1. Introduction: Savages, Gods, Robots and Revolutionaries: Modernist Performance -- 2. Puppets and Actors. 'Gentlemen: the Marionette' -- The Ghost in the Machine -- 'When the Puppets Come to Town': Wooden Characters -- 3.The Director, the Playwright and the Actress. 'A Slice of Life' -- 'The Woman Question' -- Naturalism and its Discontents -- 4. '...as if the words themselves could sing and shine': Poetic Drama and Theatricality. W. B. Yeats: Poetry, Philosophy and Nationality -- T. S. Eliot: 'He do the police in different voices' -- Gertrude Stein: The Landscape Play -- 'Solely because of the increasing disorder': Poetic Drama and Epic Theatre -- Stages for Dancers -- 5. Sada Yakko, Michio Ito and Mei Lan-fang: Orientalism, Interculturalism and the Performance Event. The European Tour -- Mei Lan-fang in Moscow -- 6. Greeks and Other Savages: Neo-Hellenism, Primitivism and Performance -- 7. 'The Revolution said to the theatre...': Performance and Engagement -- The Futurist Serate -- 'First International Dada Fair' -- The Blue Blouse (1923-28) -- The Federal Theatre Project (1935-39).