The Theatre: Expressionism

To Create the Essential Illusion Without Violating the Constitution

No real scene ever did look like a scene of the stage. That is true in greater or less degree whether the scene be a forest, waving like a set of green banners behind the proscenium, or a street in the Venetian ghetto of the Merchant of Venice, with every stick and stone and human being arranged with indefatigable precision by Belasco, king of realists. The spectator never can quite persuade himself that he is peeking through a chink in the fourth wall of the...

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