M a r y v o n n e Sa i son 
Playful Thinking: Theater and Philosophy 
(du jeu dans la pensée) 
Prologue 
In The homecoming, Pinter portrays the philosophy professor Teddy grappling 
with the »spontaneous philosophy« of Ruth, a prostitute and his wife, of Joey, 
the boxer, and Lenny, a pimp. Teddy is convinced that he is the only one 
able to see or understand (»I'm the one who can see.«) And yet Lenny and 
Ruth explore philosophical issues: 
»Lenny: But you're a philosopher. Come on, be frank. What do you make 
of all this business of being and not being? 
Teddy: What do you make of it? 
Lenny: Well, for instance, take a table. Philosophically speaking. What is it? 
Teddy: A table. 
Lenny: Ah. You mean it's nothing else but a table. Well, some people would 
envy your certainty, wouldn't they,Joey? For instance, I've got a couple 
of friends of mine, we often sit round the Ritz Bar having a few 
liqueurs, and they're always saying things like: take a table, take it. 
All right, I say, take it, take a table, but once you've taken it, what you 
going to do with it? Once you've got hold of it, where you going to 
take it? 
Max: You'd probably sell it. 
Lenny: You wouldn't get much for it. 
Joey: Chop it up for firewood.« 
When staged by the theater, the failure of philosophy is patent: Teddy 
leaves his family to return to his American university. Ruth, who chooses 
Joey over Teddy, has the last word and directs her comments as much to her 
husband as to Philosophy: 
»Ruth: Eddie, don't become a stranger.« 
The occasional severity of theater with regard to philosophy is merely 
an echo of a long and lasting relationship. To this corresponds philosophy's 
malevolent fascination with theater: beginning with the third book of the 
Republic, has not theater been the haunting specter of the philosopher, to 
the point of excluding the tragedians from the polis? It is not simply a 
Filozofski vestnik, XX (2/1999 - XIVICA), pp. 101-109. 101 
Maryvonne Saison 
question of attacking the state of theater, but more radically of discerning 
the harmfulness of its very essence: »The West as a whole, in its explicitly 
philosophical and truth-based plan, was founded on this hate.«1 The 
credibility of the philosopher's remarks suffers when, in this same polis of 
the theater, a make-believe world creates illusions as indirect means of 
arriving at the truth. The same holds true when the spectator requires the 
philosopher to »play« within structures of emotional identification and 
seduction. When exposed to the risks of theater, all of philosophy's projects 
are challenged in its metaphysical concerns as well as in its educational, moral 
and political aims. With full knowledge of the facts and lamenting the powers 
of theater, philosophy can only master, control, or tolerate them. The staging 
of theater and philosophy together will necessarily take place in the mode 
of rivalry. In this essay, while acknowledging the lasting character of this 
relationship based on a power struggle, my aim here will be to expose its 
weaknesses and to illustrate how other options might be sketched out. 
Love and Hate 
It should be recognized from the start that rivalry only makes sense in 
a context of close proximity. It is because theater and philosophy seek in 
part the same effect that a power struggle has any meaning; that is, because 
philosophy, like theater, seeks to have an effect, by making sense, and 
transforming those whom it addresses by the unveiled truth or path opened 
up by that meaning. An action is directed: therein lies the power which is at 
stake and demonstrates to what extent the interlocutor (spectator or reader) 
is the target of this arrangement. Whether dramatic or philosophical, these 
exchanges are directed at an individual and leave room for this interlocutor, 
sometimes enough for his existence and his reactions to materialize: it is not 
a coincidence that dialogue is so often a simple paradigm of the philosophical 
or theatrical relationship. Such a formal analogy generates periodically re-
emergent attempts to philosophize on the dialogue mode2 and to introduce 
into the theater philosophical dialogues or thought put into motion.3 
1 Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, in L'art du théâtre, Spr ing 1986, n°4, Arles, Actes S u d / 
Chaillot, p. 12. 
2 Cf. for example, also Jean-François Lyotard, in Que peindre? Adami Arakawa Buren, 
Paris, ed. La Différence, 1987. 
3 Cf. Platon/G..., f r o m Le Banquet a n d Le Mépris, M i c h è l e F o u c h e r , T h é â t r e de 
Gennevilliers, April 1997; cf. also La légende des anges, by Michel Serres, Dijon, May 
1998. 
