World Political Theatre and Performance: Theories, Histories, Practices 2020016597, 9789004425804, 9789004430990

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World Political Theatre and Performance

Themes in Theatre: Collective Approaches to Theatre and Performance Series Editor Peter G.F. Eversmann (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

Editorial Board Elaine Aston (Lancaster University, UK ) Jacqueline Lo (Australian National University, Australia) Karen Fricker (Brock University, Canada) James Harding (University of Maryland, USA) Milija Gluhovic (University of Warwick, UK )

Volume 11

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/tt

World Political Theatre and Performance Theories, Histories, Practices

Edited by

Mireia Aragay Paola Botham José Ramón Prado-Pérez

Cover illustration: Marika Vaarik and ensemble in Savisaar (2015) by Theatre NO99, directed by Ene-Liis Semper and Tiit Ojasoo. Photograph by Ene-Liis Semper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Aragay, Mireia, editor. | Botham, Paola, editor. | Prado-Pérez, José Ramón, editor. Title: World political theatre and performance : theories, histories, practices / edited by Mireia Aragay, Paola Botham, José Ramón Prado-Pérez. Description: Leiden ; Boston : BRILL, 2020. | Series: Themes in theatre: collective approaches to theatre and performance, 1871-8736 ; 11 Identifiers: LCCN 2020016597 | ISBN 9789004425804 (hardback) | ISBN 9789004430990 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Theater–History. | Theater–Production and direction. | Theater–Political aspects. Classification: LCC PN2100.5 W67 2020 | DDC 792.09–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020016597

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 1871-8736 ISBN 978-90-04-42580-4 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-43099-0 (e-book) Copyright 2020 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents Notes on Contributors General Introduction Trish Reid

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Part 1 Activist Theatres/Performances Past and Present Activist Theatres/Performances Past and Present: An Introduction José Ramón Prado-Pérez

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Political Activism or Handling Trauma? The Civil War Staged in Workers’ Theatres in 1920s Finland 26 Mikko-Olavi Seppälä From Revolution to Dissent: A Case Study of the Changing Role of Theatre and Activism in Bengal 39 Pujya Ghosh Who Gets to Represent the Past and Why Should They Bother? Maltese Political Theatre in the 1980s 53 Marco Galea A Film-Set Activism: Political Dimensions of a Labor Day Performance Fatine Bahar Karlıdağ

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Making the Audience Cry: Witnessing Violence and the Ethics of Compelled Empathy 83 Julia Boll Stepping Forward: An Exploration of Devised Theatre’s Democratic Designs in an Actor-Training Setting 98 Evi Stamatiou

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Part 2 Contemporary (Debates on) Political Theatre Contemporary (Debates on) Political Theatre: An Introduction Paola Botham The Politics of Theatre in France Today Bérénice Hamidi-Kim

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Returning to the ‘Plebeian’ Roots of Comedy: Contemporary Political Theatre in Poland 146 Aneta Głowacka Theatre NO99’s Savisaar: An Estonian Political Musical for the Twenty-First Century 164 Madli Pesti Theatre and Democracy in Chile: La Re-sentida’s La imaginación del futuro, or the Failure of Utopias 181 Camila González Ortiz The Touring Grass Stage: Staging the Site-Specific Dilemma of Glocalization in Hypermodern China 198 Wei Zheyu Meeting in the Theatre to Think towards Social and Political Change Andy Smith Index

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Notes on Contributors Mireia Aragay is Professor of English Literature and Theatre at the University of Barcelona and Life Fellow of Clare Hall, University of Cambridge. Her publications include Books in Motion: Adaptation, Intertextuality, Authorship (editor; Rodopi, 2005), British Theatre of the 1990s: Interviews with Directors, Playwrights, Critics and Academics (co-editor; Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), Ethical Speculations in Contemporary British Theatre (co-editor; Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), “Theatre and Spectatorship”, a special issue of the Journal of Contemporary Drama in English (co-editor, 2016), and Of Precariousness: Vulnerabilities, Responsibilities, Communities in 21st-century British Drama and Theatre (coeditor; De Gruyter, 2017). She is Principal Investigator of the Contemporary British Theatre Barcelona research group (www.ub.edu/cbtbarcelona/) and General Editor of Atlantis. Journal of the Spanish Association of English Studies (www.atlantisjournal.org/). Julia Boll holds a research position at Konstanz University, where she investigates the diachronic representation of the bare life on stage, a project for which, as PI, she received funding from the German Research Foundation. She has spoken and published on the representation of war, violence, grief and pornography; ethics in literature on science; neoliberalism in European playwriting; theatre and utopia; and the bare life on stage. Her monograph The New War Plays was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2013. She is currently co-convenor of the Political Performances Working Group at the International Federation of Theatre Research (IFTR). Paola Botham (née Sotomayor) is Lecturer in Drama at Birmingham City University, UK. Her main research interests are modern and contemporary British theatre, especially political and documentary forms, and Hispanic drama. Her publications include chapters on the contemporary history play for Twenty-First Century Drama: What Happens Now (2016), on Caryl Churchill for Modern British Playwriting: The 1970s (2012) and on tribunal theatre for Political Performances: Theory and Practice (2009). She has also contributed several articles to international journals such as Contemporary Theatre Review, the Journal of Contemporary Drama in English and Nuestra América. She is currently working on the monograph Political Theatre Reconstructed.

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Marco Galea is Senior Lecturer in theatre and Director of Research of the School of Performing Arts at the University of Malta. He has published several works on Maltese theatre history and on postcolonial theatre, and edited volumes on Maltese and European theatre-makers. A book of theatre reviews he edited won the Malta National Book Council Prize for Research for 2017. He has also been active in the voluntary sector, serving as president of the Malta Union of Writers (L-Akkademja tal-Malti) between 2005 and 2007. His most recent publication is Redefining Theatre Communities (co-edited with Szabolcs Musca for Intellect Books, 2020). Pujya Ghosh is pursuing her PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawarharlal Nehru University. She has taught Sociology and Theatre at the Shri Ram School for the last four years. Her research examines the relationship between politics and performance in the 1960s and 1970s from the perspective of the cultural, intellectual and political shift that took place in that period. Currently, she focuses on contemporary people’s movements and performance mediations, working on a suitable theory-history interface that integrates oral history and cultural memory into her critical-methodological approach to political and theatrical events. Other fields of research include the spaces of the political, performance interventions, civil society, spectatorship, community engagement and citizenship. Aneta Głowacka is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Culture Studies, University of Silesia in Katowice. She holds a doctorate in Humanities from the same university. Her research focuses on the aesthetic changes characteristic of twentieth- and twenty-first-century drama in Poland, the connections between theatre and popular culture, and political theatre. She is currently working on the book Aesthetics of Popular Culture in Polish Theatre after 1989. As a theatre critic she contributes to culture and theatre magazines in Poland. She is also editor of the theatre section of the Polish magazine Opcje (Options). She is a member of the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR), the Polish Society for Theatre Research and the International Association of Theatre Critics (Polish section). Camila González Ortiz is a theatre director, researcher and translator. She holds a doctorate in Latin American Studies from King’s College London. Her research focuses

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on Chilean theatre history and politics, performance-as-protest and the relationship between theatre and neoliberalism within the Latin American context. Her writing has been published in Revista Apuntes de Teatro, e-misférica, Études and Revista Hiedra. Her work as a director has been presented in England, Northern Ireland and Chile. She is also a member of Out of the Wings Collective, which specialises in translating and promoting drama from the Spanish-speaking world in the UK. She has translated plays by Caryl Churchill, Chris Thorpe and Chilean dramatist Pablo Manzi. She is currently based in London. Bérénice Hamidi-Kim is Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at Lyon 2 University and a member of the Institut Universitaire de France. She is co-editor of the electronic journal thaêtre and a regular contributor to the journal Parages (TNS/Solitaires intempestifs). She has published Les Cités du théâtre politique en France depuis 1989, with a preface by Luc Boltanski (L’Entretemps, 2013), and co-authored, with Séverine Ruset, Troupes, compagnies, collectifs dans les arts vivants. Organisations du travail, processus de création, conjonctures (L’Entretemps, 2018). Fatine Bahar Karlıdağ is Assistant Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at Yeditepe University in Istanbul, Turkey. She received her PhD from the School of Drama, University of Washington, Seattle, where she was also a Fulbright Visiting Research Program scholar (2012-2013). Her research concentrates on the historical representation of the radical left in English and American theatre and performance, as well as contemporary labour activism in Turkey. She has presented conference papers at the American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR) and the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR) and writes essays and reviews for Theatre Times. José Ramón Prado-Pérez is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at Universitat Jaume I de Castelló. He specialises in contemporary British theatre with an emphasis on postwar political drama. He is a member of the Contemporary British Theatre Barcelona research group (www.ub.edu/cbtbarcelona/). He has published articles on Caryl Churchill, Pam Gems, Punchdrunk and Theatre Uncut and has been involved with Theatre Uncut as a performer and translator since 2013. He contributes regularly to the Gale Cengage Learning Encyclopedia, Shakespearean Criticism Series and Drama Criticism Series, as academic ad-

