Now, the actor is his own protagonist, and the audience is his Antagonist, yes?

Question

In life, standing on the stage by myself, looking into the audience, no script: I, the actor, am the Protagonist and the audience is my Antagonist, yes?

Especially when they start throwing things at the stage! Have you never experienced the horrors of acting badly, and knowing it?

Alright, let me ellaborate a bit more, and then I gotta move on with more questions:

This question tried to address, originally, an acting problem, namely, the relationship between the performer and the audience, which most directors emphasize by telling me, "play to the audience," and which a few acting teachers addressed by having me "face the audience," and which every boss I ever worked for insisted, "the customer is always right."
It became apparent that if something was going wrong in the production, it could be traced directly to that relationship with the audience.
Furthermore, if something was going to go wrong with a production, then it was going to come through the doorway marked "audience" (customer).
So: There is a drama being played out in a production that may have nothing to do with the play. That drama is undeniable, visible & immediate; and it invariably becomes the starting point for the actors' interpretation of the roles. Anyway, I'm looking for confirmation

Answer 1

Hello again--back on YA after all the changes....Now: would you kindly explain what the heck you're talking about with your question? Because, forgive me, but it makes no sense....

ADDENDUM: I see. The answer is no.

Look, let's get clear again on what the words mean. They both stem from the Greek "agon"--struggle. The prot-agonist struggles for something, the ant-agonist struggles against that same something. You should now be able to answer your own question: what is the actor struggling for that the audience could possibly be struggling against? They're both engaged in the same pursuit: to join, as performer and audience, in the creation of a satisfying dramatic event--and in fact, in my experience audiences come into the theatre WILLINGLY, ready to be a part of it, looking forward to it, ready to support and encourage the actors. Why would they spend the money and go through the trouble of going out if that were not the case? They're on your side from the get-go. If they (actors and audience) ever reach the point of being protagonist and antagonist, it will no longer have anything to do with the play, because the play itself will have completely failed.

I say this (follow me on this), because when the play is WORKING, the actor is NO LONGER AN ACTOR, and the audience is NO LONGER AN AUDIENCE. The actor has in fact become the character, and is living the life of the play, and the audience has in fact given up their own identities and become immersed in the unfolding existence of the play. Yes, I know: not 100%--no actor ever completely forgets that he's performing, and no audience ever completely forgets they're sitting in a theatre. But when theatre is working, a third thing exists, which contains both actor and audience and is at the same time bigger than both of them. And protagonist/antagonist is simply an irrelevant concept, except as regards the protagonist & antagonist(s) in the play itself.

This is why I so totally disagree with the idea that there's some sort of "actor-audience relationship", which has to be the focus of an actor's work. There's not. There's a PLAY-audience relationship--and that should tell you exactly what the actor's obligation to the audience is: to create your character fully, to pursue your actions clearly, to be heard and to be seen. The actor's job is NOT to "play to the audience", or make them feel something--or in fact to MAKE them do anything. It is to BE, and leave the rest up to the audience. The playwright Jeffrey Sweet put it very succinctly: "The premises belong onstage,the conclusions belong in the house." The worst acting is almost always Acting With A Capital A, where you feel the actor trying to do something to the audience. That's also the worst directing, and the worst writing, Ironically, if the play's any good, the writer has already done a lot of the work FOR the actor--it's the WRITER who's figured out how to move the story through time, create laughter, create silence, create emotional response--IF the actors and director have the guts to just do their jobs, which is figure out what the writer, through the play, intends for you to create, and create it.

Facing the audience is fine if it's necessary for you to be seen. Playing to the audience is fine if it clarifies the character or action and is right for the play. But the audience didn't come to see actors--they came to live through an experience. The job of the production is to create that experience as fully as possible. If the audience doesn't like it, then either you didn't do a good job, or the playwright didn't make it possible for you to do a good job, or the people who didn't like it are morons (that does happen). But you can only control your portion of the work. As T.S. Eliot wrote, "For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business."

Answer 2

hmm. I have an answer which sort of addresses this in another question. The one about relationships and dramatists. But I will add this here.
True the audience is not a character in the play so therefore it can not be an antagonist of the story.
the performer playing the protagonist is such and there will be a character or device which is the antagonist.







I also agree that you as a person are the protagonist in your whole life etc etc blah blah blah.

But... in regards to an audience... what if the PLAY itself is the protagonist. This would then could make the audience the antagonist, but not necessarily. The antagonist could also be external influences. For example if Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" or the "da Vinci Code" (book and movie) are the protagonists then the audience is not the antagonist as they are involved with the theatre of the piece.



and later... I agree with zeebaneightba . it is the relationship the audience has with the play not the players

Answer 3

Protagonist/antagonist development is a literary tool where characters represent conflict: the opposition between forces in a story
Protagonist: the central character
Antagonist: whatever opposing force the protagonist struggles with, such as another character, environment, or something within the protagonist.

The audience is not usually a character in a play....even if they are included by some device.

Answer 4

The actor is his own antagonist, a person divided.

Answer 5

No.

The actor is the actor and the audience is the audience.

Your audience will only be against you if you are against them.