Theater can hardly allow itself thi

Theater can hardly allow itself this level of obscurity. It must, by contrast, guide the interest of the spectator along a single path. Yet it advances similarly, to the extent that it knowingly lays out episodes and themes in such a way as to allow a spectator, facing the characters alone, to draw from the whole a master principle, one that those same characters can embrace. Aeschylus provides numerous examples of this, the most famous, and the simplest, being that of Agamemnon. There we see not only that the ideas and feelings expressed by the characters are those that the situation and the unfolding drama demand, but also that, taking on a double meaning, they reveal, little by little, Agamemnon's guilt and make his death seem almost necessary.