Philosophy is mental exercise and all who have a bash at thinking out their
fundamental take on any aspect of art - from visual to theatre - are
hopefully cognisant that our theories are just that.

I know nothing of Artuad except he is very heavy going on the page. I
stumbled across him at University and he was a figure beyond the
understanding to me and my student colleagues on the Drama course. 

Neitze I read and found him as uniquely boring and long-winded as Grave's
"White Godess or Yeats'"Vision." 

The "Vision" is Yeats' distillation of poetic understanding and represents
the spoil of a life long mental digging or the individual minings brought up
as a result of his verse making. Reading this is the aural equivalent of
seeing the machinary of his mind exposed, like an engine cut in half in a
mechanics class, a Damien Hirst surgically splt Cow or a 3D computer model
of the brain in all its intracacy. 

It is interesting for a short while until you come to realise that the
writing is not concerned with explaining to a reader what they think, but an
attempt on their part to make sense of themselves. A shelter constructed in
language which no one but themsleves really understand and the exercise of
creating faith. Our stay against a world of potential unbelievers ready to
laugh or dismiss our grand design because of immensley tenuous foundations
upon which most base their philosophy - is so far removed from genuine
reality.    

The White Godess is Grave's Ars Poetica andlike the Da Vinci Code. The
numerous cruxes in both "arguments" means it is Graves just juggling a
million ifs and buts -in a dazzling and often informative way - but like
Yeats, Neitze, Artuad and most other literary thinkers, not a great read and
with "facts" thin to nonexistent 

 
The one drama theoristst who stuck in my head was the sociologist Erving
Goffman, who has a theory called "Deep Acting." This is something Doctors,
nurses, firemen, police, soldiers, secretaries, binmenand basically everyone
does to a certain extent, when playiong out their role at work. Another one
is Colin Turnball the antropologidst who writes fascinating studies of a
rainforest tribe in Uganada. Living the truly prehistoric life, his
supposedly scientifi mind got affected so much he ended up arguing that
antropology has to address the concept of "spirit." 

Greek talkers are combined to become the template of philosophy, but they
were mad as a bag of moody kittens as well. We all are.