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visor. Other research interests include film adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays and contemporary British metafiction. He is currently on the board of the academic journal Culture, Language and Representation (Universitat Jaume I). Trish Reid is Professor of Contemporary Theatre and Pro Vice-Chancellor (Education) at Kingston University, London. She has published a number of chapters and articles on contemporary British theatre with a particular emphasis on Scotland. She is the author of The Theatre of Anthony Neilson (2017) and Theatre & Scotland (2013). More recently Trish has written for Contemporary Theatre Review on the work of the black British playwright debbie tucker green and for the Journal of Contemporary Drama in English on the dystopian turn in British playwriting. She has a chapter on “Regions and Nations” in the forthcoming Cambridge Companion to British Theatre Since 1945. Trish is co-convenor of the Political Performances Working Group of the International Federation of Theatre Research (IFTR). She is from Glasgow. Mikko-Olavi Seppälä defended his thesis on the history of the Finnish workers’ theatres at the University of Helsinki in 2007. He currently works as a lecturer and adjunct professor at the same university, where he teaches theatre history. His major interests are the history of political and popular theatre. In his current research project, Seppälä examines Finnish migrant theatre in Sweden and in Northern America. He has written several books in Finnish, including a history of Finnish theatre, a history of Finnish workers’ theatres, a cultural history of 1920s Helsinki and biographies of both the comic singer J. Alfr. Tanner and the poet Aale Tynni. Madli Pesti holds a PhD in theatre research from Tartu University, Estonia (dissertation: Political Theatre and its Strategies in the Estonian and Western Cultures, 2016). She currently works as a researcher in the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, where she runs the practice-as-research PhD programme. Her research areas are performance analysis and theory, political and applied theatre, and contemporary theatre. In 2018 she published 100 Years of Estonian Theatre. She has also been writing theatre reviews since 2002, winning best theatre critic at the Estonian Annual Theatre Awards in 2019. She was head of the Estonian Theatre Researchers’ and Critics’ Association in 2015 and curated the programme of the new performing arts centre Vaba Lava (Open Space) in Tallinn between 2015 and 2017.

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Andy Smith is a theatre-maker whose recent works include SUMMIT (2018), COMMONISM (2017) and The Preston Bill (2015). He has collaborated with Tim Crouch since 2004, co-directing (with Karl James) a number of works including An Oak Tree (2005), The Author (2009) and, most recently, Total Immediate Collective Imminent Terrestrial Salvation (2019). In 2013, Tim and Andy wrote and performed what happens to the hope at the end of the evening together. Andy is Lecturer in Theatre Practice at the University of Manchester. Evi Stamatiou is a PhD candidate at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, and Senior Lecturer in theatre and programme leader of the BA (Hons) Acting at the University of Chichester. Her research interests include social equality in actor training, practice-based research and social representations of marginalised identities in drama. She is an award-winning actor, writer and director who works across stage and screen, with more than sixteen years of international experience. Since 2011, she has been training actors at UK conservatoires and universities. See www.evistamatiou.com for further details. Wei Zheyu is a lecturer in drama at Guangxi Arts University, PR China. Wei received his BA at Sun Yat-sen University and MA at Nanjing University, both in English Language and Literature. He was a Trinity Long Room Hub Fellow (2013-2017) and was awarded his PhD at Trinity College Dublin in 2017. Wei has published several articles on contemporary Chinese theatre, intercultural theatre and intermedial performance studies. He is also a theatre translator and playwright. Wei’s current research is funded by the Young College Scholars Research Development Programme of Guangxi [Guangxigaoxiao zhongqingnian jiaoshi keyan jichunengli tisheng xiangmu], “Contemporary Intermedial Theatre Studies in the Context of Globalization” [quanqiuhuayujing xia dangdai juchang humeiti yingyong yanjiu] (2019KY0505).

General Introduction Trish Reid

This book considers instances of performance, in the present and the past, that might be considered political in the general sense of being counterhegemonic. The collection has been developed over the last five years by the Political Performances Working Group (PPWG) of the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR). The PPWG’s members come from diverse backgrounds and varied intellectual traditions. Contributors to this volume live in and/or write about Chile, China, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Malta, Poland, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. The group’s purpose has been to expand and interrogate arguments and counterarguments about the political dimensions of theatre and performance and about how histories of these practices are constructed and contested in particular national contexts. Of course, any book that uses the words ‘political’ and ‘performance’ in its title inevitably raises questions of definition. For what does it mean to talk about the ‘political’ in relation to theatre and performance at this moment in time, and how do we understand the term ‘performance’ in relation to both the theatre and the wider sphere of social and political life? As will become apparent, the authors of the chapters in this collection do not adhere to any single definition of politics or the political. They nonetheless share a number of key concerns, mainly in relation to discourses of power: its forms and sources; its uses, abuses and effects; its distribution and constraints; its norms and manifestations through states, governments and economic and social systems. Questions regarding the forms that political performance has taken in the past and might take in the present and even future, and in what senses they can be accurately described as ‘political’, are central to the PPWG’s discussions. In recent years, perhaps unsurprisingly, the group has become keenly interested in the major political problems of our time: neoliberalism, globalisation, migration, the re-emergence of nationalism, terrorism and environmentalism. Our search for a meaningful description of the ‘political’ has turned up various and sometimes contradictory understandings depending on our diverse local contexts and the intellectual histories which inevitably inform our preoccupations. Some of us have been trained in the vocabularies of feminist theatre and theory, for instance. Most of us have a strong interest in the histories and aesthetics of theatres of the Left across international borders, and some have a specific interest in their legacies in our own national contexts. As

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a result, our interactions, as represented in this volume, often lead to productive tensions. One example might be the differences between how neoliberal hegemony is conceived and discussed later in this introduction and the approach adopted by Bérénice Hamidi-Kim in her chapter on French theatre. Similarly, as his reflexive contribution demonstrates, Andy Smith’s grounding in conceptual art results in a politicised performance practice significantly more elliptical and metaphoric than that described by Wei Zheyu1 in his account of the Chinese amateur company Grass Stage, yet both are encompassed by the umbrella term ‘political performances’. Increasingly, in fact, our very reference points – political, performances – have become contingent. We do not view this contingency as problematic. On the contrary, it seems a useful enough starting point for thinking about theatre and performance, which by their nature are ephemeral yet always take place in a very real, material here and now. The task of arriving at a useful paradigm for political performance is hampered, I also want to suggest, by the persistence of the idea exemplified in Augusto Boal’s assertion, in the preface to the 1974 edition of Theatre of the Oppressed, that “all theatre is necessarily political, because all the activities of man are political and theatre is one of them” (xxiii). The activity of making performance certainly involves taking a position in the world, as does going to the theatre or attempting to analyse it afterwards. However, Boal’s assertion is formulated at such a high level of generalisation that it risks distorting rather than illuminating discussions of political performance. Similarly, the too casual use of the analogy between politics and theatre, which has also been around for quite some time, is unhelpful. As Clifford Geertz notes in his essay “Blurred Genres: The Reconfiguration of Social Thought”, this latter approach needs to amount to something more than “pointing out that we all have our entrances and exits, we all play our parts, miss cues, and love pretense” (166). In academia, the use of theatre as a metaphor for all kinds of human activity, especially in the humanities and social sciences, became endemic in the latter half of the twentieth-century. Erving Goffman’s The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life (1959) famously utilised the metaphor of the theatre to explore quotidian social interaction, for instance, while more recently the political theorist Walter Truett Anderson noted the “increasing theatricality of politics, in which events are scripted and stage-managed for mass consumption and in which individuals and groups struggle for starring roles (or at least bit parts in the dramas of life)” (5). Jean-François Lyotard employed the theatrical 1 Chinese names are presented here according to their native convention, where surname is mentioned first.

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metaphor so extensively and with such force in Libidinal Economy (1993), that Nicholas Ridout wonders what “would come of reading the opening chapter of this book, ‘The Great Ephemeral Skin’, in the belief that when Lyotard writes ‘theatre’ he actually means theatre” (155)? The use of the word ‘performance’ in the title of this collection also recalls older arguments about the distinctiveness of Performance Studies and Theatre Studies as independent disciplines. Readers will notice, for instance, that Fatine Bahar Karlıdağ’s essay on trade union activism in Turkey is the only one included here that deals with events outside conventional theatre and, moreover, events not necessarily marked or understood as art. The work of upholding such a distinction seems to us a wasted labour, however. The concept of performance, like the concept of theatre, has multiple connotations and meanings which are not stable across forms, cultures or chronologies. Consequently, the PPWG proposes, following Erika Fischer-Lichte, “that Theatre and Performance studies do not comprise two separate fields of study but instead exist in an intricate symbiosis” (x). They are not adversaries. They enhance each other. Like Fischer-Lichte, we understand both theatre and performance as “constituted in the moment of encounter and interaction between actors and spectators” (x), and this understanding informs many of the theoretical approaches deployed in this volume. Madli Pesti’s chapter examining the work of the Estonian collective Theatre NO99 emphasises the ‘eventness’ of this work utilising models derived from Willmar Sauter’s book The Theatrical Event: Dynamics of Performance and Perception (2000), for instance. These questions of definition seem especially pressing at the time of writing, when neoliberal hegemony appears alarmingly robust and disturbingly comprehensive, and when it is not at all clear what directions progressive politics, and by extension radical performance practices, might take. Evi Stamatiou’s chapter on devising processes and their ability to both produce but also, and crucially, suppress individual political agency is pertinent here, as is Aneta Głowacka’s account of the irreverent and subversive tactics employed by theatre-makers in contemporary Poland in reinvigorating popular comedy as a medium for political commentary. It is in the context of neoliberalism that the group of scholars who have contributed to this collection have written, and in which most of the performances discussed have been created. In addition, the range of ways in which counter-hegemonic performances have been conceptualised, theorised and investigated by contributors to the volume demonstrates that the effects of neoliberalism have been experienced differently in different national and regional contexts, and that its histories and possible trajectories have been similarly varied.

