Comic Theatres: Studies in Performance and Audience Response

In Comic Theaters , William E. Gruber draws dramatic criticism beyond its traditional emphasis on the play’s text toward a theory of theater that more fully incorporates performance. The bare text is clothed in the cultural norms and conceptions of both actor and audience in performance; in the conversion of words into action; in the actor’s creation of his role; and in the audience’s involvement with the scenes on stage. Reinterpreting six comedies taken from classical Greek, Renaissance, and modern repertories, Gruber shows how dramatic meaning is derived not from traditional criteria, archetypal motifs, or unchanging affective responses, but from changing concepts of theater and changing configurations of actor and role.

William E. Gruber is professor of English and adjunct professor of theater studies at Emory University. He is the author of "Offstage Space, Narrative, and the Theatre of the Imagination"; "Missing Persons: Essays on Character and Characterization in Modern Drama" (Georgia); and "On All Sides Nowhere: Building a Life in Rural Idaho."