A play can have power over its audience, whether simply by fascinating them with its plot or making them question their beliefs with Although the actors are the ones who directly exercise this power over the audience, it is the writer or director who has power over everything. Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and William Shakespeare's The Tempest are meta-theatrical works as their characters parallel this. . power structure of the theatre; the main characters of the plays can all be classified as audience, actor or director, and it is the character who represents the director in each work who has power over the characters who represent the audience, through the characters who the director uses as actors, the works differ, however, in terms of how the director maintains power over the audience, in Doctor Faustus, Mephistopheles is the real director, but convinces Faustus that he is a director to keep him in the dark; of its role as an audience. On the other hand, Prospero in The Tempest flaunts his theatricality and keeps his audience aware that they are an audience witnessing a performance, which more closely resembles real theater where the audience is aware of the fact that they are spectators. These different approaches to the power dynamics between the characters are indicative of the writers' different approaches to theater itself. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayA real audience in a real theater is aware of the fact that they are spectators and is therefore not completely susceptible to the power of playing; they are aware that what they are seeing is a spectacle, so they are able to resist the influence of the spectacle. So in Doctor Faustus, Mephistopheles, through performance, allows Faustus to believe that he is the director, so he doesn't realize that he is actually the audience, the one under Mephistopheles' power. In this way, unaware of the performative nature of the demon he believes he controls, Faustus is unable to resist Mephistopheles' power. Faustus assumes he is in control immediately after summoning the demon. “I order you to return and change your form / You are too ugly to assist me. / Go, and an old Franciscan friar returns; / That sacred form becomes better than the devil,” Faust immediately says to Mephistopheles once he appears (Marlowe 1.3.24-5). Not only does Faust assume that he is in command and has power over Mephistopheles, but he is also making aesthetic decisions as he would a director in a play; he is actually ordering the demon, as if he were an actor in a play that Faustus is putting on, to change costume Faustus believes he has, Faustus persists in believing his delusion of power, which Mephistopheles then begins to exploit. In the next act, when Faustus expresses concern about having signed a pact with the demon, Mephistopheles digresses, saying: I will fetch something to delight his mind" (2.1.82). A group of devils enter and dance, to which Faustus replies "What does this show mean?" Mephistopheles replies, "Nothing, Faust, but to delight your mind / And to show you what magic can do” (2.1.83-5). Marlowe appears to have deliberately used theatrical imagery through words such as "show" and "perform" to emphasize the connection between the theater and the relationship between Faustus and the demon. In this scene the relationship is reversed; Mephistopheles summons the devils, his actors, and orders them to dance. Faustus, here, is the audience. However, Mephistopheles explains this to Faust in one waywhich keeps Faust unaware of this dynamic. Saying that this shows him "what magic can do," the demon links this performance to the magical power that Faustus believes he has. He gives Faustus a taste of what his supposed power can do, which only makes him grow Faustus's sense of his own power. When Faustus asks "But I can raise the spirits when I please", the demon responds with "Yes, Faustus, and do greater things than these", further implying Faustus's role as director here, suggesting that Faustus can direct "things ​bigger" than the show he has just witnessed, de-emphasizing his role in directing the previous show (2.1.86-7). So every time Faust orders Mephistopheles to do something, Faust assumes that he is the director and that the demon is the actor, which increases his confidence in his own power, when the truth is that Mephistopheles is staging this display of obedience with Faust as his. public to prevent Faustus from leaving their pact. Even at the end of the play, Faustus is unaware of his manipulation by Mephistopheles, still unaware that he is Mephistopheles' audience rather than his director. When, for example, he orders Mephistopheles to conjure an image of Helen of Troy, he consumes the demon in her likeness like a piece of multimedia rather than controlling its actions like a director. “Here I will dwell, for heaven is in these lips / And all is dross that is not Helen,” he says, praising her beauty in seeing her (5.1.95-6). He is enjoying yet another show that the devil has prepared for him. After being distracted by the demon from his original goal of gaining knowledge, the way he orders Mephistopheles seems less like a director controlling an actor in a play, and more like a modern consumer flipping through TV shows and deciding which one to look at. . He's making decisions, but only about what kind of entertainment he wants to consume, what kind of entertainment he wants to be an audience for. Mephistopheles tells him before summoning Helen "Faustus, this, or what else you will desire / Will be executed in the twinkling of an eye" (5.1.89-90). Faustus may interpret "perform" as carrying out his will, but Mephistopheles is rather putting on a performance that Faustus's failure to detect will harm him. However, as demonstrated by Shakespeare's The Tempest, simply being aware that you are part of an audience is not always enough to understand what is happening, or enough to give it power. Prospero makes no effort to hide the fact that the castaway nobles trapped on his island are the audience for a play; this, however, neither provides any clarity to the situation nor gives them any advantage. For example, when the nobles are searching on the island for Ferdinand, the son of the missing king, they come across, according to the captions, “several strange Shapes, bringing a feast; they dance around you with sweet gestures of greeting; and, inviting the King, &c. to eat, they go away” (Shakespeare 3:3). This vision is reminiscent of Mephistopheles' dancing demons, but the effect on the nobles is different; while it makes Faustus feel empowered, this makes the lords feel lost and helpless. Sebastian refers to the sight as "A living nonsense", referring to it as something funny before focusing on the strange and supernatural nature of what he just saw; this suggests that the spirits were the embodiment or personification of entertainment, or theater (3.3). Prospero's captive spirit, Ariel, promptly enters in the form of a harpy to threaten the lords, after which the "Forms" return to dance again and remove the banquet. King Alonso reacts to these events by telling his companions "The winds sang it to me, and the thunder, / That deep and