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The book is organised in two parts, the first of which deals with the relationship between performance and activism across a range of chronologies and geographies, and the second with current debates in and around political theatre. Paola Botham’s introduction to this second section helpfully summarises recent scholarship in the field of contemporary political performance while also arguing for a renewed interest in its potential efficacies. José Ramón Prado-Pérez’s introduction to the opening section provides context for the essays included there partly by detailing the upsurge in activism that has marked the new millennium and by commenting on the movement of documentary and testimonial theatre from the margins into the mainstream of theatre practice, as evidenced by the impact of Richard Norton-Taylor’s The Colour of Justice (1999). Prado-Pérez also suggests that theatre criticism would benefit from cross-fertilisation with the recent performative and affective turns in cultural and political theory. Such cross-fertilisation has already occurred in feminist theatre scholarship, of course, as evidenced by the publication of Elin Diamond, Denise Varney and Candice Amich’s edited volume Performance, Feminism and Affect in Neoliberal Times (2017), but he is perhaps right to point to its potential in relation to the wider sphere of political performance, particularly in so far as neoliberalism can be understood as a political economy of the senses. In any case, Prado-Pérez’s introduction covers a wide range of scholarship and offers a convincing account of the historicity of activist performance. Botham’s strategy is different, using Sarah Grochala’s thesis from The Contemporary Political Play: Rethinking Dramaturgical Structure (2017) as a starting point and relating it to wider questions of representation and form. By adopting quite distinct approaches, these introductions allow the reader to encounter the complicated genealogies of political performance in a global context. Since the essays in this collection are already ably introduced by PradoPérez and Botham, my intention in what remains of this introduction is not to summarise their arguments in any detail, but instead to give an overview of the key issues currently at stake in our field and to offer some indication of how the volume contributes to advancing that field. As regards the latter, our privileged position as a group of international scholars who have been able to meet annually on university campuses in Barcelona, Belgrade, Hyderabad, Santiago, São Paulo, Shanghai, Stockholm and Warwick has undoubtedly worked to our advantage. In our meetings, academics, and sometimes artists, have continued to search for and map the political in performance, in what can seem, to borrow a phrase used by E. J. Westlake in her introduction to the PPWG’s earlier anthology of essays, Political Performances: Theory and Practice (2009), “a sea of Foucaultian relativism” (8). The inclusion in this present collection of chapters

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by Camila González Ortiz on theatre in Chile, Wei Zheyu on grassroots theatrical responses to globalisation in China, and Pujya Ghosh on Bengali activist theatre, presents a welcome challenge to the impasse created by the exclusively self-referential practices of Eurocentric scholarship, which has too long considered itself universal. The Eurocentrism of our discipline was not built in a day, however, and will take some considerable and sustained effort to deconstruct it. It is noticeable, for instance, that the three introductions in this volume have been authored by contributors who work in the United Kingdom and/or whose academic specialism is British theatre and performance. Still, it is our hope that the essays in this anthology, representing as they do multiple positions and traditions, challenge existing paradigms for understanding political theatre and performance and suggest new directions of investigation. As mentioned earlier, the key political context for this anthology is neoliberalism, a system which varies in its manifestations across the globe but which is underwritten by the assumption that free-market economies enable individuals to maximise their material interests, and consequently provide the sole basis for the satisfying of human aspiration. It also assumes that markets are preferable to states and conventional politics, which at best are inefficient and at worst pose a threat to freedom. Neoliberalism, as Wendy Brown reminds us, is something more than an economic system. Brown understands it as “a normative order of reason developed over three decades into a widely and deeply disseminated governing rationality” that “transmogrifies every human domain and endeavor, along with humans themselves, according to a specific image of the economic” (10). In the event, as the free movement of capital and goods has increased, income gaps have widened exponentially and protections have been removed from the poor, as well as increasingly from those unaccustomed to thinking of themselves as poor. Precarity has become the defining condition of our time. We have seen in the experience of Greece in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis, for instance, the exposure of myths of perpetual affluence in the European Union as untenable and unsustainable. Moreover, precarity is not, as Judith Butler has noted, “a passing or episodic condition, but a new form of regulation that distinguishes this historical time”. It is “the organizing principle for the process by which we are governed and by which we come to govern ourselves” (vii). Since the economic crash of 2008, the fragility and precarity of middle-class aspiration in the West have come into particular focus. In her 2015 book State of Insecurity: Government of the Precarious, Isabell Lorey argues persuasively that under these conditions, the idea of sovereignty has become tied up with the notion that one’s person and property are perpetually under threat from outside forces, a situation which inevitably leads to increased demands for security. We can see these tensions

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played out in the politics of Brexit in the United Kingdom or the election of Donald Trump in the United States, but also in microcosm in the theatre. The following example is from London, because this is where I live and work. In 2015 the Royal Court Theatre staged the inaugural production of Zinnie Harris’s How to Hold Your Breath, a play which sees its heroine Dana, a stylish customer relations expert, suffer a loss of privilege after a seemingly straightforward sexual encounter with a man named Jarron, who mistakes her for a prostitute and offers her money.2 Dana’s rejection of his offer, and with it his neoliberal perspective that all personal relationships can be reduced to financial transactions, leads to dire consequences. In a Faustian twist, Jarron, who claims to be a demon working for the United Nations, casts Dana into an economic doomsday scenario in which migrant routes are inverted. Dana – along with much of the population of Europe – is forced to travel south in search of sanctuary and promised employment in Alexandria, against the backdrop of banks closing, hospitals demanding money, and North African countries closing their borders against the incoming flood of European refugees. In one sense, How to Hold Your Breath might be read as a satire on white privilege, but it also taps into the more general and widespread feelings of powerlessness engendered by neoliberalism. As the action progresses, Dana is visited by a mysterious librarian who offers self-help books directed at each increasingly desperate situation she faces, including How to Stay Alive during Prostitution (she tries to raise money via that route to pay for her journey across Europe) and How to Hold Your Breath for a Very Long Time (as Dana and her sister Jasmine make a night crossing in an unsafe boat). These books serve as evidence, if evidence were needed, that suffering can be easily subsumed by the individualistic and narcissistic agenda of neoliberalism, which offers a never-ending supply of therapies for individual pain, but no possibility of collective action. The forms that collective action might take are, of course, the subject of the essays that make up the first section of this volume. Among political scientists it has become axiomatic that the high levels of inequality engendered by neoliberalism lead to political instability, which may or may not cohere into organised opposition. Since the 1990s we have certainly witnessed an intensification of popular resistance to neoliberal globalisation, for example, in the Zapatista Rebellion in Chiapas (1999), the World Social Forum in Brazil (2001), the Arab Spring (2010), the Occupy movement (2011) and, as noted in the introduction to the first section of this book, the Black

2 How to Hold Your Breath. By Zinnie Harris, directed by Vicky Featherstone, 4 February 2015, Royal Court, London.

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Lives Matter campaign (2014) and #MeToo (2017). As I write, during Easter week of 2019 in London, a thousand protesters have been arrested by the Metropolitan police for their part in the environmental Extinction Rebellion protests. In the interests of balance, however, we should note that while large claims have sometimes been made for the effectiveness of these movements, opposition to neoliberalism has failed to cohere. In fact, the main principles of neoliberal governance – market engendered growth, aggressive deregulation, fiscal prudency – which looked untenable in 2008 in the aftermath of the economic crash, have re-emerged in the form of austerity and debt management. To make matters worse, the rise of right-wing populism – as evidenced by the election of Viktor Orbán in Hungary in 2010; the 2014 victory of the Hindu nationalist party, Bharatiya Janata, in India; the election of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey in the same year; the success of Trump in the 2016 presidential election in the United States and of the ultra-conservative Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil in late 2018 – has been accompanied not by a resurgence of the Left and the emergence of radical and progressive alternatives, but by an amplifying of market-oriented approaches and the sidelining of structural economic inequalities by recourse to anti-immigrant and nativist rhetoric. The hopelessness of the situation is expressed, as Mark Fisher notes in his 2009 book Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?, in the phrase variously attributed to Fredric Jameson and Slavoj Žižek that “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism” (2). The language of crisis and impasse has entered political, scholarly and theatrical discourse which now typically, as Marissia Fragkou observes, presents “the contemporary moment as a state of exception and an unprecedented emergency of huge magnitude” (4). Indeed, for Žižek – who is, admittedly, temperamentally inclined towards exaggeration – we are all now Living in the End Times (2010). As theatre scholars, I think we can also add to the general sense of helplessness that marks the neoliberal sensorium, a fairly well-established scepticism as to theatre’s ability to effect substantive change in the real world. Writing in 1968, for instance, when all kinds of radical utopia seemed possible, the Austrian playwright and novelist Peter Handke reflected on theatre “as a social institution”, describing it as “a useless instrument for the transformation of social institutions” (313). This theme is picked up with slightly different emphasis by Baz Kershaw in The Politics of Performance: Radical Theatre as Cultural Intervention (1992) when he defines performance’s political efficacy as “the potential that theatre may have to make the immediate effects of performance influence, however minutely, the general historical evolution of wider social and political realities”. The problem is, Kershaw concedes, that any “attempt to prove that this kind of performance efficacy is possible, let

