Conclusion

Abstract

‘Philosophy,’ as Merleau-Ponty once observed, ‘is not the reflection of a pre-existing truth, but, like art, the act of bringing, truth into being’ (2002: xxii–xxiii). Having conducted a phenomenological enquiry of theatre and aural attention, and having endeavoured to remain ‘open’ to the world of sound as staged by the theatrical event, what generalisations, or contingent ‘truths’, can be said to have emerged from such an enterprise?¹ How might this investigation of theatrical listening help us not only to reconsider the phenomenology of sound, but to re-evaluate our understanding of theatrical reception and the practice of theatrical attending? In what follows, I will strive to presence a number of themes, inferences, and hypotheses which, I hope, will not only provoke further discussion, but lead to new areas of phenomenological and philosophical enquiry.