If theater is to have a social function, directed towards changing the world, it must begin by making people adopt a totally different attitude towards theater. In its own field the theater must keep up with the times and all the advances of the times and not lag several thousand miles behind as it does at present. Theater must not only want to provide the spectator with an experience, but also squeeze from him a practical decision to intervene actively in life. A bad stage performance is not just one which, by contrast with a good one, makes no impression. Good art stimultes sensitivity to art.
Most people have no clear idea of art s consequences, whether for good or for bad.
They suppose that a spectator who is not inwardly gripped by art is not affected. Quite apart from the fact that one can be gripped by bad art as easily as by good. Even if one isn t gripped something happens to one. Good or bad, a play always includes an image of the world. Good or bad, the actor shows how people behave under given circumstances.