What is the theatre?

This volume is one of the most coherent and systematic descriptions and analyses of the theatre yet compiled.

Theatre is, above all, spectacle. It is a fleeting performance, delivered by actors and intended for spectators.

It is a work of the body, an exercise of voice and gesture addressed to an audience, most often in a specific location and with a unique setting.

This entertainment event rests on the delivery of a thing promised and expected - a particular and unique performance witnessed by spectators who have come to the site of the performance for this reason.

Here, Biet and Triau focus on the practical, theoretical, and historical positions that the spectator and the reader have had in relation to the locations that they frequent and the texts that they handle.