Role Playing and Identity The Limits of Theatre as Metaphor [Paperback]

[Wilshire] establishes a phenomenology of theatre, a theory of enactment, and a theory of appearance, none of which American theatre... has ever had. Performing Arts Journal

... Wilshire makes unique contributions to understanding major aspects of the human condition in its necessary search for selfhood. Process Studies

It is one of the American classics. Human Studies

Acknowledgments
Prologue

Part One: Theatre and the Reality of Appearance

I. What Is Theatre?

II. What Is Phenomenology?

III. Theory of Enactment

IV. Theory of Appearance

V. Variations On The Theatrical Theme of Standing In and Authorization
1. The World of Oedipus Rex and the World of Its Theatre
2. The World of Hamlet and the World of Its Theatre
3. The World of Waiting for Godot and the World of Its Theatre
4. Summary of the Variations and the Nature of a Text

VI. Theatre as Metraphor and Play As Disclosure

VII. Second Set of Variations on the Theatrical Theme of Standing In and Authorization
1. Eugene Ionesco and the Potentiality of Being-with-Others in Roles Fallenness
2. Robert Wilson and the Potentiality of Projection of PossibilityUnderstanding
3. Jerzy Grotowski and the Potentiality of Attunement to the WorldMood

VIII. Theatre and the Question of the Truth of Art

Part Two: Reality and the Self

IX. Space, Time, and Identity of Self

X. Self as Body-Self

XI. Body-Self and Others: Cognition, Expression, Mimetic Response, and Transformation

XII. Body-Self, Other Body-Selves, and Self-Deception

XIV. Identity and Theatre-Like Disengagement From Engulfment

XV. Existence and Art: Self as Memorializaing Structure of Possibilities

XVI. Summary and Prospects: Identity of Self

Part Three: The Limits of Appearance and the Limits of Theatrical Metaphor

XVII. Theatre as Metaphor

XVIII. The Truth of Art and the Limits of Theatre as ls