ABSTRACT
What can theatre history show us about the theatricality of our minds in a postmodern, mass-mediatized society? Psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan describes a “mirror stage” in human infancy as illustrative of the mimetic structuring of identity throughout life: one’s desire is the desire of the Other. The theatricality of identity also involves Julia Kristeva’s sense of the psycho-linguistic chora (womb-like space of becoming) as related to the uncanny “stage edge” between actors and spectators.
