The question of whether the director has been faithful to the author or whether the production conforms to the text of the play resurfaces in many different shapes. Three recent theories are given as examples of this dogma of necessary fidelity. But this dualism is itself historically relativistic. Examples of recent productions show that the text–performance ‘couple’ must constantly be reconsidered.

The aim of this article to show that the space of the stage and the ways it is constructed are an important, meaning-generating element of every production. The space of the stage is seen as an artistic construct, the aim of which is to convey senses relevant to the goals of the director. The function of the scenic space goes far beyond a mere ‘representation’ of some fictional inhabited space; it has the ability to convey meanings that, among other things, evoke metaphorical readings. The example used in this article, the St Petersburg production of Hamlet, directed by Vadim Golikov, is of unusual complexity and for this reason requires a more thorough theoretical introduction. Golikov has introduced a scene in which the Euclidean geometry falls apart, and instead a simultaneous presentation of two subjective perspectives is provided: two objects are perceived by one another at the same time, and this is shown through a distorted geometry of the stage. The essay raises theoretical issues connected with time and space in theatre.

This article discusses the dynamic relationship between ritualistic behaviours, traditional materials and performativity as it examines how work with traditional chants may affect the practitioner's mode of presence. It specifically draws from observations on the performances of Singaporean actor Ang Gey Pin in the Workcenter's One Breath Left and Polish theatre company Teatr ZAR's Gospels of Childhood. Each brings chants from very distinct cultural cradles – the Chinese diaspora and isolated Eastern European regions around the Black Sea, respectively. The study also traces a parallel between this vein of research and older artistic forms intended for the oral transmission of knowledge and traditions, such as Islamic philosopher Avicenna's recitals.

The new aesthetic experience offered by the Italian diva to the Hellenic upper classes of the Orient was filtered through their broader concerns related to social and national visions. Adelaide Ristori was received as a representative of Western culture, which at that time bore the double significance of social progress and economic exploitation in the Near East. For a minority of commentators, she was one more European speculator who was taking advantage of the supposed treasures of the East. For the supporters of westernization, however, the performances and her personality raised issues which had been discussed in Western Europe a long time previously, regarding the power of the theatre to shape national and social conscience and the relationship between art and material culture.

Medieval Passion Plays appear to be no less violent than the flagellation and crucifixion scenes in Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ. They were performed with what to today's eyes appears to be, in the context of its presentation in a religious play, chillingly intense and explicit violence. This suspicion is supported by surviving descriptions of performances of medieval Passion Plays in London and Metz, in each of which the actor playing Jesus in the crucifixion scene was fatally injured by the thrust of Longinus' spear or nearly died of heart failure. The expansion of what in the Bible amounts to only brief description, and its formulation in terms of drama, suggest deliberate use of the torture scenario in different Passion Plays. However, a question arises concerning the way in which the scenes of violence were able to find a place in religious plays used by ecclesiastical and municipal sponsors to propagate and affirm the dominant Christian view of the world. According to a common school of thought, the plays realistically represented, through gestural and dramatic elaboration, what the liturgy celebrated in a symbolic ceremony. In this way the plays visually communicated religious instruction to onlookers who did not know any Latin. But how can the torture scenes – on which many Passion Plays linger so long – be reconciled with the purpose of depicting the story of salvation?

The mid-eighteenth-century French théâtre clandestin, comprising more than a score of plays of foul language and obscene subject matter, presents a number of problems. It is not clear if they were actually performed and, if so, how and before what audiences. Did they serve the purpose of pornography, arousing their consumer? The language in which the plays are couched is conventional both in its literary form and its scurrility; it needed to be supplemented by pantomime and elaborate tableaux. Those elements are remarkably similar to theatrical innovations suggested by Diderot in a different context. Ultimately, however, the mere presentation of bodies in action cannot incarnate desire except superficially. The distancing element of performance as well as the communal presence of a coterie at an organized spectacle were probably counterproductive to achieving the pornographic aim.