The discussions which treat these forms of theatre, however, are neither as focused nor as innovative as those in earlier chapters of the book. Several of the analyses, that of the spatial symbolism in Ibsen's drawing room settings, for example, are all too obvious. Others shed an intriguing light, but fail to articulate, with regard to a particular play, the theatrical space as an expression of attitudes toward woman. Certainly such considerations remain of great interest, but the centrality ascribed to them is not compelling. The earlier discussions are strongest because they deal with theatrical forms descending in a direct line from Aeschylus.
More hybrid settings lack the simplicity and immediate tension implicit in the classical cityscape.
In her chapter entitled 'The woman in the window,' Scolnicov discusses an wide variety of window scenes in Renaissance theatre. She finds the same dynamics at work in the window scenes of such plays as Romeo and Juliet , and Much Ado About Nothing , as in those with a classical setting, a dynamic based upon the identification of the house with the idea of woman. Persuasive to an extent, this analysis fails, ultimately, to allow for an interpretation revealing the full richness of these scenes as they relate to issues of gender. What is largely ignored is the pastoral bias which informs them and the complexity which such a divergent motif brings to the conventional classical theatrical form. In pastoral the outdoors is the site of an ideal natural world, one where the individual, be that individual male or female, is free from the fetters of the city.