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… the urge to do theatre is a very natural thing. It stems from the urge to play that exists in all of us. As we grow we have to funnel this urge into other forms. And that's what theatre is all about.
—BAR-YA'ACOV (1986)
ALTHOUGH WE ALL THINK WE KNOW WHAT WE MEAN WHEN WE speak of or hear about play, in fact play is better described by its functions than it can be through a formal definition. There is no generally accepted, comprehensive definition of play. In a standard dictionary (see Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, Merriam Company, Springfield, Mass., 1974, p. 881), the list of definitions of the noun and verbs "play" takes up half a page, running from "the conduct, course or action of a game" to the stage representation of an action or story, and from "to engage in sport or recreation to cause a radio or phonograph to emit sounds."
In his 1908 paper on "Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming," Freud stated, "Might we not say that every child at play behaves like a creative writer, in that he creates a world of his own, or rather re-arranges the things of his world in a new way which pleases him? It would be wrong to think he does not take that world seriously; on the contrary, he takes his play very seriously