Franco Ruffini

Horizontal and Vertical Montage

in the Theatre
The critical concept of 'montage' has been familiar in film studies ever since Eisenstein.
But the fixed focus and apparently continuous flow of live theatrical performance
seemingly makes it an inappropriate tool for dramatic analysis. Franco Ruffini argues,
however, that actors and audiences find their own ways of 'selecting' from and
emphasizing aspects of the full theatrical vocabulary and its many means of expression,
which make live performance no less subject to creative self-assembly and juxtaposition
than film. Ruffini develops the distinction between 'horizontal' montage in time, and
'vertical' montage as a sort of cross-section of performance; and examines ways in
which the 'audience's performance' can, both fruitfully and otherwise, differ from the
'director's performance'. Franco Ruffini is Professor of Theatre Semiotics in the
Department of Communication Studies at the University of Bologna.

FROM THE point of view of theory, theatrical
performance has been very strangely treated.
For a long time it was dismissed as being simply
the dramatic text made visible, without an
existence in its own right. When it gradually
began to acquire critical independence and
importance, this happened under the aegis of the
notion of the sign. And, if it were to be argued
that the supremacy of a dramatic text depends
on its durability through time, that supremacy
could no longer be sustained in relation to the
signs of which it consists. Insofar as it is made
up of signs, the dramatic text is neither
theoretically different nor superior in any way
to the 'performance text', 'gestural text', 'acted
text', etc., which is also made up of signs, albeit
ones of a different kind.
In a way, the notion of the sign has taken its
revenge rather quickly. On the one hand, it
restricts the study of the 'performance text' to
the level of 'signedness' at which all the
different partial texts, including the dramatic, are
seen as coming together. In other words, all
those different texts are only described generi-
cally. On the other hand, it focuses attention on
defining what a performance text is, rather than
on trying to determine how that performance
text functions.
A great deal of time and attention has been
lavished on the study of types of sign, with very
little to show for it. The notion of theatrical
kinesics and proxemics has emerged, but no-one
has tackled the problem - a far more interesting
one both in theory and practice - of how per-
formance actually works.
The Analogy with Film
In this essay I want to examine the ways in
which theatrical performance works and com-
municates, through a comparison with film,
hopefully without stretching the analogy too
far. Let me begin with montage, first with montage
in sequence or horizontal montage, and try to give
a semiotic definition of montage so as to
proceed to look at simultaneous or vertical
montage - that is, the interplay of different lines
(verbal, gestural, etc.) through which a perfor-
mance actually takes shape.
In almost purely theoretical terms, horizontal
montage, which will henceforth be simply called
montage, has two components: (a) the selection
and organization of units taken out of an
original context: that is, the choice of what there
is to see and how to see it; and (b) the
arrangement of those units in sequence.
To take a classic example of Eisenstein's: start
with a sequence of a child performing a set of
actions and take out one unit (selection pro-
cess), then focus on a close-up of the child's eyes

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 (organization/presentation). Finally, link this
shot to a second unit, a plate of food, which is
also foregrounded. That first component (selec-
tion and presentation) can be termed framing
shot and the second component (association)
composition.
If these terms are agreed, it can be stated that
montage is the result of both framing shot and
composition. It follows obviously that we
cannot talk about composition (and therefore
about montage in general) without first having
a framing shot.
But in theoretical terms, what are framing
shots? What framing shots do is to extract and
elaborate on pictures, starting with images. A
picture in this context is simply one moment in
an image sequence. It is not what is seen, rather
what one decides to see; above all, the framing
shot is the limitation necessary to circumscribe
visual content. The image is that which is offered
to the gaze; the picture is that which the gaze isolates
in space and time within the image. The image also
has limits in space and time, but these limits are
not fixed by the arbitrary selection process of
the person looking, as happens with pictures.
Though it is possible to talk about the picture
(what is seen) in the narrow sense of the term,
we also need a process capable of demonstrating
(and eventually determining) all the options of
selection and organization working on the
image - i.e., a way to expose framing shot
sequence. While the cinema can work comfor-
tably with pictures, theatre can only work with
images, since there is no way of fixing the
director's sequences.
At this stage a statement can be made which
will serve as a focal point for the rest of this
paper: the cinema audience see a discontinuous
set of pictures. Through composition, and by
definition through the auteur's montage, these
pictures lead to cognitive processes which have
become unconscious, and result in narrative
continuity. 'The child looks greedily at the food
because he is hungry' is the description of
narrative continuity that the audience constructs,
thus bringing the two separate frames together
through time and space by cognitive processes
set in motion by the montage.