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alone probable, is plagued by analytical difficulties and dangers” (1). It is virtually impossible to evidence a causal relationship between the theatrical event and subsequent audience behaviour. Meanwhile, the work of imagining a better and more equitable future for humankind, and indeed for the planet, has rarely seemed more urgent. Theatre and performance, the essays gathered in this collection suggest, can model a range of responses to this crisis, however tentatively. Performing bodies, such as those analysed by Julia Boll in her discussion of Yael Farber’s Nirbhaya (2013) and Belarus Free Theatre’s Trash Cuisine (2013), can be saturated with the terrors of precarious life in a manner explicitly designed to trigger a strong affective response. Such performances can provoke, Boll observes, a rethinking of “issues of testimony and witnessing, grief [and] coerced empathy”. As Boll’s essay exemplifies, scholarly analysis can diagnose and clarify the counter-hegemonic and hegemonic practices employed in the service of resistance to – and presumably support of – oppressive power structures. Scholarship can also recover hidden or marginalised histories of resistance, as evidenced in this volume by Mikko-Olavi Seppälä’s account of the role played by amateur groups in staging alternative histories of the Finnish civil war and Pujya Ghosh’s analysis of theatrical activism in Bengal in the second half of the twentieth century. Once recovered, these histories can have affective power in the present. In the space of activism itself, as Fatine Bahar Karlıdağ’s exploration of the strategies deployed by Turkish workers’ unions to repurpose a film set depicting İstanbul’s Taksim Square demonstrates, the staging of acts of celebration and resistance provides, in the author’s own phrase, “a performative working-class outlet that subsumes hopes of political efficacy by designing an experiential, utopian Labor Day”. On the other hand, as Marco Galea shows, concerted efforts by the political classes in Malta in the 1980s to manipulate public opinion through a theatrical rendition of the 1919 anti-colonial Sette Giugno uprising, evidence the uncomfortable truth that the theatrical representations of moments of resistance to colonial oppression in a nation’s history can be appropriated variously, and not necessarily to progressive ends. For members of the PPWG, political performance is a field of critical practice. It engages with political ideas and concepts, typically in an attempt to condemn or validate specific political positions. It is generally, although not always, organised in such a way as to allow its political meaning to be ‘read’ by its audience. As with any interpretative system, the ‘reading’ of specific performance events will depend on the interpretative powers and pre-existing knowledges of individual spectators, or groups of spectators. Consequently, as the contents of this anthology demonstrate, artists develop different strategies for making political work suit their particular circumstances and contexts. The group is also committed to understanding performances as events in

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which particular time-bound expressions take place. Spectators, we believe, are struck by these expressions and we consider this striking to be an action which actually takes place – not a depiction of an action, or a deferral of an action, but a real action belonging to the field of performance itself. The generation of this particular kind of action is a possibility peculiar to performance, although it may just as easily interpolate spectators into hegemonic structures, leaving them unchallenged, as it may raise consciousness and the possibility of political resistance. While, as Janelle Reinelt reminds us, “a performance does not and cannot bind together a radically heterogeneous group of artists and spectators even when they are approximately aligned with each other in terms of culture [and] values” (90), perhaps we can follow Jill Dolan in looking for the radical potential in moments of commonality. In her important study Utopia in Performance: Finding Hope at the Theater (2005), Dolan argued that “live performance provides a place where people come together, embodied and passionate, to share experiences of meaning making and imagination that can describe or capture fleeting intimations of a better world” (2). Dolan’s thesis has proved influential, particularly for feminist theatre scholars as they seek to find ways of identifying moments of resistance in the face of a re-entrenchment of patriarchy in neoliberalism. Dolan’s use of the term ‘passionate’ also brings to mind Chantal Mouffe’s recent call For a Left Populism (2018), which might challenge the populism of the Right. For Mouffe: The fostering of a collective will aiming at the radicalization of democracy requires mobilizing affective energy through inscription in discursive practices that beget identification with a democratic egalitarian vision. […] It is through their insertion in discursive/affective signifying practices, involving words, affects and actions, that social agents acquire forms of subjectivity. (73) This last phrase, “discursive/affective signifying practices, involving words, affects and actions”, could easily serve as a description of the performance events explored in this anthology.

Works Cited Anderson, Walter Truett. Reality Isn’t What It Used to Be: Theatrical Politics, Ready-toWear Religion, Global Myths, Primitive Chic, and Other Wonders of the Postmodern World. Harper Collins, 1990. Boal, Augusto. Theatre of the Oppressed. Pluto Press, 1979.

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Brown, Wendy. Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution. Zone Books, 2015. Butler, Judith. “Foreword.” State of Insecurity: Government of the Precarious, by Isobel Lorey, translated by Aileen Deriag, Verso, 2015, pp. vi-xi. Connell, Raewyn. “Understanding Neoliberalism.” Neoliberalism and Everyday Life, edited by Susan Braedly and Meg Luxton, McGill-Queen’s UP, 2010, pp. 22-36. Diamond, Elin, et al., eds. Performance, Feminism and Affect in Neoliberal Times. Palgrave, 2017. Dolan, Jill. Utopia in Performance: Finding Hope at the Theater. U of Michigan P, 2005. Fischer-Lichte, Erika. The Routledge Introduction to Theatre and Performance Studies. Routledge, 2014. Fisher, Mark. Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? Zero Books, 2009. Fragkou, Marissia. Ecologies of Precarity in Twenty-First Century Theatre: Politics, Affect, Responsibility. Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2019. Geertz, Clifford. “Blurred Genres: The Reconfiguration of Social Thought.” The American Scholar, no. 49, 1980, pp. 165-79. Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life. Doubleday, 1959. Handke, Peter. “Street-Theatre and Theatre-Theatre.” Translated by Joel Agee, Essays on German Theatre, edited by Margaret Hertzfeld-Sander, Continuum, 1985, pp. 311-15. Kershaw, Baz. The Politics of Performance: Radical Theatre as Cultural Intervention. Routledge, 1992. Lorey, Isabell. State of Insecurity: Government of the Precarious. Translated by Aileen Derieg, Verso, 2015. Lyotard, Jean-François. Libidinal Economy. Translated by Iain Hamilton Grant, Indiana UP, 1993. Mouffe, Chantal. For a Left Populism. Verso, 2018. Reinelt, Janelle. “Theatre and Politics: Encountering Badiou.” Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts, vol. 9, no. 4, 2004, pp. 87-94. Ridout, Nicholas. Stage Fright, Animals and Other Theatrical Problems. Cambridge UP, 2009. Sauter, Willmar. The Theatrical Event: Dynamics of Performance and Perception. U of Iowa P, 2000. Westlake, E. J. “Mapping Political Performances: A Note on the Structure of the Anthology.” Political Performances: Theory and Practice, edited by Susan C. Haedicke et al., Brill Rodopi, 2009, pp. 7-15. Žižek, Slavoj. Living in the End Times. Verso, 2010.

Part 1 Activist Theatres/Performances Past and Present

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Activist Theatres/Performances Past and Present An Introduction José Ramón Prado-Pérez

The new millennium has witnessed a significant upsurge of social and political activism. Although the phenomenon can be traced back to the anticapitalist demonstrations against the World Trade Organization in Seattle (1999) and the World Social Forum summit in Porto Alegre (2001), it was the global protests against the second Iraq War in 2003 and the economic crisis of 2008 that gave it a fresh impetus. In 2010 the Arab Spring broke out as a revolt against the increasingly unreachable prices of food in Tunisia and spread rapidly across North African countries, with social media acting as effective loudspeakers. The protests against financial excesses continued with the 15M movement in Spain (2011), whose occupation of emblematic city squares across the country inspired other Occupy movements worldwide.1 The Black Lives Matter campaign (2014) has brought to the fore the racism associated with police brutality in the USA, as well as condemned a legal system that customarily acquits the members of the police forces involved in those violent acts. More recently, as a result of the current climate of alertness to abuses, the #MeToo (2017) denunciations against sexual harassment in Hollywood have become viral and reinvigorated other feminist issues, leading to many mass International Women’s Day demonstrations in March 2018. What all these examples have in common is the response of large sections of the population to the perceived injustices concerning abuses of power and the shortcomings of contemporary political practice. Another potential reason for these outcries can be found in the retrenchment of traditional left-wing political parties and their lack of response to the pervasive neoliberal model. The neoliberal ideology has systematically appropriated the rhetoric and tactics of the Left and adopted a militant stance that resembles that of countercultural or subcultural groups. As a reaction, the various collectives that have seen their rights (sometimes even their lives and survival) threatened have tried to

1 The movement adopted the name Indignados (outraged) from Stéphane Hessel’s essay Indignez-vous! (Time for Outrage!), published in 2010. Hessel exhorted citizens, in particular young people, to express their outrage through active modes of non-violent protest and warned them against indifference towards public affairs.

