Excerpts from a manifesto-in-progress.

1. Disagree.
   
   
2. It is not possible to have fun in the theatre. Seats are too uncomfortable. Acting too mannered. Sets are too shoddy; lights too bright. Darkness too pervasive; humor too droll; tragedy too lachrymose.
   
   
3. A drama should last two or fewer minutes; comedy three. Anything longer and we run the risk of wearing out thin patiences, and we can't afford to do that to our subscriber base.
   
   
4. The next great threshold of research in performance: To technologize the audience; to find a way to automate them, downsize, and fire them. 
   
   
5. If you want to have fun in the theatre, put on your goggles…
   
   
6. Argue.
   
   
7. O wait, we don't have a subscriber base. Oh goody.
   
   
8. Behold a new theory of vision to refresh our aching eyes…
   
   
9. Using a low-voltage electric current, run through every seat in the theater, we have created a subnet that enables us to tap into and manifest the dreams of every spectator. 
   
   
10. Talk, talk, talk. When will they shut up and start doing theatre in this place?
    
    
11. Lose.
    
    
12. What creature might be crawling from the slime?
    
    
13. Berkeley posited an existence where illusions were fed to willing minds; where minds met each other on a bare Adobe Flash stage.
    
    
14. What sometime-notion might be rising from the dead?
    
    
15. Befriend.
    
    
16. The new hallucinogens are called theatre. The new antidepressants are called theatre. The new soporifics are called theatre. The new antibiotics are not called anti-theatre.
    
    
17. When I was five, my Grandfather took me to a Broadway show, for which he was conducting the orchestra. I met Robert Goulet backstage. That was the trauma that planted the sand in my oyster. No, Robert Goulet was a perfect gentleman.
    
    
18. A New Theory of Vision is dedicated to 1234567890 Day. At 6:31 pm EST on Friday Feb 13, the Unix time will be 1234567890 - exactly that many seconds since the beginning of Unix time (Jan 1 1970). Another example of consummate perfection.