From the Editor

Extract

We open this issue of Theatre Survey with Marvin Carlson's essay on how the events of 9/11 and the subsequent wars with Afghanistan and Iraq have affected New York theatre. At the core of Carlson's essay is a very subtle depiction of theatre forced by world events to contemplate anew its understanding of history and its understanding of the role that theatre has to play in history. Carlson's essay offers us an image of theatre communities that, in their responses to the deeply troubling events of the past two and a half years, have struggled to understand whether theatre is outside or inside of history, that is, whether theatre is “somehow out of place in a situation of real crisis and suffering” or whether it can be an actual force of change. At one level, then, Carlson's essay is significant because it illuminates how acts of terrorism and acts of war force theatre to return to the most basic questions about its function in society at large. Those questions serve as our point of departure because their answers change with history.