Philosophy and theatre emerged from the same place at the same time: Ancient Greece in the 6th century BC. They are both Greek words: ‘philosophy’ is the ‘love of wisdom’, ‘theatre’ is the ‘place for viewing’. The first philosopher, Thales, died in approximately 546 BC. Little more than a decade later, Thespis, the first playwright, won his first prize, having reputedly invented acting (as we now understand it) along the way. Like many developing twins, philosophy and theatre had a complicated relationship. The case of Socrates is instructive. The earliest source we have for Socrates is his appearance as a character in Aristophanes' comedy, The Clouds – indeed, that is the only source that dates from during his lifetime.1 It is not a flattering picture: Socrates is to be found measuring the size of a flea's foot or stealing his students' clothing; worse, he convinces his students to abandon traditional Athenian religion and he turns promising young Athenians into immoral tricksters. One source suggests that Socrates saw Aristophanes' play and may have found the whole thing amusing – in any case, he was hardly the first Athenian figure to be mocked by Aristophanes.2 But, in a changing political climate, the punishment for Socrates' philosophising and its perceived influence went from public ridicule to execution: Socrates was put to death for corrupting the youth and for not believing in the gods of the city – the very things for which he had been mocked in Aristophanes' play.
While Socrates was still alive, so one source claims, he had worked together with Euripides to write tragedies; he had also convinced a young tragedian called Plato to give up writing plays and become a philosopher.3 After Socrates died, Plato wrote a defence speech on Socrates' behalf – the Apology; it doesn't mention Aristophanes directly, but it does emphasise the false rumours and prejudices that made Socrates' conviction all but certain. This is taken by many to be a reference to Socrates' depiction in The Clouds. Plato, in turn, would go on to unite Socrates and Aristophanes as characters in his Symposium – Socrates out-thinks and out-drinks his comedian adversary; and in The Republic, as we shall see, Plato would attack contemporary Athenian theatre – but he would do so in the form of a dialogue, using the character of Socrates as his mouthpiece. Many scholars think that Plato's pupil, Aristotle, wrote his Poetics by way of a response to Plato's criticisms of theatre; certainly, Aristotle's Poetics was the single most influential theoretical treatise on theatre, interpreted and reinterpreted by modern European playwrights in many traditions and used to inform how they wrote their plays. It may be speculative – but it really isn't very speculative – to say that philosophy as we now know it would be unrecognisable without theatre and that theatre as we now know it would be unrecognisable without philosophy.
The case of Socrates also reminds us that the relationship between philosophy and theatre has ranged from highly antagonistic to highly collaborative – often at the same time, even in the same person. Plato, who attacked the theatre, wrote his attacks in dialogue form; centuries later, Rousseau would criticise the theatre – often adapting Plato's arguments – but he would also make his name as a playwright. So, although it is easy to find philosophers condemning the theatre and playwrights mocking the pretensions of philosophers, it is just as easy to find plays that are informed by philosophical approaches and philosophers who are committed, in some way, to the theatre.
This book presents a series of philosophical topics, problems or questions that arise in relation to theatre and that, taken together, are meant to offer a comprehensive overview and introduction. My hope, in each case, is that readers will be presented with the main issues, that they will come to know where the principal contributors stand and that they will know where to look should they want to pursue these topics in more detail. I do not assume background knowledge in the academic study of philosophy or of theatre; hence, some material in this book may be familiar to students of philosophy although completely unknown to students of theatre, whereas the reverse is likely to be true for others. But for those with a background in theatre, the book should offer a grounding in the relevant philosophical discussions and the means to explore them further. And for those with a background in academic philosophy, the philosophical study of theatre – these days given relatively little airtime compared with fine art, music, novels or films – will require looking at otherwise unfamiliar topics and texts that bring to light new concerns or that cast new light on old ones.
My approach to the topics in this book has been governed by two major considerations. On the one hand, I have always tried to keep an eye on the sorts of questions that everyday spectators and those who work in theatre might ask – which, indeed, I have heard around me before and after theatrical performances – and that philosophical approaches might assist in answering or, at the very least, clarifying. At a production that makes drastic alterations to a well-known play text: ‘Should directors be allowed to get away with it?’ At a highly abstract, symbolist production: ‘How “realistic” was the performance and how much does that matter?’ At a play about climate change denial: ‘Shouldn't playwrights stop messing with politics and stick to writing good plays?’4 On the other hand, I have considered the philosophers, past and present, who have written on theatre. Philosophers who write about theatre are not hard to find: Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Hegel and Nietzsche are just some of the most recognisable names. Several philosophers were also notable playwrights in their own right, including Seneca, Machiavelli, Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, Lessing, Schiller and Sartre – at least four of them belong to the first group, too. There are countless others who have contributed to philosophical discussion about theatre in one way or another. Sometimes, of course, philosophers address the sorts of questions I just mentioned, directly or at least indirectly. Often, however, they offer new conceptual tools, new terminology, new distinctions and indeed new questions of their own. The aim of each discussion is to find a balance between these two considerations – to tread the path between clarifying or answering everyday questions and engaging seriously with the philosophical contributions at hand. Sometimes, the path was already well trodden; often, I have had to clear it for myself. In either case, it goes without saying that many deserving thinkers and thoughts have not found their way into a book of this size and scope; the suggestions for further reading are intended to minimise some of the damage. Specific recommendations are to be found along the way in the notes to each chapter. The selection of ‘further reading’ at the end of each chapter offers those I take to be particularly useful or, failing that, unavoidable in some sense.
