‘During the war, when I had a great deal of time to think, and no friends to amuse me, I conceived of a new kind of drama. One in which the conventional separation between actors and audience abolished. In which the conventional scenic geography, the notions of the proscenium, stage, auditorium, were completely discarded. In which continuity of performance, either in time or place, was ignored. And in which the action, the narrative was fluid, with only a point of departure and a fixed point of conclusion. Between those points the participants invent their own drama.’ His mesmeric eyes pinned mine. ‘You will find that Artaud and Pirandello and Brecht were all thinking, in their different ways, along similar lines. But they had neither the money nor the will —an doubtless, not the time — to think as far as I did. The element they could not bring themselves to discard was the audience.’
John Fowles, The Magus, 1966