Should you refer to the ‘reader’ or the ‘audience’ when commenting on a play?

It is important to remember that when analysing and answering questions on plays such as Romeo and Juliet, An Inspector Calls and Macbeth, we are only looking at the scripts. You must remember that these plays were performed in front of real people- which is why we refer to them as the audience.

However, when looking at novellas such as A Christmas Carol or Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, these were written and published without a performance; which is why we reference them as the reader and not the audience.

It’s always important to remember that plays are plays, and not novels. As a result we should explore them slightly differently. Whilst it’s fine to analyse language we also need to think about that language in terms of the character that speaks those words and in the presence of whom. A character performing a solo speech to the audience (soliloquy) is probably revealing true feelings to us. We also need to consider the words off the page by thinking about where characters are standing when they speak the words and what this says about the relationships between characters (proxemics).