Emphasizing the political nature of tragedy as a theatre of, by, and for the Rehm characterizes Athens as a one in which the theatre stood alongside other public forums as a place to confront matters of import and moment. In treating the various social, religious and practical aspects of tragic production, he shows how these elements promoted a vision of the theatre as integral to the life of the city – a theatre whose focus was on the audience. The second half of the book examines four exemplary plays, Aeschylus’ trilogy, Sophocles’ and Euripides’ and . Without ignoring the scholarly tradition, Rehm focuses on how each tragedy unfolds in performance, generating different relationships between the characters (and chorus) on stage and the audience in the theatre.