It has been a long time since I read a work of great and serious scholarship with such enjoyment. Impressive in expression, content, and imbued by an encompassing imaginative 'presence' unusual in academic writing . . . As a scholar who has spent his life researching within the realms (sometimes arcane) of ancient theatre, I repeatedly encountered both facts previously unknown to me, or interpretations of familiar subjects cast in a manner that displayed and illuminated them in such an entirely new light, that they seemed freshly fashioned and novel. I admire this book greatly."" - Richard C. Beacham, King's College, London""A gripping study of classical theatre's preservation of its own goneness. This is a learned, innovative, and wonderfully readable book that overthrows the methodological constraints of archeo-historicism to elaborate (from rich evidence) the self-forgetting that conditions the theatre at its roots . . . a powerful, marvelous book."" - Ellen MacKay, University of Chicago