The experimental work with the human voice in contemporary compositions often simply ignores the genuine connection of the voice to expression and to the body. The voice is not a “neutral” instrument, but always intertwined with its very character of impartation and its physical body.

In this issue's Critical Acts section, a stage is upended, King Lear is played by a cast of women, a director travels to Karbala, and angels perch on window ledges. In Sjoerd Wagenaar's Strakstuk, the entire stage floor tilts, and props, set pieces, and the theatrical frame itself slide away, leaving the actors clinging to bed frames, much as the passengers of the Titanic held on to the rails of the ship as it listed and sank. In the CalArts production of King Lear, Lear was played by an African American woman, yet it had little to do with racial and sexual identity and everything to do with political power, according to Una Chaudhuri. Lear's director, Travis Preston, chronicles a journey to Karbala that greatly influenced his production. And on his journey through Deborah Warner's Angel Project, James Westcott finds that even the most commonplace is made strange by the meticulous choreography of uncertainty.

This issue of TDR gives some recent German readings of Brecht's texts (not his life)—an object of study that almost seems in danger of disappearing. “Texts” are understood both as writings and as theatre.