In theatre, the opposite occurs. The audience
see continuous images and from these images
derive pictures (i.e., they produce their own
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sequences), from which they complete the
composition. So it is the audience that creates
the montage, since what is seen is strictly a
personal interpretation of each individual
spectator. The cinema audience starts with the
film and builds a story, whereas the theatre
audience starts with the performance and builds
a 'film' (insofar as what is involved is a series
of pictures) and from this 'film' proceeds to a
second stage and builds a story.
From what has been said so far, it is easy to
see where the central problem of the construction
and communication of theatre performance lies.
The problem is that of restricting the infiniteness
(or randomness) of what the audience sees - that
is, of creating in the audience a definite unity in
their 'film' that is pertinent to or at least
compatible with the performance form which it
describes and with what the creator of the work
wants to communicate.
The problem of legitimate or relevant
interpretations of performance is not actually a
problem of meanings and/or codes, nor is it one
of specialized knowledge. It is, principally, a
problem of the way in which the montage of the
audience is shaped.
A point needs to be made here about the
concept of the picture. Since a picture can also
be extrapolated from an image, two types of
picture need to be considered: overt pictures, like
the cinematic frame, for example, and implicit
pictures which can be termed perceptual pictures.
Film can therefore be described as a montage
of visual pictures put together by the auteur,
whereas theatre performance leads to a montage
of perceptual pictures put together by the
audience, though inspired by the performance
itself.
The basic question remains to determine what
shapes the audience's montage. Since the
shaping of the composition calls into play a
concept that has barely been considered -
rhythm -1 shall confine myself to considering
the shaping of the framing shot. This involves
an analysis of the devices through which the
director, together with the actors and all the
other auteurs of the performance, tries not so
much to communicate but rather to work on the
audience and hold their attention.
It should be emphasized that these devices
have nothing to do with signs but everything
 to do with signals. The devices are aimed at
creating perceptual pictures in the minds of
the audience and so are not focused on the
significance an image should have but rather on
what there is to be seen in an image and how
to see it.
The Rhetoric of Signals
It is important to remember this because it raises
another problem: up to now, theatre semiotics
has been concerned with signs and has ignored
signals. A lot of what the audience sees in a
performance is not there to express meaning and
to focus rational thought; it is there to activate
signals — to focus attention. In other words, the
devices set in motion to create visual pictures
in the audience have a rhetorical purpose and
function rather than a semantic one.
Let me give an example to clarify this point.
I have already stated that the (unselective)
continuity of the image in relation to the
(selective) discontinuity of the picture stems
from the fact that the spatial and temporal limits
of the image are not immediately obvious since
they are the result of arbitrary choice — that is,
they are the product of what the individual sees.
So a ship, insofar as it is a picture, can stand for
an entire fleet, but that same ship as image stands
for itself, since the choice of the fleet context is
not obvious from the outset. And it is on this
that the (unselective) continuity of the image is
based: it is self-referential and stands for itself.
It is obvious that the processes which
produce perceptual pictures must first nullify
that self-referentiality of the image and work in
such a way that the image can stand for
something else, for that something which makes
up the picture of what is perceived - though
not, obviously, its meaning.
In this sense, the processes which shape the
audience's framing mechanisms trigger off
rhetorical devices such as metonymy. Although
these devices are well-known to theatre
practitioners, especially in the traditional oriental
theatre, they have been barely considered by
theatre analysts.
So far I have discussed the horizontal
montage processes of the audience. Let us call
that end-product montage, to distinguish it from
the director's montage, or source montage, which
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also exists in its own right. The director's
montage exists both as one process among
others that shapes the framing shots seen by the
audience, and as an actual recognizable montage
process.
We therefore need to distinguish two types
of source-montage. The first, which serves only
to shape what the audience sees, consists of units
that are distinguishably separate to the director
but do not appear as such to the audience. The
second type, on the other hand, is made up of
units that are objectively separate.
But can there be objectively separate units in
theatre? In posing this question, I realize I am
stretching my original point according to which
theatre can only work on inseparable images. In
reality, although this is generally true, it does
not exclude the fact that there can be objectively
definable units in the theatre in much the same
way as there are in filmic framing shots (and
there is a whole line of enquiry into this problem
going on at the present time).
