About the Book:In this innovative reading, Irene Eynat-Confino offers an explanation for the higher effectiveness of the fantastic in theatre. Taking Cocteau’s masterpiece The Infernal Machine as a case study, she also reveals that when the fantastic is introduced within a realistic context, it encodes and conveys unconventional notions. The book addresses such issues as identity, the Oedipus myth and Freud, homosexuality and homophobia, marginality, and the role of the artist in society.