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Playful Thinking: Theater and Philosophy (du jeu dans la pensée) 
These exchanges founded on proximity and which circulate thoughts 
and thinking in the well-suited arena of the polis are rooted in a long and 
complex history. These beginnings would result as much in the annexation 
of the theater by philosophy or the government (pedagogical theater, theater 
of enlightenment, didactic or political theater) as in the appropriation of 
philosophical texts by the theater. For the contemporary period, I would 
cite the efforts of Griiber, who worked on fragments of Heraclitus in Milan 
in 1988, or the staging of »literary« texts by Jean Jourdheuil (Jean-Jacques 
Rousseau, Montaigne: Le rocher, la lande, la librairie, Spinoza: Vermeer et Spinoza, 
Lucretius: La nature des chosetf). Much is at stake in these exchanges and 
acknowledging proximity is far from implying the use of a common practice, 
an effective collaboration or even the creation of a mixed genre: theatrical 
philosophy or philosophical theater. Each foray from one domain into the 
other represents a risk and a chance for renewal, and at the same time an 
occasion for further plays for power. Against this backdrop of potential rivalry 
arise the accusations of annexation or appropriation, in other words, of 
denaturation. 
Nevertheless, all of these exchanges reveal a truth: they question the 
exclusively solitary practice of philosophy as well as the systematically 
pusillanimous and entertaining character of theater. Each displacement gives 
birth to thought by incarnating it and restoring its »agoretic«5 dimension: 
thought in theater rediscovers its strength of address and the theater, by 
fulfilling its connection to thought, regains its function as an agora. Theater 
and philosophy therefore maintain a relationship based on proximity that 
encourages movement and exchange as much through the practice of thought 
as through the public, dialogic or collective aspects of this practice in the 
polis. However, radical proposals deriving from the acknowledgement of 
the agoretic role in the arts and philosophy have not, to this date, taken shape. 
For example, the producer Jean Jourdheuil was not given the means to create 
his »Theater-Painting-Philosophy« project on Robespierre. It was an 
ambitious project that was to include a painting exhibit exploring the theme 
»Robespierre«, a symposium for philosophers on this same theme and the 
staging of Gilles Aillaud's Le masque de Robespierre. The novelty of this project 
was found in the idea of a contradictory »art space« that, in this case, 
Jourdheuil imagined as being »tumultuous.«0 The problem presented by the 
hypothesis of an association which would create the conditions for both 
4 1978,1982,1984,1990. 
5 Denis Guénoun uses the term »agoreutique« for »assembly function« of the theater, 
in Lettre au directeur du théâtre, Le Revest4es-Eaux, Les Cahiers de l'Egaré, 1996, p. 31. 
6 Cf. Théâtre/Public, no. 140, p. 47. 
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Maryvonne Saison 
proximity and rivalry, was that of practical specificities versus common 
themes and objectives. With annexation or appropriation, specificity was 
transgressed or transposed. In a space allowing for the juxtaposition of 
genres, the specifics maintained highlight a certain proximity without giving 
rise to a power play: the effect being the creation of mutual recognition. 
