Offending the Audience (Publikumsbeschimpfung)

"You won’t see a play; There will be no acting here. (…) We are not actors. We won’t portray anything. We won’t present anything." Peter Handke’s first "speaking piece" is a rejection of the foundations of bourgeois theatre. The actors don’t act, they speak directly to the audience, who are teased out of their role of disengaged voyeurs. When the play premiered in 1977 at the Theater am Turm in Frankfurt, directed by Claus Peymann, it caused a scandal. The piece was an "uprising against the status quo" (Peymann).

And today? What does this play still have going for it – a play that culminates in tirades against the audience, only for the audience then to be thanked? 

What do theatre and audiences want and demand of each other? What are they allowed, what are they capable of? And how do they confront each other on this evening?