From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play

Victor Turner--author, teacher, theorist--deals with these manifold connections in this book of essays which range from anthropology to acting to directing, from everyday life to play to genres of art. 

How is social action related to aesthetics, and anthropology to theatre? What is the meaning of such concepts as "work," "play," "liminal," and "flow"? In this highly influential book, Turner elaborates on ritual and theatre, persona and individual, role-playing and performing, taking examples from American, European, and African societies for a greater understanding of culture and its symbols.

He writes about "liminality"-- that particular kind of being "in between" so familiar to actors, artists, musicians, shamans. 

Turner explains the connections between the "social dramas" that punctuate our lives both on the large scale, such as Watergate and the Iranian hostage crisis and, on the small scale, in ordinary living and the "aesthetic dramas" known to us through literature and theatre.