Theatre and Embodied Collective Reflexivity

Theatre is a distinctive type of social reflexivity. The question is how, like other social practices, theatre s social function shapes its form. By examining theatre in relation to social ontology, the components of agency, and the requirements of an embodied form of collective reflexivity, one finds that theatre is characterized by a double homology with social ontology. Furthermore, conducting embodied collective reflexivity requires the performer/character distinction, which is fundamental to theatrical performance. Social ontology, then, sharpens our concept of theatre s structure and the meaning of its practice.