APPENDIX

Since we hate the contemporary theatre in all its manifestations and have no competence in theatrical questions, we have no intention of expounding here a theory based on expert knowledge of such matters. We are solely concerned with giving a rough sketch of an idea which, lacking suitable data, we do not even claim to be realizable. If works which even approximately illustrated this “theory” actually existed, it would be possible to talk about it quite differently For the time being there are no such works, and, as we ourselves admit, it is even doubtful there ever will be. We live in an age of manifestoes: even before an artistic movement spontaneously comes into being, its theory is often already in a state of near perfection. Theories are starting to create movements, and not vice versa. Besides, in former times there weren’t “movements” in our sense of the word, or different “isms,” there were only powerful personalities and the schools formed by their followers. At least that was the case with painting. A greater and greater intellectualization of the creative process and subjugation of the outbursts of genius to principles conceived a priori is the characteristic trait of art in our times. We have no intention of justifying our “theory” in this way It is not the result of any manifesto, as you might think, given the general schematic tendency of art today These are only a few random remarks suggested by the impressions we have formed of the contemporary theatre and by our observation of the current attempts at a “renaissance” of the art of the theatre, based on scant knowledge of what the theatre was in the past. Again and again it has been pointed out that the theatre had its origin in the religious mysteries. All art, like religion, which in former times was closely linked with it, has its source in metaphysical feelings. Painting, music, and to some degree sculpture, arts which function through their own simple elements, have in one sense become abstract, i.e., they have become Pure Arts. To the extent that architecture serves less and less

ideal and more and more utilitarian goals, it declines; and the theatre, whose elements are people and their actions-just as the elements of painting are colors enclosed in form, and the elements of music are sounds expressed in rhythm-the theatre, with the progressive decline of metaphysical feelings, had to turn into a pure reproduction of life. The religious rite, losing its primary significance, gives rise to the theatre as a secondary product of its decadence. It seems to us that this is clearly visible in Greece, where a theatre separate from the religious mysteries came into being for the first time. At the period when Christianity began to disintegrate in the fifteenth century, the theatre, at first using only religious themes, began to emerge for a second time, and its development, or rather constant decline, continues right up to our own days. The theatre is an Art, which due to the nature of its elements, i.e., because it deals with people and their actions, arises in its purest form only at the breaking point and collapse of a given cult. Since in its essence it contains the element of disintegration, the theatre might be said to be in a continual and progressive state of decline.