Richard Schechner - one of contemporary theatre's foremeost practitioners- explores in these essays the origins of performance, drama, and theatre and delineates the subtle differences between them. He emphasizes the complex interrelationships that form the basis of ethnological studies of ritual, performance in everyday life, environmental theatre, modern European and American theatre, Eurasian and African theatre, body-oriented dialogue and psychotherapies, play, crisis behaviour, rites of passage and mysticism (especially shamanism).理查德·施奇纳（Richard Schechner）是当代戏剧的先驱实践者之一，他在这些论文中探索了表演、戏剧和戏剧的起源，并描绘了它们之间的微妙差异。他强调了构成仪式、日常生活表演、环境戏剧、现代欧美戏剧、欧亚和非洲戏剧、以身体为导向的对话和心理治疗、戏剧、危机行为、通行仪式和神秘主义（特别是萨满教）民族学研究基础的复杂的相互关系。