Becoming a different type of audience member

In reflection of our class yesterday, I thought about how this course has taught me to become a better member of the audience. Before this January, my exposure to theater was narrow and limited to the few musical productions I'd seen at local universities. Based on these encounters, I had learned to interpret the play's message through the actors' verbal cues and the story plot. As we discussed in class, this is quite typical in Western theater, as it is more realistic and linear than the types of theater we have studied from Asia. On the contrary, many of the styles, such as Kabuki and Noh, rely of the connection between the audience members and the actors through the rasa and bahavas. As I watched performances and clips of these types of performances, I tried to focus on the symbolism that an actor's movement and gestures have. As an actor's movement did not always translate to one specific and certain message, it has been a challenge for me to watch and focus my attention to the message that I, personally, interpreted. Our course highlighted this by the fact that our professors specifically chose not to incorporate plays in their text based form, but to watch them performed on stage. I believe this is an important aspect of our class, and it has greatly influenced my education on how to be a more active and engaged audience member.