Description
Book SynopsisThis readable, thought-provoking, and multidisciplinary study explores theatrical writings that question the Aristotelian aesthetical-generic conception and seek instead to work with the medium of theatricality itself.
Trade Review"With his customary wit and an acupuncturist's knack for exerting philosophical pressure on the most banal formulae of consumer society ('home theater,' 'casting,' 'the commercial break,' 'Stay with us!'), Sam Weber outlines a reading of theater as a place, a juncture, never fully inhabited or vacated by its great theorists (as varied as Plato, Sophocles, Kierkegaard, and Benjamin). The transition from 'theater' to 'media' is made by an excavation of long-submerged metaphors and a recovery of the many meanings of 'acting.' Sharp, dramatic in its own right, and rich in implications, this book is entirely 'in character.'"- -- -Haun Saussy Yale University "Theatricality as Medium is one of those rare and necessary books that seem-but just seem-to appear out of nowhere, to challenge the habits of thougt and dispel intellectual cliches in the fields of performance and theatre studies." -The Drama Review
