There still tends to be a focal point, in my experience. Yeah they'll force you to look somewhere other than the "stage" (which may, in some venues, be a pretty

There still tends to be a focal point, in my experience. Yeah they'll force you to look somewhere other than the "stage" (which may, in some venues, be a pretty amorphous thing but is still probably in one general area) to create or break tension, but it's not a constant gawk-fest where you're looking all over the place all the time. Good theater doing this sort of thing uses it for emphasis. To force attention to shift or change or to make it clear to you that "something has changed". Likewise, audience participation is there to give the audience the sense of being active participants, but still without demanding too much of them (unless it's really active improv or something). It has particular power, I think, in plays that are somewhat confessional in nature. Drawing the audience in to the conspiracy/shame/excitement is powerful there. But if it's a standard narrative I think it bogs things down a bit.