Often depicting the theater, the circus, and vaudeville, Max Beckmann's paintings take on a new dimension when you realize that he places the viewer in the position of the spectator and his paintings as the stage. As this monograph shows, Beckmann was driven by pageantry, and indeed he declared himself to be an "impresario, director, and scene shifter." The texts here discuss this seldom-noted aspect of his works, which are themselves represented in dozens of color reproductions.