Theater (n.) is, in the West, a theological place. It is the space of Sin: on one side, in a light which he pretends to ignore, the actor, i.e., the gesture and the word; on the other, in the darkness, the public, i.e., consciousness.
Theater (n.) is, in the West, indebted much less to the illusion of reality than to the illusion of totality, of the ‘person’.
Theater (n.) is, in the West, not the preserver of ‘reality’ or ‘totality’ or ‘unity’ that it purports to be. Rather, he preserves the division of the body: here the voice, there the gaze, there again the figure are eroticized, as so many fragments of the body,.
Theater (n.) is, in the West, that whose function is essentially to manifest what is supposed to be secret ("feelings," "situations," "conflicts") while concealing the very artifice of such manifestation (machinery, painting, makeup, the sources of light).
Theater (n.) is, in Bunraku, played with the puppeteers in plain sight, hooded in black, so that the labour and the gesture are shown at once and nothing hides behind the curtain.