Before talking more about culture, I must note that the world is hungry and does not care about culture, and that the attempt to direct thoughts focused solely on hunger towards culture is a purely artificial expedient. – Antonin Artaud, The Theater and its Double, Introduction. To say that 1950s theater was dominated by two dramaturgical theories is a gross simplification, a profoundly Western perspective that ignores many non-European art forms in the name of simplifying theater history. That said, for artists living and working in America after World War II, theater in the 1950s certainly seemed dominated by two dramaturgical theories: Stanislavski and Brecht. Constantine Stanislavski founded the Moscow Art Theater in 1898. There he developed his ideas of method acting and emotional recall, writing several books that would enormously influence European and, eventually, American approaches to theater. In short, Stanislavski argued that the overintellectualization of acting was detrimental to theater as a whole. Rather, actors should work from the inside out, reflecting on their past experiences in order to produce a genuine emotional experience for both themselves and the audience. Bertolt Brecht, a Marxist director working in German theater in the 1920s and 1930s, rejected Stanislavski's ideas, opposing overly emotional approaches to theater which he believed limited the audience's ability to engage intellectually. Brecht's Theater intentionally alienated its audience, rejecting theatrical illusion in favor of sociopolitical commentary and debate. Both Brecht and Stanislavski were praised by early 20th century Socialist-Revolutionaries ... middle of paper ... speeches, trapping theater makers, forcing them to confront society on society's terms. For theater to truly challenge society, Artaud asserted, it would need a new language. Gao Xingjian's works, while not necessarily a product of 1960s American theater, offer alternative answers to the same essential questions of language and self. Furthermore, unlike the Living Theater and its descendants, Gao Xingjian's theater seeks to answer these questions in a resolutely “Zen” way. Some scholars go so far as to call Gao's later work "Modern Zen Theater." Certainly Gao's theater gives us a model on which to judge the American theater we have already examined. Gao's writings can be divided into at least three subcategories: "Social Dramas", "Ritual Plays" and "Xieyi" or "Zen Theater". It is this last category that interests us the most..