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Spectatorship is of increasing interest in theatre and performance studies, as these recent publications suggest, which both argue for the significant change of theatre, performance and the role of audiences in our digital consumer society. Any study of theatre implies, of course, the presence of an audience, but usually the spectators stay hidden, being assigned the role of silent observers. Dennis Kennedy takes the spectator, however, as main reference point in his varied study that diverges from ideologies of the historical avant-garde and intercultural theatre to sports events. He starts with three chapters on the problem of the spectator, acknowledging that spectators and audiences are 'slippery concepts' (p. 3), since they are heterogeneous, with individual experiences. Audiences get more and more dispersed in current society, which is both cause and effect of the spectacular, in which anything and everyone is turned into an agent and object of observation. Kennedy traces the spectacular back to the historical avant-garde and its paradoxical relationship with audiences: practitioners wanting to change, shock and reform spectators-consumers, the latter not willing to pay for being offended or re-educated.
He proceeds with four chapters in which Shakespeare is...