ABSTRACT
The dramatic event we call theatre relies on the delivery of that which is both promised and expected: a unique performance witnessed by an audience who have come to the site of the performance for that very reason. In principle, theatrical space is divided into two groups of people that differentiate it from ritual practice: the practitioners who create the performance and spectators who witness it (although the activities of these two sets of individuals may sometimes overlap or be interchangeable). The first, of paramount significance to the staged play, is the analysis of the spectacle or, at least, of its constituent aspects, players and categories, placed against the background of the history of the theatre, in an attempt to draw out certain principles and paradigms for approaching the theatre experience. The second approach, more closely linked to the relationship between the text and its staging, is analysis of dramaturgy in order to better establish possible lines of interpretation.
