Abstract
If disquiet over false-seeing and duplicity has been taken as a theme by dramatists, similar anxieties have been expressed even more stridently by those opposed to dramatic representation. In his seminal survey of attacks on acting, The Antitheatrical Prejudice, Jonas Barish suggests that the historical apprehension about theatre is centred upon its distorting effects on the social perception of reality. Theatre allegedly risks causing "ontological queasiness" in audiences. Such a thought suggests that a kind of metaphysical nausea, and its ensuing epistemic disorder originating in theatre, can infect society as a whole because we will no longer be able to distinguish between feigned and genuine social interactions. By promoting confusion about "what is" and "what is not," theatre (in its manifestations at any given point in history) threatens the foundations of knowledge, the truthful apprehension of reality, and what society has considered at any given time to be faithful, authentic, and trustworthy on such an account. In his review of Barish's book, phenomenologist Bruce Wilshire observed that historical peaks in antitheatricality often appear in clusters just after a height in theatrical flourishing. Building on this thought, as I will explore here, these moments of theatrical bourgeoning also correlate with philosophical paradigm shifts in our understanding of Being.1 As I will suggest, the battle between truthrevelation and concealment is also at the heart of one of the most influential philosophical movements of the last century: phenomenology.