Leaving aside macro-units, which in western
theatre are distinguishable as acts and scenes, let
me focus on micro-units. These can be
straightforward visual pictures, obtained through
lighting and stage machinery or through other
devices, such as those which impose boundaries
on what is seen by shifting the audience's
attention away from the image and then shifting
it back again. They can also be what might be
termed linked pictures, created in the audience
through associations of ideas with focal
elements of the performance, both visual and
non-visual, that can clearly be distinguished
from each other.
These elements of attracting attention - apart
from repartee, which has a special semantic value
and significance - are images predetermined by
the director in order to create other images, and
are therefore material metaphors. When consider-
ing them, we have to tackle the problem that,
in theoretical terms, still remains to be
explored - that of metaphor in the theatre.
The association-linked picture is something of
a half-way house between what is seen and what
is presumed. It is closer to what is seen insofar
as it derives from a separate unit, but it relates
to what is presumed since, though it derives
from a separate unit, it is not that unit, but is a
presumed image created through an association
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 IMAGE
(not separate, continuous,
imprecise)
( DIRECT-
PICTURE
IMPLIED/
of ideas. The diagram above provides a resume
of the concepts introduced in relation to the
problem of horizontal montage in theatre.
The Process of Communication
Moving on from these observations on
horizontal montage, I want to consider the
problem of finding a semiotic definition of mon-
tage, and in order to do this I need to begin with
some generalized discussion of communication.
I would describe a process of communication
in the following schematic way: a sender S sends
a message /m/ to a receiver R which is charged
with a given meaning. The communication is
most effective (that is, it is most constructive)
when the receiver R endows the message /m/
with a meaning similar to that given it by the
sender S.
Now let us suppose that there is a mechanism
through which the sender S can control the level
of accuracy of the communication, that is, can
control the way in which the receiver R endows
the message /m/ with meaning. If that level of
accuracy is not immediately very high, let us
imagine two ways in which the sender S might
behave.
In the first model, the sender S might try to
explain the meaning of the message /m/ by
adding other messages / m 7 / m ' 7 etc., which are
roughly synonymous to /m/ in that they have
the same meaning or a wider meaning. Using the
terminology of the natural sciences, once the
synonyms for message /m/ have been exhausted,
and that usually happens fairly quickly, the
sender S can move on to explaining in terms of
kind, then in genre, family, order, or class. This
communication strategy is known as communica-
tion through similarity.
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versus PICTURE
(separate, not continuous,
precise)
•VISUAL FRAME
/through reprise of
an image PERCEPTUAL FRAME
through association
\of ideas -ASSOCIATIVE FRAME
But in a different situation, the sender S could
adopt another strategy. Faced with the message
/m/, that the receiver R has failed to understand,
the sender S might send other expressions that
do not have the same meaning but which have
a more restricted meaning. And to continue
using the terminology of the natural sciences, S
might move from class to order to family to
genre to kind and thence to the particular
individual meaning of the message /m/. This
communication strategy is known as communica-
tion through difference.
In the case of communication through
similarity, what happens is literally com-
prehension. An example of this might be the
communicative situation in which someone in a
restaurant abroad asks for a particular type of
fruit and, faced with the waiter's total
incomprehension, starts explaining through
increasingly generalized terms, and finally ends
up by asking for any kind of fruit regardless.
In communication through difference, how-
ever, the process is towards specification and
identification. An example of this process might
be someone in an ironmonger's, asking for a
screw and then, faced with an assistant who is
an expert, gradually beginning to be more
specific and finally ending up with a precise
definition of exactly what kind of screw he
wishes to buy - that is, with the real meaning
of the term 'screw', the precise meaning that he
intended to communicate.
In discussing communication, there is a
tendency to see communication only through
similarity, in that the process moves from zero
(the waiter not understanding) to complete
success (the waiter finally does understand,
which is true enough, though achieved at the
price of a serious loss of the meaning that was
 part of the original aim of communication). to be asked as to whether it also exists as a basic
In contrast, with communication through functional fact. The answer is negative, for in
difference, the opposite happens. The process reality it is not time-sequence that sets in motion
starts with an understanding on the part of the the cognitive processes of the audience, but
receiver in such generalized terms that the rather difference - that is, the perception of
sender is forced virtually to deny the initial different conceptualized contexts linked in
statement and substitute it with another until non-linear sequence.
