Self-anointed revolutionaries and other theoreticians have tried throughout this century to make the theater esoteric and archetypal, depicting a delirious dreamscape, an incantatory religious ritual, a shower of aimless verbal fireworks or perhaps a murmured hint of psychotic menace. Too often setting such moods has been an end in itself rather than a means to what satisfies audiences: telling a coherent, affecting story. In the effort to avoid being old-fashioned, to prove that the stage has an authentic voice beyond the naturalism commonly found in film and TV, theater directors often turn their backs on narrative or at least overlook basic...
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