"This book discusses major plays drawing on examples from major playwrights including Shakespeare, Ibsen, Beckett, and Parks and asks how they offer a critical perspect on the drama's relation to books, to the process of emobodiment, and to the mapping of space in the theatre. Exploring the critical terms and controversies that animate the performance and study of drama, such as the status of language, the function of character and plot, and uses of writing, this is an ideal text which not only teaches students now to read drama, but also explores the key questions that have occupied the earliest playwrights through to today's most distinguished literary and cultural critics." "This book will appeal to both the professional and academic audience on drama and performance studies, as well as to a wider audience of theatregoers interested in the relationship between writing and performance."--Jacket.