The Theatrical Event: Dynamics of Performance and Perception. By Willmar Sauter. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2000; pp. 272, illustrations. $42.50 hardcover.

Extract

Since theatre emerged as an academic discipline, scholars and artists have argued over how to define it. These debates have had various motivations: the desire to capture the full dimensions of their object of study, the search for appropriate methods of analysis, and the fight for intellectual ground in academic power struggles. The increasingly popular term “performance,” which arose out of dissatisfaction with the narrow aesthetic and cultural limits that the concept of “theatre” seems to impose, has been likewise much debated (as demonstrated in Marvin Carlson's 1996 survey).