Aside from the first chapter, ‘What is Theatre?’, the book is divided into two sections. The two sections correspond to two directions of fit: ‘from the world to the stage’ and ‘from the stage to the world’. Loosely speaking, then, the topics in the first section are about the (mis) representation of reality on the stage; those in the second section are about the effect that the stage has upon its audiences. This is a cursory distinction, which doesn't do much more than give me an organising principle for the chapters – as we shall see, answers on each side will clearly impact upon answers from the other – but I hope it's clear why questions about truth, imitation or historical accuracy belong on one side, whereas questions about ethics or the political efficacy of theatre belong on the other. Although the book is intended to be read from start to finish (and the chapters frequently refer to one another), readers should certainly feel free to turn straight to chapters of particular interest.
There are innumerable ways of approaching theatre from an academic point of view and there are plenty of ways of approaching it that aren't obviously academic at all – watching and performing plays are surely among the best. As for the academic approaches, readers will understand that this is not a work of theatre history; nor do I offer criticism of individual plays or performances. The choice to construct the book around particular topics – like ‘politics’ or ‘truth’ – has meant that I do not offer a chronological account of the development of the philosophy of theatre. Nor, in general, do I dwell on the very different customs and practices associated with particular kinds of theatre at particular times (although I have tried to bring out relevant details at certain points). Although theatre practices have changed enormously over time, the problems, arguments and conceptual clarifications offered in these chapters are wide-ranging enough, I hope, to stand up on their own. Whereas many writers on theatre view it under the general scope of ‘performance’ – taken to include theatre, but also sports, religious rituals, political rallies and even the kinds of ‘performances’ that we all might be said to put on in everyday interactions with each other – I focus relatively narrowly on theatre, the art form. Much that is discussed in these pages could bear upon other kinds of performance and upon other forms of art, but I have found that there's plenty to say about theatre alone.5 Nor, finally, do I explore various recent trends that take philosophy itself to have something essentially theatrical, dramatic or performative about it; such an omission should not be taken as a dismissal of these views, which in any case are highly varied: to give them their due would take us in a completely different direction.
It is my conviction that the philosophical approaches set out in this book can help us to clarify our thoughts about theatre and provoke us into thinking in new ways. But there's no reason to think that philosophers are uniquely positioned to shed light on theatre, and this book makes no such claim. Instead, I hope that the reader will find these philosophical enquiries to be one instructive mode of thinking about theatre – to be combined, fruitfully, with many others. That, in any case, has been my experience.
For those who are inclined to begin at the beginning, reading Aristophanes' The Clouds alongside Plato's Apology and Symposium is a highly rewarding experience. As for modern introductory texts: Carlson (1993) is an extraordinarily comprehensive, chronological survey of theatre theory in all of its various guises from Aristotle to the twentieth century – far broader in scope than the present volume; Brown (1995), Williams (2006) and Brockett & Hildy (2010) are extremely helpful introductions to the history of theatre, together with further reading; Balme (2008) introduces theatre studies to unfamiliar readers, while Bial (2004) does the same for performance studies. Barish (1981) remains an important and accessible study of theatre-bashers, beginning with Plato and including Rousseau and Nietzsche. For a brief, light-touch account of the different approaches taken by contemporary philosophers and theatre or performance scholars, see Saltz (2001b). Among recent publications on philosophy and theatre, Woodruff (2008), although idiosyncratic, is the most far-reaching and accessible; but see also Puchner (2010), Hamilton (2007) and Rokem (2010); Zamir (2007) focuses on Shakespeare. For a critical review of some recent work on philosophy and theatre (including some of these books), see Stern (2013).
1 Plato and Xenophon knew Socrates, of course, but wrote about him after his death.
2 See Claudius Aelianus (1997) Varia Historia trans. D. O. Johnson, Lewiston: E Mellen Press, p. 40; for discussion of this and other references to Socrates' engagement with theatre, see Puchner (2010: 3–9).
3 At least, according to the (probably apocryphal) anecdote in Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, trans. R D Hicks, Harvard: HUP, 1972, vol. I, Book III, p. 281.
4 For what it's worth, I have heard versions of each of these questions asked by people around me at recent productions, although in some cases I have written them up in a slightly sanitised form.
5 On theatre and its relation to other art forms, see Chapter 1.