It is because the public are a mass -- inert, obtuse, and passive -- that they need to be shaken up from time to time so that we can tell from their bear -- like grunts where they are -- and also where they stand.
Source: Theater Questions, in La Revue Blanche, (Paris), Jan. 1897; repr. in The Selected Works of Alfred Jarry, ed. Roger Shattuck and Simon Watson Taylor, 1965.
-- Alfred Jarry, (Sep 8 1873-1907), French writer; He was the creator of the grotesque and wild satirical farce Ubu roi, 1896; (King Ubu), which was a forerunner of the Theatre of the Absurd.