Introduction: Modernism and Anti-theatricality

Abstract

Twenty years ago, Jonas Barish identified a disposition within Western culture that he termed the anti-theatrical prejudice. From the Greeks to the present, he cites instances of a bias against the expressive, the imitative, the deceptive, the spectacular, and the subject that arouses, or even acknowledges, an audience. Exposing the philosophical, moral, and aesthetic assumptions made by the enemies of the theatre throughout the centuries, his Antitheatrical Prejudice sought to fortify theatre's defenses against its detractors. This special issue of Modern Dramo offers a critical appraisal of Barish's seminal study. While indebted to him, the collection argues that Barish's trans-historical notion both of anti-theatricalism and, by extension, of the theatre itself is in need of a number of revisions. By focusing on aspects of modem drama (including its intersections with other cultural forms), the articles that follow insist on a historical grounding of any understanding of anti-theatricalism and therefore explore various forms of a specifically modernist critique of theatre. In doing so, the collection moves beyond Barish's monolithic understanding of "the theatre" and proposes to see modem theatre as a field marked by competing, and often contradictory, impulses and developments, a field in which different theatres are engaged in a contentious struggle with one another.