ABSTRACT
After witnessing the long march from pity through sympathy to empathy, we are inclined to agree with Aristotle and his Sanskrit counterparts that theater seems to work best when it blends emotion and reason together. When joined, these organs of comprehension form a unique kind of synesthesia where we can collectively feel a thought and think a feeling. The operative word here is “collectively,” especially after we have bracketed out our modern penchant for empathy. For when we remove empathy from the theatrical equation, we can once again see clearly how theater has always has been a plural affair. Perhaps the greatest moment of theatrical ek-stasis is the realization that I am part of a much larger whole that is actually a “we” (the audience). And it is this engendering of fellow-feeling that becomes the very why of theater.
