and audience is a valuable theatrical asset for experiencing these plays.