The problem posed by specificity in theatrical and philosophical 
practices still leaves room for many quest ions. We might beg in by 
considering the following: it is the institutional practices most greatly 
influenced by the academy, be it in the realm of theater or philosophy, which 
develop and exacerbate their secular characterist ics and satisfy the 
expectations and aims of the genre. Consequently, philosophers consider 
the theater as entertainment (or at best, culture), and theater people consider 
philosophy as an esoteric exercise accessible only to a minority. The two 
practices are thus divided using a system of oppositions: fundamental/futile, 
serious/recreational, arid/attractive, etc. In fact, theater and philosophy have 
often developed their autonomy by accentuating the rivalry between them 
and by cultivating differences. The thought that circulates between the two 
and is obviously present as much in theater as in philosophy does not possess 
the same characteristics. For the one, thought is systematic and conceptual 
and for the other, it is not distinguished from the words used to express it 
and the forms that implement it; here, thought is not coerced to subject itself 
to any demonstrations, nor does it prove its legitimacy. As Pierre Macherey 
demonstrates, with literature, there is an anonymous thought which presents 
itself and reintroduces some freeplay into its presentation. The fact remains 
that it is this supposed specificity which excludes what appears as deviant 
and exacerbates rivalry. In this type of configuration, each discipline exposes 
the limits of the other, thereby implicitly criticizing it. Any change of form 
or challenging of genres is out of the question, as a reform of practices, 
whatever they may be, implies a r eexamina t ion of their t radi t ional 
characteristics and a sort of contamination. But before considering the 
possibility of more intimate links between theater and philosophy, it should 
be noted that the practices of the majority still cultivate, at the same time, 
specificity and rivalry, and that this behavior encourages distorted perceptions, 
false images and hypocrisy 
If philosophers were to casually turn their attention to the theater, or if 
by chance, dramatic authors were to philosophize, the result would be 
nothing less than reciprocal carping and misunderstanding. Philosophy 
knows, ungratefully, to not overestimate the texts from which it nevertheless 
derives its models and subjects: it stigmatizes their inadequacies or attempts 
to set forth their truths out of which it will create the theory. If the philosopher 
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Playful Thinking: Theater and Philosophy (du jeu dans la pensée) 
cannot deny that dramatic literature frequently expresses truths, in particular 
those most often not revealed, and thus exercises an »eye-opening« function, 
he balks at admitting that subversion and transgression are two constant 
elements in theater. He merely illustrates and supports his remarks with quick 
references to those works which secretly inspired him. He hesitates even less 
to borrow thoughts after lifting them from context and altering their mode 
of enunciation. In this way, all that remains is a theoretical content that the 
philosopher can falsely claim credit for. This ingratitude by philosophers finds 
its parallel in the disparagement of current philosophical research by those 
who write for the theater: from Aristophanus to Brecht or Müller, philosophy 
is returned to its history and context. But critical freedom and attempts at 
comprehension do not always meet up. Freud's case, though it deals with 
psychoanalysis rather than philosophy, can serve as an example to illustrate 
the two aspects of this phenomenon. Imbued with theater, Freud transforms 
what he has gleaned from it, but the theater gets even with him through the 
way it anticipates psychoanalysis and portrays it. 
Even the concrete alliances between philosophers and theater people, 
either true contemporaneous collaboration or intellectual alliances across 
time, have rarely proved to be without difficulty. Did Jaspers do justice to 
Str indberg? Nothing is less sure.7 The same question might apply to 
Shakespeare scholars, analysts, or philosophers. Did the many philosophers 
grouped around Brecht have a decisive influence on his work? Though we 
may be drawn to study certain episodes in the tumultuous relationship 
between Brecht and Benjamin, Bloch or Lukacs, we soon conclude that they 
are pervaded by rivalry. This fact detracts from our analysis, offers no 
theoretical insight into the relationships and leaves us with no more than 
value judgments. Misunderstanding is the norm, be it for Hölderlin or 
Artaud. One of the most persistent (and surprisingly heuristic!) of these ideas 
is that which permitted philosophers to invent a strong philosophical figure 
in Greek tragedy, very different from the one known to historians. A recent 
work by Jacques Taminiaux8 reveals the extent to which philosophers 
transform this art form »whose birth, rise and decline mirrored that of 
Athenian democracy« into an ontological document. Examining the roots 
of t ragedy, he refers to Plato and, after separating and bringing out 
Hölderlin's singular stance concludes: »The Platonic source contradicts the 
German current in that Platonic tragedy possesses none of the dignity 
inherent in an ontological document attributed to it by German philo-
sophers.«8 
7 Cf. Karl Jaspers, Strindberg und Van Gogh, Bern, 1922. 
8 Jacques Taminiaux, Le théâtre des philosophes, Grenoble, ed. Millon, 1995, p. 5. 
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Be it carping or misunderstanding, our interest lies less in the negative 
side of this statement than in the inevitable consequences of the withdrawal 
of these disciplines into their respective protectionist autonomies and 
academic traditions. Repression accumulates at the margins of institutions 
and seeks outlying spaces with no predetermined purpose to express itself: 
thus, a critical philosopher at odds with this academic or university abusive 
practice, may, by rediscovering dialogues or poetry, find asylum in the 
theater. Inversely, the more adventuresome undertakings of theater which 
reject the constraints of entertainment, find an answer in philosophical 
dialogues. Distancing themselves from sterile convention and conventional 
expectations, theater and phi losophy seek salvation and renewal by 
exchanging their stages and language. 
