The Nature and Purpose of Theatre

This is the book's core theme, and the focus of the author's analysis. His premise, put simply, is that theatre exists in order to wake humanity up to a fuller, more intimate, more immediate knowledge of itself in all its flaws and wonder. It's important to note that several times through the book he makes his point by referring to what theatre shouldn't be. Indeed, this is the premise of its first three essays, on the deadly, the holy, and the rough theatre. Good theatre, true theatre, valid theatre - all, the author maintains, are served only by theatre that eliminates the "Deadly", is inspired by the "Holy", and anchored emotionally and narratively by the "Rough". Theatre that is any of those three things alone, without any leavening from the other forms, is in the author's mind ultimately ineffective. The fourth essay, on...