Theater

Despite its ancient history as a set of practices, theatrical performance has been a relatively new subject for philosophical examination within the broadly analytic tradition. Not much work had been done concerning it before the middle of the 1990s. What had been done was fragmentary and dispersed (Saltz 1998: 375). But things have changed over the past decade or so, and it is useful to describe the philosophical landscape as it currently exists. Such a description will also allow us to sketch some new lines of investigation into promising and fertile questions. Strategies for discussing what may be distinctive about theatrical practice have

focused upon its peculiar use of texts, ways to describe what makes performers’ contributions important, the distinctive qualities revealed in live performances, the nature and necessity of an audience or the effects that spatial arrangements can have on what can be grasped in theatrical performances. These have produced interesting and important reflection on aspects of theatrical performances.