With his research on actors' potential for expression via corporeality, Etienne Decroux (1898-1991) provided an important impetus to 20th century theatrical practice that was taken up well beyond his native France. At the same time, however, he was unable to extricate himself from insoluble theoretical contradictions serious enough to make the failure to resolve them an integral feature both of his work and his biography. Drawing upon source material, archival studies and a critical reading of his texts, »Impossible Bodies« supplies an introduction to Decroux' work and analyzes the contradictions at the heart of it as symptomatic of the development of theatre and drama over the last 100 years.