A giggle for the new year

Isn't there an old line about "the tree falling in the forest?" I mean at least that is posed as a question. Nevertheless, AC Douglas suggests:

Let me make myself clear about this, if I haven't up to this point (and I think I have), by stating the matter in the bluntest of terms....the audience doesn't count. The actors don't count. The director doesn't count. Even the playwright himself doesn't count. Nothing counts but the created artwork: the play itself and its aesthetic realization; a realization determined -- determined exclusively -- by the requirements and dictates of the play's text alone in which is contained what's necessary for the achieving of the "aesthetic transcendence..." (italics added.)

What's left? I mean, how can the play exist without actors? Without an audience?

Next we'll learn that the same thing applies to buildings i.e. that the architect and the users don't count...that the only thing that counts is the isolated glittering precious-object, (even without doors or windows or watertight roof — for people don't count)...a structure aims to be a pure piece of "aesthetic transcendence" for its own pleasure. Aye, Robot.