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reclaim, from their specific grassroots positions, the spaces left void by institutional politics in an effort to counter such neoliberal colonising attempts. Activist theatre has followed closely with its own initiatives. An early example is the Imagine: Iraq festival held at the Cooper Union Hall, New York, on 19 November 2001. The event, an evening of staged readings of new short plays, was curated by playwright Naomi Wallace and sponsored by the activist group The Artist Network of Refuse and Resist! Originally designed as a protest against the sanctions policy in Iraq and its negative consequences in the aftermath of the First Gulf War, Wallace refused to cancel it after the drastic change in the world context in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The Second Gulf War prompted almost instant responses in Britain, with institutional seasons held at the Royal Court Theatre (War Correspondence), National Theatre (Collateral Damage) and, from the fringe, at the Latchmere Theatre in Battersea (Two into War), where one of the two selected monologues was Wallace’s The Retreating World from the previously mentioned Imagine: Iraq season.2 At the Latchmere, “Spectators were encouraged to send postcards to Blair, registering their opposition to his plans” (Sierz), in what may be considered an effort aimed at stimulating personal involvement or symbolic activist protest. In 2011, the Theatre Uncut Project, still running annually, launched an initiative to denounce the austerity policies introduced by European countries as an excuse to perpetuate the economic status quo that had brought about the global financial crisis in the first place (see Prado). Theatre Uncut, conceived and directed by Emma Callander and Hannah Price, has evolved in recent years to address matters of public concern in each season. In 2018, the theme around which playwrights were invited to write short plays for public, unlimited performance was the feminist activist push derived from the #MeToo campaign. This outburst of confrontational drama led Guardian theatre critic Michael Billington in 2003 to confess his joyful rediscovery of the function and effectiveness of committed theatre: “What the [Iraq] crisis has shown is that the theatre – so often treated as marginal in our modern, hi-tech world – responds more quickly to events than other media and is not burdened by expectations of spurious objectivity”. Indeed, such rapid responses can capture a specific affective social moment more vividly and ‘truthfully’ than any supposedly objective account of facts, particularly at moments when those facts are scarce, one-sided or heavily contested. The portrayal of certain historically situated

2 The double bill was completed with the monologue Gitfs of War by Fraser Grace. The Latchmere has since been renamed Theatre503.

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affective climates, thus, acquires the potential to challenge institutional narratives, in this case those of a ‘just war’ or of an ‘unforeseeable’ global financial crisis, reflecting conversely a widespread popular perception of their injustice. Writing in 2016, Lyn Gardner, also in The Guardian, advocated a fruitful collaboration between activism and the theatre. She reported on the return of community-based forms of theatrical intervention, which could possibly be understood as a consequence of the discredit of traditional politics and the perceived remoteness of conventional theatre venues: “Perhaps a play at the Royal Court, however angry and urgent and edgy, is unlikely to bring about social change on its own, but at a grassroots level theatre-makers can enable communities to come together socially, end isolation, solve local problems and articulate their ambitions”. Any attempt to define activist theatre proves highly problematic, as the aforementioned examples illustrate. In fact, it is easier to find instances of political activism resorting to performance strategies than the opposite (see Bodag; Rai). Community and educational theatre would qualify as activist endeavours because they wittingly engage concrete audiences or social groups in shared projects. Urgent responses to current events that have been identified as shaping the public concerns of a significant segment of the population, such as agitprop or documentary dramas, would also appear to fit in the category of activist theatre. Michael Saward, in his concluding statements to Shirin M. Rai and Janelle Reinelt’s The Grammar of Politics and Performance, makes a distinction that may help outline the characteristics of activist performance, albeit provisionally, when he describes “the contrast between sovereign and critical grammars with respect to legitimacy as one between performing authority, on the one hand, and performing authenticity, on the other” (222). He also highlights the potential of ‘critical’ performance practices to subvert ‘sovereign’ ones: “By regularising and normalising the spaces and times (and the time-spans) of power, sovereign grammars leave themselves exposed in principle to creative and assertive acts which (suddenly, surprisingly, counter-intuitively) assert particular temporalities” (221). Creativity, assertion and authenticity outside the mainstream constitute key defining features of activist performance, whose expression must incorporate an oppositional tactics. Considering the etymology of the word ‘activism’, such a performance should encompass opposition and protest in a way that enables further direct action leading to innovative social and theatrical practices. It comprises dynamic, all-embracing, ephemeral acts, as opposed to static, ceremonial, more traditional forms of protest. In this regard, it is worth considering the crosspollination of activism and education at different levels of theory and practice. Even though the fields differ as regards the scope and range of the strategies

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that they mobilise, both have the capacity to open up the social imaginary to counter-discourses of change and opposition that may challenge official narratives of stasis. Espousing the democratic ideal, these disciplines partake in the promotion of the conditions of possibility for such counter-discourses to crystallise in society. As a matter of fact, the dramatic technique of devising, aimed at fostering creative processes through theatre games and improvisation, features prominently in instances of activist performance due to its processual nature based on egalitarian practices. Furthermore, the educational context facilitates experimentation with forms of social involvement and critical awareness, leading to the legitimation of democratic practices in symbolic form within the framework of a community of shared interests, which is what ultimately lies at the heart of activist practices as well. Arguably, activist theatre and performance would benefit from crossfertilisation with the frameworks provided by the performative and affective turns developed within cultural criticism. The combination of these conceptual approaches would blend in interesting ways with an aesthetics of action which, I claim, lies at the heart of political and theatrical activism. As a matter of fact, in the wake of the renewed waves of activism I have outlined above, both Theatre Journal (2003) and Contemporary Theatre Review (2015) devoted special issues to activist theatre, with the former tackling the subject from the perspective of the ‘performative society’ and the latter introducing affect theory through the notion of ‘the gesture’. While the journals dealt with each critical strand separately, my suggestion here is that a merging of the two would help explain more convincingly some of the key features of activist performance, particularly regarding its popular appeal, audience, participation and dramatic techniques. Being heavily context-ridden and informed by a fluid multi-directionality, activist theatre’s choice of an aesthetics of action to articulate protest enables involvement and participation at different levels and from wide sections of the population. Since activist events are often configured around horizontal movements whose leadership is diluted, their constitution and dissemination tends to be conditioned by the alternative social spaces in which they operate. Protest performances can be regarded by citizens as relatively safe, productive forms of social address: while their (perceived) radicalism is considerably reduced because of their symbolic nature, it nevertheless invites action and visibility. The blurring of distinctions – from the personal to the political, from the intimate sphere of pleasure to the open one of public debate and intervention – defines activist theatre in Western democracies, where voting has become a ritualistic gesture rather than a fresh exercise of agency (see Bogad). The celebratory, festive approach to protest adopted by activist performance

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in recent times relies on a positive strategy of inclusiveness and communitybuilding. It can attract sympathies from moderate audiences in a manner that cuts across distinctions of class, culture or upbringing. The political framing thus effected runs counter to that exerted by institutional agents such as the conventional media or public bodies. By means of a carnivalesque reversal of soft coercive strategies, activist performance groups engage in protest and the struggle for visibility, therefore transforming discredit into pride, celebration and outlandish mockery. In such a way, they avoid overt confrontation while blocking the propagation of negative affects which may construe them as dangerous or destabilising social players. Activist performance acquires a disruptive momentum when its radical interventions coincide with citizens’ social perceptions as signalled by specific affective situations, independently of their truth claims (see Rai). Citizens are thus encouraged to endorse or join in ludic protest through particular modes of performance (street demonstrations, parades, imaginative protests). By borrowing from the fields of the artistic and the imaginary, the performative nature of these actions collapses the distinctions between the political and the everyday. However, this kind of framing does not prevent the participating citizen from facing the real, for example when confronted with police brutality and/or state censorship (in negative terms), or when legislation is passed as a result of the protest (in positive terms). It is when such encounters with the real take place that politicisation occurs. The symbolic theatrical arrangement enables the citizens to acknowledge their action as positive and affirmative rather than criminal, which in turn allows their encounter with the real to disclose the mechanisms of oppression and ideological containment exerted by rulers through the circulation of power and, for that matter, the circulation of affects. As early as 2003, in his contribution to the above-mentioned Theatre Journal issue, Baz Kershaw advocated the reintroduction of ‘spectacle’ in a positive performative sense, quite different from the term’s association with mass culture and entertainment (see Debord): “if subjects are constituted through spectacle then humans will need to develop an especially reflexive take on how they appear between themselves in order to get anywhere near to a sense of the commonly human in the contemporary world” (Kershaw 595). He proposed the category of ‘spectacles of deconstruction’ which, not unlike Saward’s ‘critical performance grammars’, transforms contradictions into paradoxes, opening up an alternative space of awareness for the spectator and “new domains for radical revisions of the way things are” (599). In fact, “spectacle is everywhere in the performative society, so much so that we are constituted by it” (593). Therefore, it is crucial to engage with it in theatrical form in

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order to tackle “the importance of spectacle to the circulation of power in the social” (596). This latter remark chimes with a major aim of current activist performance. Nicholas Ridout, in his quest for a ‘communist theatre’, furthers the meaning and implications of theatrical performativity. He draws on Walter Benjamin to stress the medium’s capacity to bring about an interruption of labour conditions and challenge the capitalist myth of technological progress. He goes on to argue that “such disruptions to historical time might also be performed at the level of the everyday” (60), a statement that suggests the conflation of theatrical and social activism. This would imply that once the performer/activist has been educated as a citizen, the theatrical will always constitute for him/her a space where politics is unravelled and discussed, in his/her condition as either performer or politically motivated spectator. Drawing on Paolo Virno, Ridout also embraces the performativity of theatrical labour: “the theatre does not stand to one side of the ‘real’ world or offer an alternative to it: the theatre is a real place, where real people go to work, and where their work takes the form of ‘conversation’” (124). In such a way, theatrical activities become themselves constitutive of the political, rather than inspiring political action outside their own remit. Moreover, Ridout’s ‘passionate amateur’ would resemble the activist, someone impelled by a historical and social conjuncture to seek involvement through performance in a moment of flux and reconfiguration of social roles and relations. Jill Dolan has integrated dramatic affect and performativity in her concept of ‘utopian performatives’, which “make palpable an affective vision of how the world might be better” (6). She claims that the power of these performative moments in the theatre is transferable to other spheres of social commitment and intervention: “The affective and ideological ‘doings’ we see and feel demonstrated in utopian performatives also critically rehearse civic engagement that could be effective in the wider public and political realm” (7). She further suggests that the intersection of politics and the theatre works at its best when circumscribed to the area of affect: “The utopian performative, by its very nature, can’t translate into a program for social action, because it’s most effective as a feeling”. The potential of gestures, “moments of consciously constructed performance” (19), to conjure up action resides in the utopian singularity of their permanently being in the process of becoming. By reclaiming strategies that have been at the root of activist programmes from their inception, Dolan’s proposal stands in a privileged position to challenge the processes of appropriation that committed dramatic strategies have been subjected to in the digital age, be it the adoption of agitprop’s direct, schematic appeal by advertising or the refashioning of V-effects as consumerist aesthetic pleasure.

