The Antitheatrical Prejudice

Why has the theater aroused such passionate antipathy over the centuries? Why has it been attacked not only by straightlaced moralists but by major philosophers. Plato,
Saint Augustine, Rousseau, Nietzsche? Does their hostility toward the theater point to a fundamental human failing?

"In undertaking to chronicle and discuss the range of anti-theatrical prejudice since first there was a theatre to provoke such feeling Jonas Barish has shouldered a burden that might have broken many a good man; he has performed it not only with scholarly fullness but with a concision and wit that make delightful reading."
—University of Toronto Quarterly

"Fixes on a fascinating intellectual puzzle: the ambivalence which mankind has felt toward the theater.... The greatest virtue of Jonas Barish's book is that he displays through case studies the historical sweep and depth of the ambivalence.... The
intensity of the various attacks is astonishing. Barish's case studies are gripping.... Its historical richness furthers discussion in a fascinating but neglected area - the philosophy of theater."
—Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

"Explains, among other valuable functions, why theater has traditionally been a threatening source of disquiet to those concerned with social and political behavior. With impeccable scholarship and learning, Professor Barish traces the ancient distrust of plays and players from its earliest appearance in Plato ... until it enters the theater itself, in the purifying fires of Artaud, Grotowski, and Handke.... A most valuable book providing important insights into the way we think about the stage."
—New Republic

"The usefulness of the professor's book lies in his classification of objections to the theater. By way of these objections, he shows clearly the ways in which morality varies according to the culture from which it comes and makes this truism seem new by staging it, so to speak, instead of confining it to prose."
—New York Review of Books

"A indispensable testament both to the implacable hatred of the theatre and to its hardy power to endure."
—Theatre Communications