“Our Uncle Vanya”: Red Ladder’s production of ‘Glory” (April 2019)

By Claire Warden In 1957 Roland Barthes famously said, “The virtue of all-in wrestling is that it is the spectacle of excess. Here we find a grandiloquence which must have been that of ancient theatres”. In fact the histories of professional wrestling and theatre are deeply intertwined, from the music hall where wrestling pioneers such … Read more “Our Uncle Vanya”: Red Ladder’s production of ‘Glory” (April 2019)

CFP: Sport / Spectacle Conference

Sport­ / Spectacle: Performing, Labouring, Circulating Bodies Across Sport, Theatre, Dance, and Live Art Friday 14 and Saturday 15 September 2018, Kings College London, Strand Campus Day 1, Keynote and Screening with Jennifer Doyle, 14 September, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM, Nash Lecture Theatre Day 2, Papers, Workshops, and Performances, 15 September, 10:00 AM – … Read more CFP: Sport / Spectacle Conference

The Fourth Wall and Professional Wrestling

In this brief essay, I want to share an idea I have had about how the concept of audience interaction helps to define sports entertainment as existing at the intersection of sports and entertainment. Audience interaction with content (what I have written about here as content interactivity) is the idea that the audience member (either individually or as an aggregate) can in some way engage with the text to the extent that they can influence the progression of the text’s content.

A video game like The Legend of Zelda, for example, responds to the individual’s decisions and actions to determine how the game unfolds for the player. A call-in contest reality show like American Idol responds to the aggregate of the masses voting for who succeeds and who doesn’t. If we look at professional wrestling from this perspective of audience interactivity, then I think we can notice something happening that helps define what it is while also demonstrating a convergence of identities as the lines between audience and producer blur.

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