Madness is usually conceived as a behavioural or psychological deviancy manifest in an individual. Thus, theatrical representations depict mad individuals. Even though theatre is a space where the social is exhibited, mirrored, examined, commented upon and defined, mad acts occur as solitary, even singular events, within social contexts. The social context may provide the origins, the motivating urge of the mad behaviour or may make the aberrant action understandable, rendering that which superficially is inexplicable, comprehensible and therefore meaningful. Even where the insane act is apparently motiveless and ultimately meaningless, it is against the background of shared values and self-evident and coherent mores that the motiveless and incomprehensible is shown to be understandable.

Referring to the Classical Greek period, Edith Hall argues that: ‘Gatherings of citizens took place often and routinely, usually in the open air, as at the theatre of Dionysius. These gatherings were an essential social mechanism in shaping group opinion’ (2010: p. 60). In other words, the Greek audience were discussing and responding to the dramatic material that they had watched. It is easy to imagine that plays such as Euripides’ Medea and Sophocles’ Antigone where there is a direct appeal to the moral sensibility of the audience would have evoked much discussion, acting as stimulation to discover the boundaries of what is permissible and defining and guiding conduct. In addition, it is clear that the comedies, particularly Aristophanes’ plays, were often written in response to specific political and social events, either with a view to influencing the course of public life or merely to draw attention to those events by speaking the truth to power acting as ‘mirrors for princes’. These social and public aspects of the theatre are arguably present in Shakespeare and are definitely important in Ibsen's plays, especially in An Enemy of the People and Pillars of the Community. In his later plays, Ibsen concentrated on exploring individual psychology, granted, of an individual in the context of modernity. Where Ibsen adopted realism as his chosen dramatic method, Tennessee Williams, who as we have already seen also explored individual psychopathology, moved away from realism by amplifying the illusory and borrowing some of Brecht's techniques by using scene announcements or commentaries, for example a screen legend or a screen image, as a counter to what was happening on stage.