• "In this show let me an actor be":Joining in with Doctor Faustus
• Mark Scott (bio)

Theatre is a fundamentally collaborative artform. Any successful live performance depends upon the participation of—and cooperation between—actors and spectators. On the Elizabethan stage, this axiom was most famously pronounced by the Chorus in William Shakespeare's Henry V. The Chorus begins the play by making an apology that doubles as an appeal for help. Because the company doesn't have a real "kingdom for a stage, princes to act,/And monarchs to behold the swelling scene," the Chorus begs spectators not only to forgive "The flat unraised spirits that hath dared/On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth/So great an object" as the triumph at Agincourt, but also to assist the performers by imaginatively bridging the gap between illusion and reality: "Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts."¹ While it is the job of the actors to "work" on the "imaginary forces" of spectators by staging the play, spectators in turn must work with the actors: "For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings" (Prologue.18–28). Yet as much as the Chorus unites actors and spectators in a collaborative endeavour, he also draws clear boundaries between their respective contributions ("your thoughts"; "our kings"). Where the actors' job is to physically create the theatrical illusion, the spectators' labor is mental: "Work, work your thoughts, and therein see a siege" (3.0.25). Where the actors play their parts onstage, the role of the spectator is confined to the mind—"the quick forge and working-house of thought" (5.0.23). Actors pretend; spectators believe.

Such a model of theatrical exchange obviously appealed to early modern playgoers: Henry V was one of the most popular plays of the period. At the same time, however, another blockbuster of the Elizabethan stage offered theatregeors a very different kind of experience, one that [End Page 61] thoroughly destabilized the distinctions—between actor and spectator, illusion and reality—upon which Shakespeare's Chorus relies. On several different occasions (that we know of), performances of Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus were interrupted—and even cut short—by the intervention of apparently supernatural forces. In one account, the "visible apparition of the Devill" appeared "on the stage at the Belsavage Playhouse, in Queene Elizabeths days, (to the great amazement both of Actors and Spectators) whiles they were there prophanely playing the History of Faustus."² Another contemporary report recalls the same phenomenon occurring in a different theatre:

Certaine Players at Exeter, acting upon the stage the tragical storie of Dr Faustus the Conjurer; as a certaine nomber of Devels kept everie one his circle there, and as Faustus was busie in his magicall invocations, on a sudden they were all dasht, every one harkning other in the eare, for they were all perswaded, there was one devell too many amongst them; and so after a little pause desired the people to pardon them, they could go no further with this matter; the people also understanding the thing as it was, every man hastened to be first out of dores. The players (as I heard it) contrarye to their custome spending the night in reading and in prayer got them out of town the next morning.³

Critics have tended to dismiss such testimonies as little more than the scattered fragments of "a curious mythos," the superstitious excesses of a world not yet fully disenchanted.⁴ Some have attributed the unexpected cameos made by "visible apparition[s]" to the imaginative "abandon" of spectators fully immersed in the theatrical illusion.⁵ Perhaps—but such an explanation tells only half the story. For as we have seen, during performances of Faustus it was not just the audience, but rather actors and spectators collectively, who witnessed the terrifying appearance of "one devell too many amongst them" (indeed, at Exeter, the actors actually instigated the ensuing panic).⁶ The Henry V paradigm ("Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them" [Prologue.26; my emphasis]) falls apart when the actors and spectators see the same thing. How did Marlowe's play provoke such a powerful dissolution of the boundary...

• “在这个节目中让我成为一名演员”：与浮士德博士联手
• 马克·斯科特（简介）

戏剧本质上是一种协作艺术形式。任何成功的现场表演都取决于演员和观众的参与和合作。在伊丽莎白时代的舞台上，这一公理最著名的是威廉·莎士比亚的《亨利五世》中的合唱团。合唱团以道歉开始，同时也呼吁帮助。因为剧团没有一个真正的“舞台上的王国，表演中的王子，/观看膨胀场面的君主”，合唱团不仅恳求观众原谅“那些胆敢/在这个不值得的绞刑架上的平淡无奇的灵魂”带来/如此伟大的物体”，就像阿金库尔的胜利一样，同时也通过富有想象力地弥合幻想与现实之间的差距来协助表演者：“用你的思想弥补我们的缺陷。” ¹虽然演员的工作是通过上演戏剧来“发挥”观众的“想象力量”，但观众反过来也必须与演员合作：“因为你的想法现在必须装饰我们的国王”（序言） .18–28)。然而，尽管合唱团将演员和观众团结在一起，共同努力，他也在他们各自的贡献之间划出了清晰的界限（“你的想法”；“我们的国王”）。演员的工作是在身体上创造戏剧幻觉，而观众的劳动是精神上的：“工作，工作你的思想，并在其中看到围攻”（3.0.25）。当演员在舞台上扮演自己的角色时，观众的角色仅限于思想——“思想的快速锻造和工作室”（5.0.23）。演员们假装；观众相信。

这种戏剧交流的模式显然吸引了早期现代戏剧观众：《亨利五世》是当时最受欢迎的戏剧之一。然而，与此同时，伊丽莎白时代舞台的另一部大片为戏剧演员提供了一种非常不同的体验，这种体验[完第61页]彻底动摇了莎士比亚合唱团所依赖的演员与观众、幻觉与现实之间的区别。在几个不同的场合（据我们所知），克里斯托弗·马洛的《浮士德博士》的表演被明显超自然力量的干预打断甚至缩短。在一份报告中，“恶魔的可见幽灵”出现在“伊丽莎白女王时代的贝尔萨维奇剧院的舞台上（令演员和观众都大吃一惊），当时他们正在那里预言性地演奏《浮士德的历史》”。²另一份当代报告回顾了在不同剧院发生的相同现象：

埃克塞特的某些演员在舞台上表演魔术师浮士德博士的悲剧故事；当某个德维尔人把每个人都围在那里时，当浮士德忙于他的魔法召唤时，突然间，他们都猛冲过来，每个人都在耳边倾听，因为他们都被说服了，也有一个德维尔人。其中有很多；于是，他们稍稍停顿了一下，请求人们赦免他们，这件事就不再继续下去了。众人也明白了事情的原委，纷纷争先恐后地出手。球员们（据我所知）违背了他们的习惯，整夜阅读并祈祷第二天早上他们就可以出城。³

批评者往往认为这些证词只不过是“一个奇怪的神话”的零散碎片，是一个尚未完全醒悟的世界的迷信过度行为。⁴有些人将“可见的幻影”所出现的意想不到的客串归因于完全沉浸在戏剧幻觉中的观众的想象力“放弃”。⁵或许——但这样的解释只能说明一半的问题。因为正如我们所看到的，在《浮士德》的表演中，不仅仅是观众，而是演员和观众集体目睹了“其中一人发展太多”的可怕景象（事实上，在埃克塞特，演员们实际上煽动了随后发生的事情）。恐慌）。^{6当演员和观众}看到同样的东西时，亨利五世范式（“想想，当我们谈论马时，你会看到它们”[Prologue.26；我的重点]）就会崩溃。马洛的戏剧如何引发了如此强大的边界消解……