Cal,
 
In reference to your rhetorical querry as to whether or not there is a
difference in "text" between the Penguin paperback copy of Chekov and a
performance of one of his plays (I paraphrase shamelessly, with
appologies), I interject the following.
 
I completed a Masters degree in Film Studies and am now working on my Phd
in, of all things, Folklore.  What Folklore demonstrates is that there is
most definitly a difference between a written text and a performed text,
and one must include the context of performance (including reading) when
one refers to "text".  I am sure (gulp) that everyone has experienced a
film or play or book in a certain place, at a certain time, in a certain
circumstance, and that any attempt to reproduce the same situation was
reduced to failure.  Why is some film, say for example Peter Jackson's
"Braindead", so much fun in the context of a film festival (as I first
experienced it), and not quite so wonderful on home video?  Likewise the
Rocky Horror Picture Show.
 
The point I am trying to make is that the performance of "text" is
CO-determined by its CONtext.
 
Just some ramblings,
Mikel Koven
 
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