The Common Man in the play A Man for All Seasons has a vital role. He is the link between the audience and the game itself. His purpose is to keep the audience from becoming too emotionally involved in the play, to destroy the idea of theatrical illusion, and to make the audience able to identify with him by portraying many different familiar characters. The Common Man introduces, and, in one end, concludes the play, which makes him an important character.
             The Common Man wears normal commoners' clothes so that the audience can immediately identify with him. He represents common sense and morals and provides the audience with humour, motivation, perspective, and irony (http://home.pacific.net.au/ ~greg.hub/commonman.html, PG. 3. Because of this, the Common Man is similar in purpose to the Chorus in ancient Greek drama: to review the action, to explore the play and its consequences, and to relate the action to everyday life for the audience. (http://home.pacific. net.au/~greg.hub/commonman.html, PG. 2)
             A Man For All Seasons begins with the Common Man standing in the middle of the stage holding and changing his costumes right in front of the audience. He then continues to question his own costumes, saying,
             "Is this a costume? Does this say anything? It barely covers a mans nakedness! A bit of black material to reduce Old Adam to the Common Man" (Pg. 3)
             The purpose of this quote, and the Common Man, is to draw the audience into what is going on in the play. The audience is meant to think about the action in the play, and not to rely only on their emotions to guide them.
             The Common Man also changes sets in the middle of the action of the play. In the first scene he stands beside a basket filled with props for the next scene, and he talks to the audience about Thomas More while he is taking these props out and setting them up. He explains to us which character he is going to portray, and that he needs a costum...