reaching the acceptable degree of meaning that Returning to the Eisenstein example once
he/she wants to communicate. again, what produces the cognitive process that
Communication through similarity proceeds is verbalized as 'the child "devours the food
through affirmations; communication through with his eyes",' is not the sequence of frames:
difference proceeds through negations. But that close up of the child's eyes/close up of the plate
is not all. In the process of communication of food, but the perception of the context that
through similarity, the starting point is one of says 'poor, helpless childhood' as opposed to
zero-effect that moves eventually to an ideal the concept 'powerful, opulent wealth'. The two
improvisation, whereas in communication through frames or two pictures are merely parts of these
difference, that process of movement is a contexts, and it is their partial nature, among
gradual one, and at no time is the effect other factors, that imposes a limitation.
completely zero. But while the two pictures follow one
What this means is that in communication another, and therefore each one is only present
through difference, there is no accumulation, no in the other's absence, the two contexts which
memory: either one is understood or one is not. trigger the cognitive process in the audience
In communication through difference, however, remain simultaneously present. The cut-off point of
there is memory: the process of individuation is the picture blurs the real presence of the relative
a gradual one and when it is fully realized it context, but does not eliminate the mental
retains as a basis all the meanings that are in presence. So, if horizontal montage manifests
some way applicable to the message /m/. itself in a sequence of pictures, it functions
In communication through difference, every- according to the simultaneous perception of the
thing that is altered remains as a basis and differences of the relative contexts.
literally constitutes the density of the one specific It could be argued that sequence is only a
meaning. And it is only through this type of technical means whereby a perception of
communication that what anthropologists des- difference is induced in horizontal montage. But
cribe as complex thought can be expressed, this what kind of communication takes place
being structurally composed of multiple, even through horizontal montage? The audience, as
contradictory, aspects. has been noted, perceives difference (of
contexts) through a sequence (of pictures). And
these differences function in the sense of
Montage in Sequence — and Context
specifying, focusing on the precise meaning that
Let me now return to horizontal montage, the auteur wants to communicate to the
montage in sequence. In horizontal montage a audience.
series of distinct pictures succeed each other in Returning to the by now familiar example,
time, separated by some process of division, and Eisenstein does not want to communicate in
it is on the basis of that discontinuous process general terms the fact that the child is hungry
of succession that the audience engages in the (he would only have needed one frame for this,
cognitive act of reconstituting continuity. This carefully constructed); he wants to communicate
has already been stated, and it seems that in this that the character is suffering from that'
process the basic component is time, or, to put particular kind of hunger that is experienced by
it more precisely, the fact that the pictures follow children who are poor and who are surrounded
on from one another. by wealth and by waste.
Now it is clear that this process of succession In order to communicate the idea of that
exists as a concrete fact, but the question needs specific kind of hunger, he has to get across to

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 the audience firstly the meaning of 'child', made
more specific as 'poor child' and then yet more
specific as 'poor starving child', culminating in
'poor starving child faced with an excess of
food'. It is a similar communicative situation to
that which happened when our customer tried
to make the shop assistant understand what kind
of screw was wanted.
From this, it can be concluded that horizontal
montage is not different in structural terms from
communication through difference as described
above. However, it is clear that this statement
is acceptable if and when a 'complex thought'
is being expressed through horizontal montage.
One could create technically a montage of
images whose relative contexts are not different
but tautological. In that case, although technically
montage would happen, there would be no
functional montage, since the cognitive process,
based on a perception of differences that forms
the specific feature of montage in terms of its
functionality, could not be created in the
audience.
This would, for example, be the case in those
sequences of pictures in which we see the same
character driving a car at different stages of a
journey. Technically montage exists, but its
purpose is to 'reflect' real time. This does not
allow for any true cognitive process in the
audience and certainly does not allow for
complex thought. Henceforth, when discussing
montage, unless indicated to the contrary, I shall
thus be referring to authentic montage - that is,
one based on difference, since the other type of
montage, based on identification, is actually
pseudo-montage.
To summarize so far: in horizontal montage
the time sequence of images is simply the
technical means through which the mental
simultaneity of the contexts is realized, which in
turn, through their basic difference, triggers the
cognitive process in the minds of the audience.
Mental simultaneity means that all the
contexts stay in the audience's mind and
accumulate. They constitute the density from
which, not metaphorically, the specific meaning
that is the object of communication emerges.
Horizontal montage is therefore a communica-
tion through difference and the points made
regarding communication through difference in
general are applicable.
