Audiences of the Renaissance – Audience of today: discuss.

Recently I have read that the plays, in Italy, do not enjoy great participation by young people. According to statistics produced by ISTAT people who go to the theatre mainly belong to the age group comprising more than forty years old. This distribution, involving only the mature population, is in sharp contrast with what was theoretically the theatre audience in the Renaissance: consisting mainly of young people, and only a minority of adults.

To demonstrate this consideration, let us start by considering the level of cultural interest presented by young people in the two historical periods: now acquiring information regarding the major poetic works is not part of the primary interests which presents an average teenager; during the Renaissance, instead , ongoing discoveries and confutations of the theories developed during the Middle Ages lead renaissance man to ask new questions about the concept of existence, these questions are more accentuated by the normal desire to understand the world that occurs during adolescence. It may be concluded that adolescents in the Renaissance had a greater "culture of theatre," seen as a way to keep informed about new theological discoveries exposed in the tragedies, compared to young people today.

In addition to that, the lack of spread of wealth and the lack of other means of entertainment collective, led young people to go to Renaissance's theatre, which therefore became an entertainment as well as a meeting place. Today, however, many adolescents have electronic means with which to keep in touch and to enjoy moments of relax. In this way, we have lost the concept of "meeting", which was replaced by communication through social networks and mobile or otherwise, if it is still present, does not provide the theatre as a meeting place. There are also many other ways to spend your free time, between which there not is the theatre.

The abandonment of the theatre milieu also happens for economic reasons: during the Renaissance was the only kind of tragic or comic representation and the prices were proportional to social class; now theatre tickets, despite having different costs depending on the position desired, far exceed the cost of a cinema ticket. Ages with low income (or no income of their own) then opt for the cheapest option, an option that guarantees a greater involvement, greater ease of understanding that does not require special knowledge.

On the top of that, theatrical environment requires a certain type of clothing, clothing that does not match that used from the young: the light of the difference in costs mentioned above, the fact that in the theatre you should go with formal attire makes that theatre for young people can be even more out of their optics. In the Renaissance, on the contrary, the plays were organized for the people and there were no restrictions on clothing.

But on the other hand other experts argue that the age groups that play a greater part in theatrical performances are those comprising the children of school age (11-17). The high percentage of viewers in this group, however, is not to be considered spontaneous, as the students are brought to the theatre by the schools or by parents, but anyway do not go there by their own will.

Despite this argument, in my opinion the diversity of participation in theatrical performances by young people in the two periods is due to the different way of thinking developed over the centuries that separate our age from the Renaissance period. The revolutionary period of the Renaissance has meant that the population should acquire a greater interest in everything around her, now technological discoveries have led to a closed-mindedness more pronounced in those who are experiencing first-hand (young people).