ABSTRACT
To understand Sartre’s conception of theater properly, it is useful to take a step back and have a look at two radically different stage designs. If we have a look at “Shakespeare Globe,” a reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, an Elizabethan playhouse associated with William Shakespeare, we notice that its “thrust stage projects into a large circular yard surrounded by three tiers of raked seating. […This kind of stage allows] the actors and the audience [to] interact easily with each other, adding to the feeling of a shared experience and of a community event” (“Shakespeare’s Globe,” 2018). On the other hand, neo-classical and more modern French theater is performed on a stage that respects the convention of “the fourth wall,” which means that the rectangular space occupied by the audience is separated from the stage by an invisible barrier. This illusory “wall allows the actors to pretend that they cannot hear or see the audience and the audience get to enjoy the […] sensation of being a fly on the wall” (What is the 4th Wall?’, 2018).