Do the necessary conditions for dialogue, exchange and collaboration 
truly exist and is the present situation a new one? There is no lack today of 
enthusiastic scholarship by philosophers specializing in theater, well received 
by theater people interested in philosophy and competent in this domain. 
We cannot, however, ignore the great tradition of scholars which begins with 
Aristotle and Diderot and brings us, in France, to Henri Gouhier, Michel 
Foucault or Gilles Deleuze, as well as Jacques Derrida, Alain Badiou, Jean-
Luc Nancy and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe. This indulgence for personal tastes 
or for the clever handling of reciprocal misunderstanding has often been 
dismissed as being suspiciously and conveniently self-serving. Lacoue-
Labarthe seems convinced of this in suggesting that the love displayed by 
the philosopher differs from hate only in a simple inversion of values: »Hate 
or love (...) are, in this case, the same thing. What it amounts to, at any rate, 
is an arraignment of the theater or its theorization.«3 Any alliance created 
merely represents a power play by philosophy, desirous of controlling the 
theater in order to subject it to its own designs. Lacoue-Labarthe's analysis 
may be suggestive and valid, but it does not consider the will of each party 
to come out of confinement or to attempt an objective alliance against their 
shared long-standing sclerosis.10 Besides the theater portrayed as victim is 
perhaps excessive: does the theater not tolerate with polite indifference much 
talk of legitimization, the effects being no more threatening than those of 
the compromises made at every stage of production? 
8 Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, op. cit., p. 12. 
10 As a matter of fact Lacoue-Labarthe assisted the producer Jean-Louis Martinelli when 
he staged Oedipus-Tyranby Hölderlin (Avignon,July 1998). 
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Playful Thinking: Theater and Philosophy (du jeu dans la pensée) 
Playful Thought 
We could endlessly ponder the conditions necessary for genuine 
collaboration between dramatic authors, producers and philosophers. We 
may come closer to finding an answer by examining the ideas of philosophers 
who de fend the concep t of »aesthetic rationality«.11 They abandon 
exaggerated appreciation of artistic creation, dismissed as »speculative art 
theory« and, influenced by Habermas, work from an angle based on a critical 
rereading of Adorno. They proceed by exposing the principles on which 
the perception and interpretation of works of art are based. An aesthetic 
associated with G e r m a n phi losophy that abandons a central role in 
philosophical thought in order to contribute to »the general debate on 
aesthetic categories, the state of Art, and rules for defining and interpreting 
works of art,« would reestablish the bond uniting aesthetics and poetics. 
Could such an aesthetic unite artists and philosophers around one object? 
To not stray too far from the theater, I would say that nothing is less sure, 
and this for several reasons. 
The first reason is that philosophy's or aesthetics' interest in theater shifts 
the focus from the performative to the theoretical realm. As much as dramatic 
writing or staging is derived from implicit or explicit theorization, so 
theoretical reflection, when uprooted from its performative context, is of little 
concern to artists. When the writer or director creates a speculative work and 
occasionally theorizes about its practical representation, he is nonetheless a 
creator of art, participating in a process which has more to do with action 
than knowledge. The logic of action and commitment obeys its own inherent 
requirements. Mikel Dufrenne agrees that, »thought and action are in 
perpetual discord. (...) Human choices, no matter how justified, are never 
satisfactory, insofar as they express man's unjustifiable being.«1'2 Though the 
dramatist and the philosopher may agree about thought and thinking, they 
diverge when it comes to the fabrication of Art. On this point, the dramatist 
is misunderstood by the philosopher unless, as Alain Badiou suggests, he 
transforms himself into an »anti-philosopher« striving to confront concept 
with reality and defending truth, »that is the subjective dimension of the act« 
and as such, »implies an encounter.«13 
'1 Cf. Rainer Rochlitz, »Religion de l'art et théorie esthétique en Allemagne«, in Histoire 
et théories de l'art de Winckelmann à Panofsky, Revue germanique internationale, Paris, 
P U F 1994. 
12 Mikel Dufrenne, Jalons, La Haye, Nijhoff, 1966, »Les aventures de la dialectique«, p. 
173. 
