ABSTRACT
Psychology becomes at least partly constituted of material and is portrayed through the gestural relations protagonists strike up with each other within a controlled, communicative space. Henry James was a man who in everyday intercourse was consistently confronted with an awareness that such psychologies were implied by his interlocutors. The group of plays refer to as 'The Summersoft Group' provides a remarkable indication of how James looked to the theatre to help himself develop a means of representing just how dramatic his confrontations with such psychology were. His late-1890s narratives develop a spatial sense that returns to the stage in the late plays as an extended awareness of the audience's sensory capabilities. By 1907 he had more fully understood the material nature and the breadth of the appeal made by the stage. His late staged works derive drama from a carefully delimited space between protagonists.
