Front Cover -- Preliminary Pages -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Note -- Preface -- Part 1: Basic Questions -- Chapter 1: What Is the Sacred? -- (i) Overture -- (ii) Writing the Sacred -- (iii) Where to Begin with Sacred Theatre? -- (iv) Performance and Knowing -- Chapter 2: Terminologies and Categorizations of the Sacred -- (i) Modern Views of the Sacred -- (ii) Giorgio Agamben and the Politics of the Sacred -- (iii) Ritual -- (iv) The Sacred, Drama, Ritual and the Ancient Mystery Religions -- (v) Space -- (vi) Time -- (vii) Performance Factors -- (viii) Aesthetics -- (ix) The Absurd -- Part 2: Text and Performance -- Chapter 3: The Phenomenology of Nonidentity: Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead -- (i) Introduction -- (ii) Liminality and Subjectivity in Theatrical Space -- (iii) Intersubjectivity in Stoppard's Theatre -- (iv) Rosencrantz: A Void in Thought -- (v) Rosencrantz: Social Mirrors and Stage Mirrors -- (vi) Conclusion -- Chapter 4: Between the Opposites: Gender Games -- 4.1 Caryl Churchill: Cloud Nine -- (i) Introduction -- (ii) Cloud Nine: Player/Role -- (iii) Identity and Gender -- (iv) Mindfulness -- (v) Are We Really Free? -- 4.2 M. Butterfly: The Phenomenology of Nonidentity and Theatrical Presence -- (i) Introduction -- (ii) Concept of Self vs. Pure Consciousness -- (iii) Theatrical Gaps -- (iv) Identity: Machine or Witness -- (v) The Actor's Double Entry -- (vi) Changelessness and Presence -- (vii) False Reversals -- (viii) Theatre and Metanarrative -- Chapter 5: Ionesco -- 5.1 Rhinoceros -- (i) Riding on the Back of Rhinos -- 5.2 The Chairs -- (i) The Play's the Thing -- (ii) Ionesco's Working Methods -- (iii) The Chairs -- Chapter 6: Pinter -- 6.1 The Birthday Party -- 6.2 Ashes to Ashes -- (i) Pinter's Working Methods -- (ii) Ashes to Ashes -- Chapter 7: Genet.

7.1 Genet's Sacred Theatre: Practice and Politics -- (i) Introduction -- (ii) Bataille and the A/theological Sacred -- (iii) Genet and A/theology -- (iv) Genet's Theory of Sacred Theatre -- (v) Sacred Politics/Sacred Theatre -- (vi) Sacred Politics in the Trilogy -- (vii) Conclusion -- 7.2 Deconstructive Acting: Genet, Beckett, the Absurd -- (i) Genet -- (ii) Beckett -- Part 3: Processes and Directions -- Chapter 8: Processes -- (i) Transitional Moments -- (ii) Absurd Leap -- (iii) Actor-training -- (iv) Physiologies -- (v) Desiring the Other -- Chapter 9: Places, Spaces and Generative Directions -- A Symposium -- (i) Liminal or Liminoid? Turner and Grotowski -- (ii) With Rena Mirecka (1) -- (iii) Meeting Gardzienice -- (iv) Nicolás Núñez and the Taller Investigación Teatral (1) -- (v) With Rena Mirecka (2): Sardinia -- (vi) Nicolás Núñez and the Taller Investigación Teatral (2): Cura de Espantos -- (vii) The Dog's Moments -- (viii) Performance and Sacred Space: A Polemic -- (ix) Theatre and the Wound -- (x) Facing Death -- (xi) One Rock -- (xii) Wondering -- (xiii) Full Stops to Full Stocks -- (xiv) Coda -- Bibliography -- The Authors -- Index -- Back Cover.