13 Alain Radiou, »Paul, le saint«, in Art Press, no. 235, May 1998, p. 54. 
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Maryvonne Saison 
The second reason is at least as decisive. It concerns one of the greatest 
acts of violence philosophy has committed against the theater: that of 
reducing theater to its literature. Philosophy has undeniably played a central 
role in the overemphasis placed on theatrical authors and texts, thus 
detracting from their representation in the technical and theatrical sense of 
the term. There is no need to review the Aristotelian condemnation of »opsis«: 
even if it requires careful handling, it stigmatizes a preference that would 
exile theatrical representa t ion f rom phi losophica l ref lec t ions and 
considerations on the theater. Philosophy, in this case, becomes the faithful 
ally of Literature in the subjugation of the theatrical production by the 
tyranny of text. Today, it is in this area that further investigation must take 
place if we hope to establish a dialogue between theatrical art and philosophy 
and between director and philosopher. It is not a question of separating 
author and director, but of uniting the specificity of dramatic writing to its 
production on stage, with all of the problems that staging presents. Herein 
lies the art of the theater: as an ephemeral encounter between actors and 
audience, this event, which organizes itself around bodies and inextricably 
binds thoughts and emotions, represents without a doubt philosophy's 
repression. This event also finds its place at the margins of society: the 
building or site assigned for a performance functions exceptionally, according 
to its own set of rules. To employ terms used by Michel Foucault, this site 
acquires a heterotopic function in the etymological sense of the term: the 
theatrical space is a singular space and an exception, and as such, is 
authorized to question that which takes place outside of its walls and, in 
particular, in »the negative structure of society.«14 
Looking at this from a different angle, but one that builds on this line 
of reasoning, Gilles Deleuze contrasts two forms of theater or two staging 
operations. In the first, a traditional operation, everything is extrapolated 
»on élève au 'majeur:' a thought becomes a doctrine, a way of life becomes 
a culture, an event becomes a History. In this way, we claim to recognize 
and admire when, in fact, we 'normalize'.«15 The other operation allows us 
to discover an »active minority force« in, for example, Shakespeare as staged 
by Carmelo Bene. Theater (its staging) f inds, the re fo re , an »anti-
representative function in outlining, constituting in some way a figure of 
minority consciousness as the potential of each of us.« A definition takes 
H Michel Foucault, »Des espaces autres«, 1967 and »La folie et la société«, 1970, in Dits 
et écrits, Paris, Gallimard, t. 4, p. 756 and t. 3, p. 478. 
15 Gilles Deleuze, Superpositions, Paris, Minuit, 1979, p. 97. 
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Playful Thinking: Theater and Philosophy (du jeu dans la pensée) 
shape: »Theater will emerge as that which represents nothing but which 
presents and constitutes a minority conscience, as a universal becoming.«16 
Extending Foucault's line of reasoning, I would invoke the power of 
theater in terms of opposition and transgression and perceived as »the act 
that involves limits.«17 »Opposition is not the result of thought which denies 
existence or values, but rather the act which takes each thought to its limit 
or, perhaps, to the realm in which ontological decision is made: to oppose 
is to reach an empty core where a being reaches his limit and where this 
limit defines a being. At that transgressed limit can be heard the resounding 
'yes' of opposition which has the 'hee-haw' of the Nietszchian ass ring 
empty.«18 Conceived in this manner, the theater is no longer philosophy's 
foil but takes up philosophy's most urgent questions and creates a forum for 
p lay ing things out. The limit and the acts that violate it thus exist 
simultaneously. The stage mirrors our categories and their fragility; it 
questions us about our being and about the existence of the systems we 
establish (without identification or compassion). It is as though, as an effect 
of the stage and the theater, the philosopher confronts the conditions of 
incarnation and experiences the ability to think and to represent. This 
happens amidst the tension of an unassignable reality that the theater, in its 
best moments, has us feel. 
A dialogue is established when the philosopher exposes thought to the 
risks of reality and when the dramatist opens up the stage to receive ideas 
that are not exclusively entertainment. This dialogue unites the protagonists 
who, without championing the same ideas, inspire one another to satisfy 
the same conditions. These encounters, as real and as frequent as they may 
be today, are unfortunately neither indispensable nor do they take place in 
real time; their occurrence depends solely on chance or affinity. In fact, their 
only site is moved within the spectator who, at the time the event unfolds, is 
able to realize the encounter between theater and philosophy. 
16 Ibid. pp. 125 and 130. 
17 Michel Foucault, »Préface à la transgression«, 1963, op. cit. t. 1, p. 236. 
18 Ibid., p. 238. 
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