What were some factors that influenced the rise of the passive audience in the West?

What will be an ideal response?

The passive audience became popular with the rise of realism in the late nineteenth century in the US and Europe. In realistic theatre, the audience is asked to accept the stage world as a believable alternate reality where things happen much as they would in life, and people behave in seemingly natural ways. The audience, therefore, does not intrude on the imaginary stage world, behaving as if there is a fourth wall between them and the stage. Advances in stage lighting also facilitated the rise of the passive audience; gas and electric lighting allowed the auditorium to be darkened while the stage was lit, and enabled actors to move away from the front of the stage and into the realistic stage environment.