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).
Notes
1 Plato and Xenophon knew Socrates, of course, but wrote about him after his death.
2 See Claudius Aelianus (1997)Varia Historiatrans. 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.Preface xiii