A number of parameters and themes have emerged from these four volumes that affect future books on Asian theatre, including this one. The first such parameter is the geographical scope of Asian theatre. As a first attempt, Theatre in the East includes South, East and Southeast Asia: ‘In terms of theatre, Asia defines itself clearly as that area which starts with India and extends eastward as far as Indonesia and the Philippine Islands, and northward through China and Japan as far as Siberia’ (Bowers 1956: vi). Excluded from this list is the Middle East:

As far as dance and drama are concerned, those countries are not, however, what I feel to be characteristically Asian. That area has in common the Mohammedan religion, which on the whole condemns theatre, and must of necessity be omitted from our attention, partly because of the virtual absence of dance and drama there, partly because of the ‘un-Asian’ atmosphere of what little has survived.