This book should be read by anyone, young or old, I first read it when I was 6 and enjoy it just as much today. A must-have for any book fan.

How many hands has a body whose eyes can't see to write anymore than is necessary to the act sans actor--which adds 2 letters and eliminates 3 from the scene whose audience is always 1 times the "Times'" average readership, foundering, of and off course, on the brink of titanic revelation(continued inside, see pp.1-206) of unfolding what would otherwise be uncreased, unstapled, unmutilated were it not for the laws of success which prohibit such behavior in private but--oddly enough and evenly more--not in public. I,too,know Paris in the rain, which, drop by drop (i.e., i.e.o, letter by letter)accrues to my credit for having written my way from bank to banque, left or right, it doesn't matter which so long as the checks I've written (nos. 1-206) check the impulse to unbalance my cheque book('s the word, my word!) and bounce highger than the sum of all the parts of the stories that bind you (you, me, Marie, Anna, Eddie, et.al and sundry others' characters impugned beyond decency's claim check to a hat outworn outside, inwarn in to stay out. BEWEAR!) pages together against the reader's assault on senselessness. Quench who said what about water flowing to circumstances beyond radio's control of the dial wrested from fiddling fingers (poking violins until they sob for more strings attached) belonging to another time's other place-mattes the picture begotten for cheaply-covered territory, by foot possessed. Ownership's land-free at last, and liquidation's a solid investment in futures sure to be remembered for what past Master's test of survival. It's all too plain: prose enplaned, air crafted to currents, home truths left behind to fend for themselves, consciousness be damned to hell/heaven of never knowing what comes next in line after line, stretching beyond the horizon's merely horizontal level (plane?) of comprehension. And the pilot lights the way to turn on a gas stove is to turn off an electric pot-holder of prizes sought for their own sake and not for grandeur's late arrival in a departure lounge filled with dead beats lacking the price of a ticket out of here, there, anywhere is the wild blue yonder's thither? Thence. Hence. Interviewless. The publicist's unchecked claim to accessiblity eqwaits my blocked state of affairs with a heart hardened to, hardened into, but certainly not up against (for where there is no will there is no wall) the text. Therefore, I (aka CRIXEN) rush to judge what I mean to say, that is, "that" is, "that" is that--that chair, that fragment of lobe (ear or frohtal), that slice of cheese, Swiss--beholden to life's various support systems. To pull the plug or to plug the pull--the former is my concern, the latter the publicist's, and what is yours (dear reader/writer) is mine to have and beholeden as cheese, as fragment of lobe (ear or frontal) as chair. And that's "that". Come, then, let us couch our couch in no uncertain terms of disagreement to cause sleep to occur where least expected to arise from its bed of wormy roses/rosy worms and flower/flower in praise of liars that lack (Lilacs! I see! I see! said said man sighted for his bravenessness) nothing, because the space between words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, chapters, books, plays, eyes, breaths, teeth, gum up the work and down the travail that shyly/slyly draws a face into hiding its features, best out of none can tell what's heard to be seen, yet to transpire's enough to come (and come again, s'il vous plait). Boredom's rife with inertia is well-documented. Its rift less so. But it's its rift that makes a breach of confidence secretly impossible. For between the whisper and the bellow falls shadow's fill of pumped-up trees shededing their leaves furrily, furrily, life is but a scheme wrapped in a reverie inside a yaw(e)n. NO-BODY (title) knows the trouble Eddie (Chapter 1) aka The Mind King (Chapter 2) aka The Amateur Genius (Chapter 3) aka The Suburbanite (Chapter 4) aka The Hero Cadmus (Chapter 5) aka Samuel I (Chapter 6) aka Samuel II (Chapter 7 Chapter 7)'s's's's's's's seen but I (aka I) know a hyphen when I see one keeping NO apart from BODY, not an enviable state in which to reside without a license to practice, practice, practise, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, the poetics of spacelessness (see above paragraphs below the the threshold of vision) in the crowded aisles of your nearest grocery store school,hospital, church, or a maze ing grace how sweet the sound of your voice that commands me to turn the page on which these words--these very words--have written themselves free of their writerly type PER-SON (enTITLEment), PER-SUN on a still (absolutely) more crowded field of the possibill(hyphen)at(hyphen)ease...-...

For an introduction to Richard Foreman's theories, manifestos, and practice of theatre, one should look to UNBALANCING ACTS, which includes several essays by him in which he describes clearly the revolutionary direction he is taking with his plays, written and directed by him annually at his little theatre space in New York City, the Ontological-Hysteric Theatre.

This collection of his plays through the mid 1990's includes a valiant introduction and, to its credit, something that UNBALANCING ACTS lacks: a facsimile of one of Foreman's unusual play texts without production stage directions or line attributions. (Foreman, you see, doesn't start out with characters, per se, and distributes the lines during his rehearsal process.)

Your correspondent is among those who feel Richard Foreman's work is highly visionary and way ahead of our time. It is also wonderfully funny and has the power to make you feel creative yourself.

But really, it is time to publish more photographs of these productions, as Foreman's talents as a scenic designer are getting overlooked!

The opening essay, "Foundations For A Theatre," is the clearest and most linear statement to date of Richard Foreman's work, which re-considers the entire process of making theatre (from the formulation of a script to rehearsal to performance) and what kind of experience an evening of theatre may convey.

No one is creating theatre like Richard Foreman, whose associative (and sometimes dissociative) writing process contrives to capture a truthful portrait of his own perception at work. In rehearsal, Foreman creates an environment rebelling against any mimetic presentation of everyday reality, which is a kind of shared dream. He uses every theatrical element at his disposal to surprise and dazzle the spectator, and bring awareness to our radical impulses before our intellects "understand" them (and change them into something else).

Although his project sounds very cerebral, his theatre is very much about the senses, and his art grabs you on a gut level.

The book includes several plays, though it might have been helpful to include a script without the production stage directions to help understand the way he generates a script. (A later book, MY HEAD WAS A SLEDGEHAMMER, does include this and it helps a great deal.) Also, more photographs and illustrations would support his essay on visual design and use of space.

This artist is way ahead of his time, using theatre to address the process of perception itself rather than narrative thinking. The importance of this book, addressing this work to a general reader, may not be appreciated for quite some time.