What were some factors that influenced the rise of the passive audience in the West?

What will be an ideal response?


The passive audience became popular with the rise of realism in the late nineteenth century in the US and Europe. In realistic theatre, the audience is asked to accept the stage world as a believable alternate reality where things happen much as they would in life, and people behave in seemingly natural ways. The audience, therefore, does not intrude on the imaginary stage world, behaving as if there is a fourth wall between them and the stage. Advances in stage lighting also facilitated the rise of the passive audience; gas and electric lighting allowed the auditorium to be darkened while the stage was lit, and enabled actors to move away from the front of the stage and into the realistic stage environment.

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Contributing to the European obsession with foreign culture was the World's Fair of 1880 held in which of the following cities?

A. London B. Paris C. Philadelphia D. Brussels

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All of the following were among the three traditional French estates EXCEPT the

a. military. b. clergy. c. nobility. d. bourgeoisie and commoners.

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What is a “Schubertiad”?

a. a nineteenth-century fan club b. the performance of a song cycle composed by Schubert c. a social gathering for music and poetry that featured Schubert’s songs and piano music d. an ode composed in honor of Schubert and lamenting his untimely death e. any composer who lives a bohemian life-style

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The wet-plate collodion photographic process was introduced by

a) Frederick Archer. b) William Henry Fox Talbot. c) Julia Margaret Cameron. d) Walker Evans.

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