ABSTRACT
Ludwig Wittgenstein created a thought experiment he called a "language-game". The "beetle" language-game suggests interpretation by social convention. In the "reverse-beetle" language-game, there are no agreed-upon rules even to follow. Theatre offers a special case where some form of private language, private interpretation, or private rule-making appears to exist. Theatre, then, is a powerful case study on rule-following where not all of the rule's applications can be known in advance, simply because the rules are unspecified and/or absent. In theatre, the response the audience should have is not specified: only that the audience should have a response. Thus, theatre is the ultimate language-game. Anyone can play it for the price of admission and, like Wittgenstein's language-games, theatre demonstrates "the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or a form of life". And there is no agreed-upon rule for determining what someone else says in literature or a play.
