In the following introduction to his Public and Performance in the Greek Theatre, Arnott explores the physical dimensions of the Greek stage, their significance, and their influence on drama written to be performed there.

Plays are conditioned by their environment. Every age produces its handful of closet dramatists, who elect to write in dramatic form as a literary convenience, with no expectation of production; and there are always a few who write for some visionary theatre of the future, asking more than the state of the art can give. But practising playwrights work from a basis of practical stagecraft. They write for the kind of playhouse they know; for actors whose skills and training they are familiar with; and for an audience whose preconceptions are known, and whose responses are predictable. The design of the theatre building, the nature of the space available, the possibility of adapting...