going to see? Not really: this performance differs considerably from
another performance I have seen; but they are bothHamlet; so this per-
formance isn’t all there is toHamletany more than the written text is all
there is toHamlet.As‘art objects’, then, plays are harder to pinpoint than
other kinds of art: it’s pretty clear, in contrast, what the Bayeux Tapestry
is and where tofind it; butHamletseems to hover somewhere between a
set of unchanging texts (albeit open to changes in the editing process)
and an open-ended series of performances and productions stretching back
to Shakespeare’s time and on into the future. Reflections on our different
attitudes to text and performance have led some to suggest thatHamlet
the text andHamlet the performance should be thought of as different
works of art. David Saltz, for example, writes that‘“to read Hamlet”and
“to see Hamlet”denote such different experiences that we might well ask
whether the word Hamlet has the same reference in the two expressions’.
He continues:‘If I have seen a play twice, and read it three times, is there
some single “thing” that I have encountered five times?’^28 Plenty of
people, myself included, think the answer to this question is obviously
‘yes’: namely,Hamlet. But, it must be said, ifHamletis a thing, then it’s
an odd one: one can encounterHamletin the texts or in the performances,
but in neither case has one completely exhausted its possibilities. These
are the sorts of considerations that might lead to further investigation on
the part of philosophers and theorists about the relationship between the
play text and the performance. But, of course, there’s no reason to think
thatHamletneeds to be identical with the text or with the performance
(which it isn’t), or that it needs to be an object like the Bayeux Tapestry
(which it obviously isn’t); it could just be a kind of imagined, abstract
construction out of texts and performances–or a useful label that none-
theless doesn’t pick out any one unique thing in the world. The question
of exactly whatHamletis may never be answered in the way that a similar
question about theBayeux Tapestrycould be. And why would anybody
expect such an answer or seek tofind it?
There is, as I suggested, a second, aesthetic motivation for discussion of
the text–performance relationship. This is an aesthetic conflict about
where the artistic value of theatre lies. Put in extreme form, one side
views play texts–primarily works of dramatic literature–as the central
aesthetic focus. They are to be revered as literary constructions: words on
a page, like poems and novels; unfortunately, sitting on top of works of
dramatic literature, and threatening to obliterate them, there has devel-
oped a sort of glamorous, unsightly mould comprising actors, directors,
critics and theatregoers, not to mention lighting technicians, sound
engineers, costume designers and so on. The other side treats theatrical
performances as the locus of artistic merit: theatre is basically akin to
music and dance, for reasons we have discussed; techniques of literary
What is theatre? 13