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The Concept of 'Vertical Montage'
There is now a basis for the introduction of the
notion of vertical montage or simultaneous
montage. The apparent paradox of this concept
derives from two facts: the first is that the
images which interact among themselves are not
necessarily visual ones, and the second is that
the pictures derived from such images do not
succeed one another in time but are simultaneous.
It is this second fact above all that makes it seem
paradoxical to use the term and concept of
montage to describe the interaction of elements
that occur at the same time.
A unit of performance is made up of the
integration of the actor's micro-performances
(assuming that only one actor is involved) and
various components of the staging. There will
be a set of micro-performances - gestural, ver-
bal, sonic (which includes other than word
units), and so on. All these micro-performances,
together with the pictures that derive from
them, are present and working simultaneously,
and do not follow one another through time. So,
in what sense can they be discussed in terms of
montage?
At this stage, we need to go back to some
of the remarks made about horizontal montage.
It was pointed out that the time sequence of
pictures was simply the technical expedient
through which the simultaneous presence of the
contexts could be established, with the images
as partial units.
It was also noted that the cut-off point
between one picture and another served only to
delineate their elliptical nature and to make the
process of perceiving the differences between
the contexts created by the pictures simpler.
Finally, it was noted that the montage works
through this difference. The conclusions to be
drawn from this were that horizontal montage
is structurally identical with communication
through difference.
The irrelevance of the time factor in hori-
zontal montage is a fact of great importance,
since it makes it possible to consider fundamen-
tally analogous mechanisms both in horizontal
montage, where the pictures follow on from one
another, and in vertical montage, where the
pictures are superimposed on each other.
In vertical montage the simultaneous presence
 of the contexts in which images are partial units
is comparable to the simultaneous occurrence of
various pictures. In horizontal montage the same
simultaneous presence of contexts is comparable
to a fusing-together of pictures. But given that
the functionally determinant factor is the
simultaneous presence of the contexts, these
two types of interaction, though based on
different techniques, can both be described as
montage.
There remain, however, two problems. The
first is this: in what sense can the pictures in
vertical montage be understood as partial units
of contexts ? The second concerns the importance
and type of the difference between contexts.
With regard to the first problem, let us take
as an example the unit composed of an actor
speaking the words, 'You are very dear to me',
with an expression of bitterness. This example
depends entirely on the stage direction, but
clearly the first picture, related to the words
'You are very dear to me' leads on through its
literal meaning to a wider context that could be
described as a field of meaning, and, in respect
of that, the literal meaning is in no way
contradictory.
This field of meaning could be described as
'the love held by character X towards character
Y'. The same applies also to gestural expression,
which in general terms will have a literal
meaning that can be related to a wider field of
meaning. This can be described as 'contrast
between character X and character Y'.
What the audience sees through the two
pictures that are elliptically indicated are these
two fields of meaning. Therefore, in addition to
the irrelevance of the time factor, horizontal
montage is comparable to vertical montage in
this respect also.
With regard to the second problem, it is not
accidental that I have chosen an example with
two different, almost opposite contexts. In the
same way as occurs with horizontal montage,
although more frequent and consistent in this
case, it is also true that in vertical montage one
can choose to relate similar or identical
contexts - that is, decide to carry out a
pseudo-montage. But if different contexts are set
side by side, the mechanism that links them is
similar to that of horizontal montage.
This perception of difference
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individuation. Character X loves character Y, but
what is the nature of that love? It is a
problematic, uneasy love, and other pictures that
have not yet been considered in this example
serve to specify further the nature of X's love
and lead ultimately to defining it, in the same
way in which the sequence of pictures in the
Eisenstein montage lead to determining the
character's specific kind of hunger. In essence,
even vertical montage is concerned with
communication through difference.
Balancing 'Similarity' and 'Difference'
In conclusion, it can be said that both horizontal
and vertical montage can work through
similarity or through difference, and that both
genuine and pseudo-montage can be created.
Working through similarity, what is aimed for
is general understanding; whilst working through
difference, what is aimed for is specific definition.
Moreover, general understanding, which
derives from similarity, tends to be uniform and
stable, in the sense that all the members of an
audience on any one night will understand
roughly the same meaning and that meaning will
not be basically any different on the next night,
because of its nature. Specific definition, on the
contrary, which derives from difference, tends to
be varied and unstable, in the sense that the
members of the audience on any one night will
pick out different meanings, and those meanings
can change radically for the audience of the
following night. This happens, obviously,
because of the precise nature of meaning.
