played by actors. The difficulty comes in applying these thoughts to
ourselves–but theatre enables us to forget this obligation and to feel
smug about how moral we are.^26
Emotion
Plutarch tells the story of a murderous tyrant, Alexander of Pherae, who
has killed many men, but who weeps at the sufferings of the characters at
a tragedy and walks out of the theatre:‘he was ashamed that his citizens
should see him, who never pitied any man that he murdered, weep at the
sufferings of Hecuba and Andromache’.^27 We shall look at theatre and
emotion in detail in a separate chapter. However, the connection between
them is often given a definite moral angle, which deserves a mention
here. Abstract moral theory presents itself to reason, to the intellect. But
the theatre makes youfeelthe terrible effects of evil (and the wondrous
effects of good). Alexander of Pherae may have been told, one supposes,
that forcing others to suffer was wrong; but the presentation of the suf-
fering Trojans at the theatre produced an emotional response that he
could not ignore. This can be taken further by defenders of the theatre, to
suggest that repeated watching of plays cantrainone’s feelings, so that
one becomes more sensitive to the effects of good and evil in everyday
life. The point of this is to distinguish between theatre and, say, a mor-
alistic fable. At the end of Aesop’s fable The Boy Who Cried Wolf, one
learns the principle that one shouldn’t lie, because liars aren’t believed
even when they tell the truth. Few have claimed that good theatre could
or should leave the audience better able to recite moral principles, or a
moral of the story. But many have thought that theatre can be particularly
effective in stimulating certain emotional responses and understanding
the emotional responses of others.
Perhaps surprisingly given its quaint and optimistic ring, the idea that
narrative artworks have a special or privileged role in moral, emotional
development has seen a strong revival in the last few decades–often
combined with claims that fall roughly under the‘immediacy’bracket
discussed above. Views of this kind have been advanced by a number of
philosophers, primarily in relation to novels, but also poems and plays.
Typical, in this context, would be Cora Diamond’s claim that‘poetry
[...] helps develop the heart’s capacities that are the basis for the moral
life by deepening our emotional life and our understanding of it’.^28
Behind the view that theatre trains our moral, emotional responses,
there often lies a view both about the emotions themselves and about the
way they are connected with morality. For some philosophers, particularly
in the Aristotelian tradition, a moral person is characterised by her
appropriate emotional responses. Hence, if theatre can train us to respond
108 From the Stage to the World