Tom Stoppard's 2015 play The Hard Problem engages with David Chalmers' philosophical concept of the hard problem of consciousness. The play uses a chronologically linear, stage realist structure and heavily discursive dialogue to interrogate reductive physicalist answers to this problem. Stoppard argues that physicalist and materialist views cannot account for what humans experience when they spectate drama, embracing a view of the human mind that allows for immateriality. The work extends Stoppard's fascination with analytic philosophy by using the theatrical experience to rebut the claim that humans are nothing but their biological hardwiring.
Throughout his career, W.B. Yeats was fascinated by the phenomenology of mental images and the mystical potential of imagination. This article examines how Yeats's beliefs—drawn from occult philosophy and séance experiences—shaped his dramaturgical choices, especially in his Noh-inspired 'plays for dancers.' His convictions about acting, staging, and scenography served an aesthetic and spiritual goal: to transform theatre into a visionary medium that, through poetic language, could restore audiences' connection to the 'world-soul' (anima mundi) in an industrialized, scientific age.