Theories of the Theatre [antikvár]

Preface Although theatre has been the subject of speculative inquiry ever since the Greeks, there is by no means a general consensus (perhaps less today than ever) as to just what constitutes or ought to constitute the body of critical theory devoted to this art. The first and in many ways greatest difficulty in pursuing the present investigation was in laying out and attempting to maintain certain boundaries that would allow both flexibility and coherence in the material considered. Neither "theory" nor "theatre" is a term of unambiguous application, so the reader deserves some idea of what has been included and what excluded from a historical survey of Western theatrical theory. The term "theory," then, I have taken to mean statements of general principles regarding the methods, aims, functions, and characteristics of this particular art form. It is thus separated on the one hand from aesthetics, dealing with art in general, and on the other from the criticism of particular works and reviews of particular productions. Obviously, a certain amount of overlap in these categories is unavoidable. Theatre theory rarely if ever exists in a "pure" form. Observations on theatre will be embedded in or related to observations on other arts or on all art, and so theory is involved with aesthetics. And general principles will most commonly be derived from or illustrated by examples of specific plays or productions, and so theory becomes involved with criticism and reviewing. What I have sought, then, is less a matter of pure cases than of writings in which the theoretical element is paramount, or at least is sufficiently independent from the analysis of an individual work to warrant separate discussion. It would be difficult if not impossible, for example, to discuss the history of Western theatrical theory without devoting a significant amount of space to remarks on Greek tragedy and Shakespeare, but the aim of this book is to trace Preface to the Expanded Edition Less than a decade ago, when I completed work on the first edition of this book, I hardly expected to be taking up the task of providing supplementary material to it so soon, but in the field of theory in general and theatre theory in particular, the range and complexity of new approaches have expanded so rapidly in this brief period that one may already speak of an almost totally new landscape. The late twentieth century is now often called an "age of theory" and certainly within the past decade theoretical concerns have marked an ever larger share of conference topics and publications in theatre studies, while whole new areas of theoretical speculation have developed. The dazzling growth and variety of feminist theory is surely the most striking illustration of this, but the closely related fields of cultural studies and the many varieties of sociological theory have added richly to theatre studies, not to speak of the continuing explorations of semiotics, phenomenology, psychoanalysis, and other approaches already introduced in the earlier version of this book. With this dizzying expansion of the field, the possibility of providing a guide that can make any claims to comprehensiveness becomes ever more remote, but it is my hope that the new material here presented will at least provide a helpful introduction to this vast and complex subject. Once again I must thank the many friends and colleagues whose advice and suggestions have been invaluable to me in this challenging but fascinating project. Marvin Carlson New York, New York August iggs