Abstract

I want to address a number of interrelated issues that confront the modern theatre. My main concern is to ask, why should we have a theatre of ideas ? The theatre of entertainment is unproblematic: though it has an important place in cultural life, it is undemanding, having the essential purpose of amusement. The theatre of ideas, on the other hand, is a theatre that provokes us to think about morality, human relations, history, or politics. What place does a theatre of ideas have in our lives, and what is the aesthetic or philosophical attitude we should take toward it? In order to approach this issue, I want to give the briefest sketch of two lines of thought that have come down through the history of aesthetics.