The most accurate kind of balance is usually
the most finely weighted. Whilst a crudely
weighted balance tends, through different
weighting of the same object in differing
conditions, to produce the same result, a finely
weighted balance tends to record random
factors and create differing results for the same
object. In this respect, the difference between
communication through similarity and com-
munication through difference, and hence
between pseudo-montage and genuine montage,
is apparent not only from the point of view of
the way in which they work, but also from that
of their effect on the receiver.
While communication through similarity
constitutes (pseudo-montage) tends to transmit shared,
35
 stable meanings, based on the hypothetical
notion of a homogenous audience, communica-
tion through difference (genuine montage) tends
to transmit unstable meanings that are not
shared, and to be based on an essential
variability amongst a group of spectators.
Throughout this essay, I have had to examine
vertical montage after the horizontal, insofar
as it was important to demonstrate the
irrelevance for the latter of the time-factor in
order to discuss montage in cases where images
Lines Vertical Montage
{partial images)
Horizontal montage (global images)
Fig. 1.
The images on which horizontal montage is
based are not produced by a single line, whether
gestural, verbal, etc., but derive from the vertical
montage of images determined by micro-
performances along those various lines. The
whole process can be summed up as follows:
from each of the lines, the member of the
audience comes to construct an image. These
images can be overt or implicit, a result of the
processes set in motion by the director. Through
the horizontal montage of these partial images
are derived the global images that are set up in
the horizontal montage.
Overall, then, to whom does the theatrical
performance belong? It is obvious that horizontal
montage depends on the images within it, that
is, on the global results of several vertical
montages. And these depend on the partial
images deriving from individual lines. Partial
images are there, partly objective, since they are
36
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did not succeed one another in sequence. But it
should be obvious that, logically, vertical
montage should precede horizontal montage,
for two reasons.
The first is that horizontal montage is in fact
made up of a sequence of vertical montages. The
second is that once horizontal montage is seen
as a montage of vertical montages, it becomes
possible to clarify the concept of image/picture
and to disconnect this from the apparently
indissoluble link of its visualness. See below:
. gestural line
• mimetic line
verbal line
- • time
visual pictures in the sense described in the first
part of this paper, and partly derivative, like
perceptual or analogous images.
If the construction of visual framing shots is
the task of the director alone, the construction
of perceptual and associative images, although
shaped by the director, is primarily the task of
the audience. Vertical montage of partial images
is set up by the director on the assumption that
the perceptual and associative pictures of the
audience will be relatable to the functioning of
the performance communication that the director
is aiming for.
To sum up: the audience contribution, and
consequently the degree of autonomy between
the director's performance and the audience's
performance, is increased when there are more
implicit images than overt images, and fewer
contexts than pictures. The predominance of
implicit images increases the active role of the
 audience, since it is the audience that elaborates which runs a risk of becoming too slight and
them. The divergence of contexts - and this is generalized.
the main point of this essay — leads to a greater
variety of different interpretations. References
So, in the case of difference, it can be argued There are no footnotes to this essay. There is virtually no
that the director's performance tends to be bibliography at all on theatre montage. Writers have not bothered
different from the audience's performance. In the about it, theatre practitioners who have tackled the problems
practically have almost never written about it. But some useful
case of a work that functions consistently or references in relation to this essay can be found in the works of
exclusively through similarity, it is to be S. M. Eisenstein, and it is important to remember that, although
expected that the tautology of the contexts in it is not generally known, Eisenstein did also work in the theatre.
Two enormously helpful works, not yet available in English, are
vertical montage and their logical sequence in Eugenio Barba's La corsa dei contrari: antropologia teatrale (Milan:
horizontal montage will ensure that the direc- Feltrinelli, 1981) and the essays on 'Dramaturgy' and 'Montage'
tor's performance is similar to the audience's. in Anatomia del teatro, ed. Nicola Savaraese (Florence: Usher, 1983).
My conversations with Eugenio Barba have also always been
Just as there is the complex thought of a source of great inspiration, in particular, lengthy discussions
interpretation at the end of a performance built during the two International School of Theatre Anthropology
on genuine montage, at the end of a workshops at Bonn, in 1980 and Volterra in 1981. On those
occasions, I would like to acknowledge also the valuable advice
performance built on pseudo-montage there is given me by Jerzy Grotowski in addition to Eugenio Barba.
a simple thought of general understanding,
Translated by Susan Bassnett

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