“Theatre that takes no risks is a particularly embarrasing form of public and excessive self-criticism.”

I think the argument here is that “excessive self-criticism” is itself a crutch that can cause bad theatre because it prevents the artist from taking positive action. The key is that the self-criticism is excessive. It paralyzes the artist, and their paralysis leads them to the safety of the status quo. In other words, bad theatre takes no risks because it cannot withstand the scruity of its own overbearing self-criticism. It looks too deeply inward when it should be looking outward.

OK. So who’s embarrassed by all this “no risk taking”? I think the sentence suggests that we should all be embarrassed by it.

To me, this is this idea at the heart of sentence #16.

You misinterpret me…I agree with your defintiion of bad theatre. better to go down in flames. i’d rather a bang than a whimper. I think the sentiment is implicit in the sentence however, because if you go out on a limb and fail it isn’t self-flagellation, it’s just trying and failing.

Your statement here assumes a definition of “bad theatre” that is no implicit to the sentence itself.

the only way to create truly awesome theatre, is to risk creating truly horrible theatre. this can sometimes result in “embarassing” public displays. but so it goes…the alternative is to create pedestrian mildly satisfying productions that take no risks.