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Regarding the capacity of bodies to affect and be affected through encounters, Janelle Adsit et al. introduce the ethical domain by invoking the notion of accountability: “Accounting for affect and becoming accountable for it (that is, recognizing affective productions and becoming responsible for intervening in them) are important to the work of the activist” (32). In so doing, they warn against the institutional mechanisms which resort to the manipulation of affect into private or privatised emotions, normally associated with the neoliberal shock doctrine of fear and anguish. And they insist that affect can bridge the gap between message and action more effectively than previous consciousness-raising models of theatrical activism: “The activist’s role necessitates not just the presentation of a message, but also the creation of conditions for making the message heard” (35). It is such conditions that affect flags up by identifying a social void or an ideological disruption that must be filled by means other than institutional ones. In other words, the conditions of possibility for intervention emerge at the level of affect and are then actualised at the levels of critique and action. In the 2015 CTR special issue on activism, Jenny Hughes and Simon Parry borrow from Giorgio Agamben a definition of ‘gesture’ which resembles the Spinozian-derived concept of affect (see Brennan 5, 19): “the gesture is essentially always a gesture of not being able to figure something out in language” (“Notes on Gesture” 58, qtd. in Hughes and Parry “Introduction” 305). They conclude that the gesture “interrupts power” and “reveal[s] the violence of the proper political order” (305). Gestures thus defined both presuppose and constitute themselves as affects. They configure affectual bodily responses to spontaneous human encounters, simultaneously initiating and shaping the affect in question, while still belonging to the body proper. The type of theatrical activism derived from such a nuclear element of performance would pivot around such items as visibility, witnessing and testimony, and the appeal to action that springs from the reconfiguration of the political as the ethical.3 Elsewhere, Agamben meaningfully invokes commedia dell’arte, its masks and situations, to expand the definition of gesture as “pure praxis”, the “intersection between life and art, act and power, general and particular, text and execution” (“Marginal Notes” 79). The liminal spaces that Agamben is at such pains to stress, where the ethical can be engendered, are propitiated by gesture or affect understood as a moment of disruption and discontinuity. 3 To quote Agamben again regarding the ethical-political shift: “The gesture is the exhibition of a mediality: it is the process of making a means visible as such. It allows the emergence of the being-in-a-medium of human beings and thus it opens the ethical dimension for them” (“Notes on Gesture” 57).

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Moreover, in the CTR complementary blog Interventions 25.3, Hughes and Parry broaden the concept of ‘gesture’ by resorting to de Certeau’s ‘practices of everyday life’, claiming that “[a]ctivist performance involves the re-embodiment of such gestures somewhere else, out of place” (“Domestic Gestures”). Such an activity reverses the axis action/stasis and becomes spectacular in nature, including a number of tactical moves which amount to a mise en scène. The everyday event appears then as a multivalent gesture which exposes various realities simultaneously. Even though it may not be intended as a political act initially, this event mobilises political meanings in the audience, which is thus interpellated by a common gesture being reinscribed in the social and civic space from which it might have been excluded by lack of institutional intervention or by conformism and apathy on the part of the citizens, or both. Furthermore, the political reinscription of the everyday is effected at the level of the real rather than the symbolic, as a reminder of the citizen’s role in the governing of the polis. The process involved consists in identifying a void in the social space, that is, a neglected area of intervention which is reclaimed from the margins as a restorative act. The action becomes subversive because it elicits a presence where there was an absence. The performance displaces and recontextualises everyday action and, in so doing, it evokes a number of social issues in an interrelated fashion. However, the concretisation of the gesture in the body is only possible through the performance that the gesture in question displays as non-performance. Thus, a simple performance act unravels the complexity of social issues in an overt gesture that arguably enlarges the scope of the Brechtian gestus. Such tactical moves – actions which are evanescent – redress the imbalance implicit in the exchange of power (see de Certeau 36-39) through the operation of performance. When transposed to dramatic practice, social performance in these terms may attain the politicisation of the audience, who, in turn, may respond by transforming such an invitation into action. However, such re-politicisation of the citizen does not secure active participation, only awareness of the newly opened-up social space of contention by the theatrical gesture in an exercise of human dignity. The a priori situatedness of theatrical performance offers the potential to transform bodily presence and concrete circumstances into a relational space of interaction that is ephemeral, as the final stage of the attempted articulation of the aesthetics of action previously sketched. That theatre or the arts can promote social or political change in the traditional sense of effecting it directly would be a naïve assumption, as the theoretical approaches outlined above imply. It is true that there are examples of specific productions which have helped inspire legislative action, such as the celebrated The Colour of Justice, the 1999 tribunal play compiled by Richard

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Norton-Taylor and directed by Nicolas Kent at the Tricycle Theatre in London (now renamed Kiln Theatre).4 However, it is difficult to ascertain whether any such impact may be attributed directly to a theatrical piece or whether this has just acted as a catalyst for pervasive social affects. Performances, as previously indicated, may render visible in artistic form what is latent, or at other times obscured, in society – what Raymond Williams called a ‘structure of feeling’ that is at an incipient state of development, has not yet acquired a form or means of expression and/or representation, yet has been prefigured as an affect. Performance may strengthen social moods and stimulate the transition from personal perception to communal interest and shared concern, installing a virtual sense of community, however fragile and unstable. Activist performance poses a counter-discourse to those of the mainstream media and conventional politics, siding with ‘the popular’. This concept of ‘the popular’ encompasses both its class-based meaning and what John McGrath defines as ‘of the people’, namely, a realm of culture recognised as belonging to the citizens and emanating from their various forms of non-institutional organisation (see McGrath). Jeanne Colleran, drawing on Pierre Bourdieu, makes a similar claim in her discussion of the dramatic representations of war by activist groups: “theatrical performances thereby join with other modes of alternative information dissemination to help bring about the kind of broad-ranging, vigorous civic discussion that underlies a more deeply realized democratic culture” (615). What characterises activist theatre in all cases is its capacity to speak directly to power without invoking any secondary interlocution. Equally, in principle, it does not try to constitute itself into a political agent per se. Rather, it seeks to create the conditions for empowerment and agency so that collectives can take control of their own lives through various processes of decision making. Ultimately, the success of the activist theatrical enterprise would reside in the felicitous harmonisation of the popular and the political by making the most of their complementary value as public performance. The chapters in this section cover a broad temporal, geographical and cultural spectrum, including studies about theatrical activism from Finland, 4 The Colour of Justice was written and produced in the wake of the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence in Eltham (south-east London) in April 1993 and the ensuing Macpherson Inquiry set up in March 1998 by the then Labour Home Secretary, Jack Straw, in response to Stephen Lawrence’s parents’ indefatigable search for justice for the murder of their son. The play was instrumental in maintaining the issue of racism on the social agenda, making the details of the inquiry accessible to the public as an embodied theatrical experience. The conclusions of the Macpherson Inquiry led to 67 changes in practice or law (see Aragay and Monforte; Lusher; Travis).

