or Venice or some other exotic locale. The audience depended upon theirimaginationto create or fill in what the actors and their spoken lines merely suggested. Likewise, the use of imagination would help the audience accept as a type of reality something that was obviously fictional and untrue. To put it more bluntly, the audiences of Shakespeare'sdaywere not botheredbythis unrealistic aspect of the play. They accepted it as “reality” for that particular story in much the same way that a reader of science fiction may accept the premise that there are live alien creatures on Mars when he actually knows that no such creatures reallyexist.
A term that is frequently used today and that describes mankind's ability to accept such unrealistic aspects of fiction issuspension of disbelief. People who read a book or go to the theater or even go to a movie temporarily suspend or ignore what they know to be true in order to enjoy that work of fiction. For example, the audience going to a movie that depicts aliens from Mars believes – during the time that they are watching the movie – that such creatures do exist. By accepting the premise that something blatantly untrue is true in the fictional “reality” of that movie, members of the audience can thus immerse themselves into that fictional reality and become emotionally involved with it and enjoy it. A member of the audience who holds on to his disbelief will not be truly able to enjoy the movie. Audiences, then, are likechildren atplay. A