chapter 4 Working with Audiences

The author (E) of this piece presents the thesis that audience and storyteller work together, negotiate, and achieve mutual consent to tell the story. However, E's attitude throughout the piece shows that the storyteller is really the one who does the work and has control of the story. E says that audiences don't know what is expected of them. If the storyteller must show them what to do and always maintains control (187), what is left for the audience in terms of creativity and egalitarianism? The storyteller is an authoritarian who establishes boundaries and directs the play (185). The only choice allowed the audience is whether or not they want to play. Far from being voluntary, the storyteller is coercive. The sacred circle (198) reminds me of professors who sometimes insist that people sit in semi-circles in order to facilitate discussion in classes. I have not experienced that the discussions in such classes have been any more meaningful or inclusive than other class lectures. I suspect that one reason professors do this is to have everyone looking at everyone else to increase the liklihood that people will pay attention and participate. Oddly, this does not deter people from not speaking up and it does not prevent people from having sidebar conversations that distract from the class material. Such sacred circles force people to pay attention or feign interest in items that may not ordinarily concern them. The sacred circle is not sacred just because we say it is.

E believes movies and films are lesser forms of storytelling and even dangerous.
To say that the audience cannot participate in movie construction is shortsighted. For instance, when people like a movie, the money generated convinces producers to make sequels or other similar movies. To think that movie producers do not take their audience into account displays a bias. Not only are movies inferior according to E, but so are pieces of theater. E is limiting the discussion of stories to a technical set of defining principles that are unstated and different from movies and plays. But all the elements that E does use to define storytelling, ritual bookends, sacred circles, rules and meta-rules are also found in movies and plays.