Studying Reception: Theoretical Framework and Methodology

Abstract

As argued in Chapter 2, the function of biographical references in performances can only be analysed if their production and reception are taken into account. The analysis of productions in the previous chapters has identified different patterns of references and has sought to identify their impact on practitioners’ work. This has allowed educated guesses to be made about the elements that can trigger, maintain or contradict a biographical mode of reception. The chapters also hypothesised about the potential consequences of conflicting signals about the play’s relationship to the life world and the possible impact of biographical material on the spectators’ expectations and evaluation of these productions. In the following chapters these questions will be pursued further through the discussion of feedback from audiences in order to overcome the emphasis on the scholar as sole spectator. Reception studies on specific plays in Chapter 7 are preceded by the presentation of a model of reception and an introduction to the methodological approach used for these studies. Such groundwork is important in order to predict at which points of the reception process biographical material is most likely to impact on audiences’ reactions. Empirical studies can then be used to counter or confirm these differences in the context of specific productions ‘in such a way that the theory is illuminated by the data, and the data take on greater significance through the lens of concepts and theory’ (Barker, 2003, p. 327).