Does The Public’s “Julius Caesar” Controversy Prove Theatre Still Matters?

“Amid all the dumbed-down outrage, it’s good to be reminded that theater is still a dangerous art form. The reason Plato, the church fathers, generations of Lords Chamberlain and Jesse Helms and his National Endowment for the Arts-axing kind distrusted the stage had little to do with its use as a forum for intellectual debate. Rather, it is the power of spectacle — the symbol made flesh — that has made theatrical performance throughout history so disconcerting to those in authority.”