analysis are mostly irrelevant; any attempt to tell performers what to do,
based on the words of some playwright (dead or alive), is an unwelcome
trespass into the realm of artistic freedom.
Perhaps nobody holds these views to these extremes. But moderate
versions of some of them can certainly be found. Historically, Aristotle, as
we shall see, shows himself to be far more interested in the written ele-
ments of the tragedy–the plot and the characters–than the elements
relating to the performance alone, which he considers peripheral. Lessing,
although writing on behalf of a theatre, gives Aristotle’s claim a qualified
endorsement.^29 Some scholars, notably the Victorian essayist Charles
Lamb, have argued that Shakespeare’s plays in particular are better read
than performed. Nietzsche’s account of ancient tragedy in many ways
takes the opposite view to Aristotle: to look primarily at the play texts
associated with Attic tragedy is to miss its significance.
Where the relationship between a performance and a play text is rela-
tively conventional, it’s clear that the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
Viewing play texts as the aesthetic focus ignores or downplays the artistry
of performance; crucially, it also, more often than not, downplays the
artistry of the playwright: playwrights have often been active participants
in theatrical performances–as actors, producers, directors–and wrote
with them in mind.^30 You miss something if you read their work and
ignore the theatre; and, in fact, good literary criticism of play texts rarely
ignores the theatre. The difference between reading a scene and watching it
performed well can be striking. To give just two brief examples: the sig-
nificance of Nora’s dance inA Doll’s Houseis easy to miss on paper and
very difficult to miss if you see it happening in front of you. Another oft-
cited example is that of silence: to the solitary reader, the word‘silence’
on the page means very little and may be skipped over; but silence in a
packed auditorium means a great deal. (Teachers will know the difference
between peaceful, solitary silence and the awkward silence of a classroom.)
One can always imagine such things, but actively imagining something
and actually witnessing it are different. On the other hand, ignoring the
literary elements of a text–when that text is being used in a traditional
way as the basis for a performance–can lead to disappointing perfor-
mances, and the line between artistic freedom and the vanity project of a
director trying to make a splash is not always easy to draw.^31 Perfor-
mances are subject to various market pressures: theatres need to draw in
crowds, they are subject to fads and fashions, they use famous but not
necessarily talented actors to gain publicity. Productions of very well-
known plays must often be seen to do something new for the sake of
novelty alone. Lessing, although an admirer of the stage, suggests that
well-known actors tend to favour mediocre plays, which give them more
of a chance to shine as individuals than they would in a well-crafted
14 What is theatre?