I wish to reconsider here the problem of reception in the theatre as broadly and with as little theoretical bias as possible. On the one hand, I will concentrate on results drawn from the work of theatre practitioners while considering, on the other hand, the hypotheses and data coming out of the scientific research into this and related matters. This research has been going on in various fields – often via a multidisciplinary approach ranging from sociology to experimental psychology, from anthropology to history and, of course, to semiotics.