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Malta, Turkey, India, South Africa, Belarus and the United Kingdom. Despite their divergent time ranges and cultural-geographical provenances, they share a number of thematic concerns: the rewriting of history as a site of contention for official narratives; a focus on the popular classes, either as creators or audiences; the effectivity of activism and its paradoxes in theatrical form; and a belief in the destabilising potential of drama through its political alliance with wider society. Overall, the six contributions address activist performance by engaging with performativity and affect as discussed above. Mikko-Olavi Seppälä analyses the affective dimensions derived from theatrical representations of the Finnish Civil War and their role in establishing an official narrative of events in the 1920s. He contends that the asymmetrical struggle between institutional narratives and their subversive communist counterparts resolved in favour of the former, relegating the alternative versions to clandestine performance by amateur workers’ associations. The latter’s attempts at preserving memory as commemoration acquired the status of activist political acts at the time. Pujya Ghosh documents the evolution of the performative nature of theatrical activism in Bengal from the 1960s to the 1990s. By comparing the theoretical writings of two prominent Indian playwrights, Uptal Dutt and Debesh Chattopadhyay, the author describes how the initial 1960s claims for actual revolution through confrontational dramatic forms were displaced in the 1990s by dissent and resistance in theatre’s encounter with power. This shift appears to have been a general trend transposable to activist theatre worldwide. Marco Galea addresses the Maltese government’s and opposition parties’ manoeuvres throughout the 1980s to appropriate the theatrical medium in a deliberate attempt to programme and counter-programme the country’s political agenda. To that effect, either faction embarked on a race to legitimate their respective revisionist versions of the anti-colonial struggles which led to Maltese emancipation. Galea’s contribution exposes the travesty that results from institutional attempts at affective manipulation disguised as political commitment and/or endorsement, which end up transforming theatrical works meant to stimulate radical opposition and protest into acts of partisan propaganda. Fatine Bahar Karlıdağ focuses on the strategies deployed by the workers’ unions in Turkey on Labour Day (2013-15) to reclaim their traditional spaces of protest and demonstration. Using the historical significance of Taksim Square for her case study, she resorts to Scott Mangelsson’s concept of ‘simming’ to highlight the performative force of acts of protest in a film-set replica of the square. Karlıdağ concludes that the affective potential of such symbolic ac-

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tion may carry a stronger oppositional drive than certain ritualistic actions – such as the workers’ commemorative parades – that have been co-opted by governmental power. Julia Boll explores the ethical dimensions of emotion and empathy by looking into audience responses to Yael Farber’s Nirbhaya (2013) and Belarus Free Theatre’s Trash Cuisine (2013). Both plays constitute problematic examples of explicit violence reporting on the stage – verbatim accounts of abused women in the case of Nirbhaya and state violence in Trash Cuisine – whose radical authenticity elicits extreme emotional and physical reactions. Boll asks whether appealing to, or even forcing, certain strong emotional responses on an audience could be considered ethical and proposes the act of witnessing as fundamental to overcoming traumatic events such as those presented in the plays. She suggests that the type of raw emotions induced by these and similar productions does not necessarily preclude understanding, since the representation of violence on stage is qualified by positioning the spectator as conscious witness. Ultimately, the chapter shows that affect may acquire an activist, critical dimension that eschews emotional manipulation. In the section’s final, practice-based chapter, Evi Stamatiou investigates the dynamics of devising theatre practices, focusing on the production of agency by the actor/trainee and her/his position as a social and political subject. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s theories and Chantal Mouffe’s notion of ‘agonism’, the chapter challenges the commonplace assumption that collaborative theatre practices are in themselves democratic, underlining the fact that social power relations are routinely reproduced even in a context explicitly designed to circumvent them. To tackle this paradox, Stamatiou asks trainees participating in a devised production of Aristophanes’s The Frogs to use the ‘step forward’ technique, a form of reflexive direct address, to present their views on the then approaching UK European Parliament election of May 2014. The findings she reports illustrate how reflexivity on the part of all participants in the devising process – both trainers and trainees – may enhance their individual political agency within the wider context of a collective enterprise. This she defines as a holistic individualist actor-training model. On the whole, the section illustrates the complex and, sometimes, contradictory nature of the alliance between political and theatrical activism. What eventually transpires throughout its pages is the fruitful cross-fertilisation of the two fields when understood as praxis. These chapters attest to the current scholarly relevance of such phenomenon, standing as a significant contribution to ongoing debates at a time when they are urgently needed.

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Works Cited Adsit, Janelle, et al. “Affective Activism: Answering Institutional Productions of Precarity in the Corporate University.” Feminist Formations, vol. 27, no. 3, winter 2015, pp. 21-48. Agamben, Giorgio. “Marginal Notes on Commentaries on the Society of the Spectacle.” Means without End: Notes on Politics, translated by Vincenzo Bineti and Cesare Casarino, U of Minnesota P, 2000, pp. 73-90. Agamben, Giorgio. “Notes on Gesture.” Means without End: Notes on Politics, translated by Vincenzo Bineti and Cesare Casarino, U of Minnesota P, 2000, pp. 49-62. Aragay, Mireia, and Enric Monforte. “Racial Violence, Witnessing and Emancipated Spectatorship in The Colour of Justice, Fallout and random.” Contemporary British Theatre: Breaking New Ground, edited by Vicky Angelaki, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, pp. 96-120. Billington, Michael. “Drama out of a Crisis.” The Guardian, 10 Apr. 2003, www .theguardian.com/stage/2003/apr/10/theatre.artsfeatures. Accessed 12 March 2018. Bodag, L. M. Electoral Guerrilla Theatre: Radical Ridicule and Social Movements, 2nd ed., Routledge, 2016. Brennan, Theresa. The Transmission of Affect. Cornell UP, 2004. Colleran, Jeanne. “Disposable Wars, Disappearing Acts: Theatrical Responses to the 1991 Gulf War.” Theatre and Activism, special issue of Theatre Journal, edited by Harry J. Elam, Jr., vol. 55, no. 4, 2003, pp. 613-32. Debord, Guy. Society of the Spectacle, translated by Fredy Perlman et al., Black and Red, 1970. de Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Translated by Steven Rendall, U of California P, 1984. Dolan, Jill. Utopia in Performance: Finding Hope at the Theatre. U of Michigan P, 2005. Elam, Harry J., Jr. “Editorial Comment: Theatre and Activism.” Theatre and Activism, special issue of Theatre Journal, edited by Harry J. Elam, Jr., vol. 55, no. 4, 2003, pp. 583-88. Gardner, Lyn. “Staging a Revolution: Can Theatre Be an Effective Form of Activism?” Political Theatre Theatre Blog, The Guardian, 23 March 2016, www.theguard ian.com/stage/theatreblog/2016/mar/23/theatre-effective-protest-activism-change -debate. Accessed 12 March 2018. Hessel, Stéphane. Time for Outrage! Translated by Damion Searls with Alba Arrikha, foreword by Charles Glass, Charles Glass Books-Quartet Books, 2011. Hughes, Jenny, and Simon Parry. “Introduction: Gesture, Theatricality, and Protest – Composure at the Precipice.” Theatre, Performance and Activism: Gestures towards an Equitable World, special issue of Contemporary Theatre Review, edited by Jenny Hughes and Simon Parry, vol. 25, no. 3, 2015, pp. 300-312.

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Hughes, Jenny, and Simon Parry. “Domestic Gestures.” Contemporary Theatre Review, Interventions 25.3, July 2015, www.contemporarytheatrereview.org/2015/domestic -gestures. Accessed 23 April 2018. Kershaw, Baz. “Curiosity or Contempt: On Spectacle, the Human, and Activism.” Theatre and Activism, special issue of Theatre Journal, edited by Harry J. Elam, Jr., vol. 55, no. 4, 2003, pp. 591-611. Lusher, Adam. “Stephen Lawrence 25 Years On: What Happened and Was This Really a Murder that Changed a Nation?” The Independent, 16 April 2018, www.independent .co.uk/news/uk/home-news/stephen-lawrence-murder-25-years-changed-a-nation -police-institutional-racism-macpherson-anniversary-a8307871.html. Accessed 15 October 2018. McGrath, John. The Bone Won’t Break: On Theatre and Hope in Hard Times. Methuen, 1990. Prado, José Ramón. “Spaces for the Construction of Community: The Theatre Uncut Phenomenon.” Of Precariousness. Vulnerabilities, Responsibilities, Communities in 21st-Century British Drama and Theatre, edited by Mireia Aragay and Martin Middeke, Contemporary Drama in English Studies 28, De Gruyter, 2017, pp. 125-40. Rai, Shirin M. “Political Performance: A Framework for Analysing Democratic Politics.” 2014. Political Studies, vol. 63, issue 5, 2015, pp. 1179-97. Ridout, Nicholas. Passionate Amateurs. Theatre, Communism, and Love. U of Michigan P, 2013. Saward, Michael. “Afterword: Sovereign and Critical Grammars.” The Grammar of Politics and Performance, edited by Shirin M. Rai and Janelle Reinelt, Routledge, 2015, pp. 217-24. Sierz, Aleks. “Dramatic Interventions.” The Independent, 17 Mar. 2004, www .independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/dramatic-interven tions-64615.html. Accessed 10 March 2018. Travis, Alan. “Stephen Lawrence: How His Murder Changed the Legal Landscape.” The Guardian, 22 April 2013, www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/apr/22/stephen-lawrence -murder-changed-legal-landscape. Accessed 15 October 2018. Williams, Raymond. The Long Revolution. Chatto and Windus, 1961.

Political Activism or Handling Trauma? The Civil War Staged in Workers’ Theatres in 1920s Finland Mikko-Olavi Seppälä

Abstract This chapter addresses a wave of political theatre that was crushed by the authorities in 1920s post-Civil War Finland. In a context where the international Proletkult or Proletarian Culture movement stressed the radical democratic character of cultural production, theatre in Finland offered possibilities for political activism on the one hand and for therapeutic facing of trauma on the other. The chapter introduces three Finnish working-class playwrights, Uuno Kekäläinen, Verneri Jokiruoho and Kaarlo Valli, who wrote drama based on their own experiences – and the collective experiences of the working class – during the Civil War. Their revolutionary melodramas bore witness to the trauma of White terror and stressed the idea of commemoration as political action. In the struggle over memory, the Red counter-narrative was considered provocative and interpreted as revolutionary and communist. Between 1922 and 1924, the hegemonic White authorities reacted harshly and criminalized these plays, thus crushing the rising proletarian theatre movement.

