The ending of every play (the moments between climax and
final curtain) could be the beginning of a new play --
because it is a stasis, and stasis begins plays. Similarly, the
beginning of every play could be the end of another. It is
easy to imagine a play that could have ended in the stasis
that begins Hamlet. And the end of Oedipus Tyrannos is in
fact very like the beginning of a play Sophocles wrote years
later.

A careful reader will consider what the play might have
been that led up to the opening of the play under study.
The play following final stasis should be considered too.
This helps illuminate the action of the play under study in
the larger scope of its world, not merely as an isolated
series of events.

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