The purpose of the “fourth wall” isn’t to protect the audience from the performers. It has two purposes. First, to create a special place where, as Coleridge put it, the willing suspension of disbelief may take place. Secondly, it protects the performers from the audience.
My advice: ixnay on the ambushesway. The stage is your safe space. Unless you want every performance to become a real-life re-enactment of the country western bar scene in The Blues Brothers. Maybe I ought to go after the chicken wire concession.
