For the first time available in Modern Classics, Bentley's classic anthology of the people, practices, and methods central to modern theatre by key playwrights and their interpreters

In The Theory of the Modern Stage, leading drama critic, Eric Bentley, brings together landmark writings by dramatists, directors and thinkers who have had a profound effect on the theatre since the mid nineteenth century, from Adolphe Appia to mile Zola.

Here, Antonin Artaud sets out a manifesto for a Theatre of Cruelty, Bertolt Brecht discusses the tension between entertainment and instruction in experimental drama and Bernard Shaw defends himself as a realist, while W. B. Yeats describes the creation of a People's Theatre. The ideas of theatre's great makers are revealed by their best expositors, as Eric Bentley writes about Stanislavsky belief in the importance of emotional memory when creating a dramatic role and Arthur Symons considers Richard Wagner and the relationship between genius, art and nature.