Performing silence as political resistance: Audience interaction and spatial politics in Thomas Ostermeier’s Richard III

Abstract

According to Jan Pappelbaum, what fascinated him and Thomas Ostermeier about ‘reconstructed’ Globe Theatres is that ‘[i]t becomes impossible to ignore the presence of the audience; actors are particularly exposed and entirely at the mercy of the spectators’. This article investigates the spatial politics that emerge from/within the ‘quasi-reconstructed’ Globe for Ostermeier’s production of Richard III. Examining a 2017 performance of the play at London’s Barbican Theatre, I consider how audience interaction (and the potential for theatrical failure in that interaction, specifically through performative silence) becomes the site of political resistance in the context of theatrical performance.