The audience for theatre in Guyana exhibits certain characteristics and behaviours defined by history, colonialism, slavery, culture and tradition. It has taken its shape and attitudes from the interplay of these factors over centuries that have been similar in all the English Caribbean territories. It has been driven by traditions, both indigenous and imported, and by social class.
Today, the audience for theatre in Guyana, much like the rest of the Caribbean, lends itself easily to post-colonial study. This is the result of all the social factors which have survived the race and class divisions of a colonial history in the Caribbean – or have they survived? Those historical factors have hung over, in the eyes of the more radical commentators, to the point of neo-colonialism. Generally it can be compared to what distinguished critic Edward Baugh said about the West Indian literature – that it has developed its own character and independence, it has emerged out of a history, it has experienced definite decolonisation, but its colonial quality is not something to be outgrown.
Today, while the audience for theatre may in part be closely related to the types of theatre, for the greater part it is determined more by social attitudes than by