This chapter addresses a wave of political theatre that was crushed by the authorities in 1920s Finland. The main objective is to examine the possibilities that theatre offered for political activism on the one hand and for therapeutic facing of trauma on the other. Three working-class playwrights from different parts of Finland, Uuno Kekäläinen (1896-1976), Verneri Jokiruoho (1897-1971) and Kaarlo Valli (1896-1936), are discussed. Having taken part in the Finnish Civil War (1918) on the defeated ‘Red’ side and been released from the prison camps by the early 1920s, they all turned to theatre and started to write drama based on their own experiences – and the collective experiences of the working class – during the war. Their revolutionary melodramas bore witness to the trauma of ‘White’ terror during the Finnish Civil War and stressed the idea of commemoration as political action.1 They themselves took part in the per-

1 The Finnish Civil War was fought between the socialist Reds, composed largely of industrial workers of the Southern Finland, and conservative Whites, composed largely of farmers.

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formances staged by minor workers’ theatres and toured all over the country in the years 1921-1923. Never printed, their forbidden plays spread as handwritten manuscripts among the communist youth organizations and left-wing workers’ theatres. Performed by several amateur companies, they were also reviewed in the socialist press. Although the authorities tried to confiscate all the copies of the plays, they have been preserved in the People’s Archive (Helsinki), where Valli also has his personal archive consisting largely of manuscripts and prison notebooks. Having been followed by the State Police through the 1920s and 1930s, Valli and Jokiruoho also have their own files in the National Archives of Finland. As for Kekäläinen, he had his memoirs printed in the early 1970s (see Poika maailman hartioilla (Boy on the Shoulders of the World)), but the book covers only the early years of his life. These three cases can be regarded as being part of a larger wave of revolutionary proletarian theatre that flourished in Europe after the Russian Bolshevik revolution. The so-called Proletkult or Proletarian Culture movement stressed the radical democratic character of cultural production. In post-Civil War Finland, however, the emphasis was laid on the struggle over memory.

1

On the Finnish Civil War, Commemoration and Trauma

States are founded on violence and trauma. Independent Finland, too, was clearly born out of violence. Having been an autonomous Grand Duchy within the Russian Empire from 1809, Finland gained its independence after the Bolshevik Revolution in December 1917. Universal suffrage had been introduced as early as 1906, but social reforms were frustrated by the Russian government. By staging a coup d’état in January 1918, the socialists took over in Helsinki and the industrial centres of southern Finland, leading to the outbreak of the Civil War. There were some Russian military troops left in the country and a German division also intervened in the internal conflict. The war lasted until May 1918 and ended with the victory of the White ‘peasant army’. After political discussions on whether Finland should become a democracy or a monarchy under a German king, a new democratic constitution was confirmed in 1919. The Civil War, or War of Liberation as the Whites called it, had a controversial, traumatic aftermath with thousands of Reds executed, placed in concentration camps and dying of malnutrition or fleeing to the Soviet Union. Altogether, some 37,000 people – over 1% of the country’s population – lost

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their lives because of the Civil War, 75% of whom were Reds. Some 10,000 people died in battle, another 10,000 were executed, and of the 75,000 thousand Reds who were sent to concentration camps after the war, some 14,000 died of malnutrition and diseases. In addition, about 10,000 Reds fled to Soviet Russia and formed the Communist Party of Finland, whose aim was to launch a new revolution in their homeland. After the war, there was a need to find a common patriotic narrative that would suit the newly born independent country and its citizens. In a general anti-Bolshevik atmosphere, the communists were regarded as enemies within the country and were excluded from the image of the Finnish nation (see Tepora 227). As Jenny Edkins has stressed, after violent and traumatic events, there is a struggle over memory. The hegemonic power tries to depoliticize the memories of the defeated, to “control and subjugate memory” (16). According to Edkins, there is subversive potential in the past: “The testimony of survivors can challenge structures of power and authority. Moreover, this challenge can in some regards transcend boundaries of culture and social group. It is what Michel Foucault referred to as ‘the solidarity of the shaken’” (5). Additionally, in Politics and the Art of Commemoration, Katherine Hite argues that the politics of commemoration is “a lens into the ways people attempt to make meaning of violent political memories” (2) and that “[m]emorialization can transform the meanings of the past and mobilize the present” (4). Another scholar working in the field of memory studies, Elizabeth Jelin, has stated that the “production of a national history and an official memory” creates a “master narrative of the nation” with its patriotic symbols and “pantheons to national heroes” (27). She calls social advocacy groups initiating commemorations ‘memory entrepreneurs’. For Jelin, “practices of commemoration and the attempts to establish memory sites always involve political struggles” (42-3). As I show below, as commemoration and memory became highly politicized arenas in 1920s Finland, the Reds’ agency as memory entrepreneurs was denied by the authorities. After the Civil War, there remained many unanswered questions for the defeated Reds, the most urgent and traumatic one being the commemoration of the Civil War. This divided the people and even split the socialists in two halves, Social Democrats and Communists. According to Edkins, “events seen as traumatic seem to reflect a particular form of intimate bond between personhood and community and, most importantly, they expose the part played by relations of power” (4). She continues: “Nevertheless, when our expectations of what community is, and what we are, are shown to be misplaced, then our view of ourselves has to be altered – or we have to fight for political change, in other words a reformulation of community” (9).

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Drawing on Jürgen Habermas’s theory of the public sphere, historians of the labour movement in the 1970s outlined a ‘counter-public sphere’ (a ‘proletarian’ or ‘plebeian’ public sphere) of working-class publicity (see Lottes 110-12). Even though it stresses rational consensus and is based on a Marxist outlook that is antagonistic to the White forces then in power, the concept seems to describe quite well the historical situation of the post-Civil War workers’ houses of Finland. Offering a more nuanced view of the matter, political scientist Chantal Mouffe stresses that there is always an aesthetic dimension in the political and a political dimension in art. Instead of ‘political art’, she prefers the notion of ‘critical art’, which works through the emotions at the affective level to show alternatives to the dominant order or consensus. Mouffe sees artistic activism as producing ‘counter-hegemonic interventions’ that disrupt the current hegemonic discourse (see 91-9). After the war, Finland was a small, externally and internally weak democracy. The country was let free, but the Reds were left without political rights or full citizenship. At this point, theatre became very important for the shaken Reds. Thanks to the governmental policy of appeasement and the continuing democratization process, as early as 1919 most of the workers’ associations with their amateur theatres were able to start their activity again. Socialist political activity being forbidden, cultural activity took the lead and attracted a lot of people. For the working class and the Reds, workers’ houses did indeed provide a counter-public sphere, a place for gathering and sharing experiences, ideas and opinions, a potential space for cultural autonomy and radical counter-hegemonic interventions. Theatre being one of the few acceptable forms of socializing for the Reds, political questions and activities inevitably blended with cultural ones.

2

On the Workers’ Theatres and the Proletkult Movement in Finland

A particularity of Finland was the fact that the professional theatre field developed late, while the amateur workers’ theatre activity was not only popular but also made an important contribution to the professionalization of theatre during the twentieth century. In Finland, the concept of ‘workers’ theatre’ was rather loose, compared for instance to Britain, as it referred to all kinds of theatre clubs that had an organizational link to the labour movement. Although the best-off workers’ theatres of the 1910s and 1920s largely remained part of the workers’ associations and staged their performances at the workers’ houses, they were able to hire professional artists and, in many cases, wanted to be considered apolitical art institutions catering to working-class audiences.

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After the Civil War, over twenty workers’ theatres were given state and city subsidies. Since political theatre was banned, social critique had to be covert. As I have shown in Suomalaisen työväenteatterin varhaisvaiheet (The Formation of the Finnish Workers’ Theatres), practically all class-conscious agitation theatre had to work on the margins of the workers’ movement within temporary amateur ensembles (see 308). After the Civil War, Finland moved into a post-censorship era that, nevertheless, still allowed strong measures to be taken against performances that broke the Criminal Law (1919). Not only could the author of the play be accused under this law, but the performers and the theatre boards were deemed equally accountable before it. However, it was not always clear where the border between lawful and criminal writing lay. As for the Finnish Communists, the Soviet Union set a clear example via the leaders of the Finnish Communist Party who now lived in exile in Moscow. The communist movement based much of its identity on the contested memory of the Civil War. In this sense, commemorative cultural activity contributed to or was part of the movement’s political endeavours. The ideas of Proletkult, an international and fashionable wave of political theatre, were adopted and applied by the left-wing youth in Finland. Proletkult had its roots in revolutionary Russia and the manifestos for people’s theatre. Among Russians, the main Proletkult intellectual was Aleksandr Bogdanov, who wanted socialists to break all ties with bourgeois culture, also in the fields of philosophy, art and science. According to Lynn Mally, however, “proletarian culture proved to be an expansive slogan that easily bore many other meanings” (1). After the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, Proletkult became the official cultural policy and proletarian art started to flourish in the Soviet Union. It could, however, also refer to revolutionary romanticism, experimental avantgarde or even to the transmission of the bourgeois art traditions to the workers (see Mally 122-25). The key Bolshevik theatre theorist, Platon Kerzhentsev, instructed theatre circles, promoted new proletarian drama and amateur theatre activity and wrote the influential book Tvorcheskii teatr (Creative Theatre) in 1918 (see Mally 110; 133 and 144). He wanted amateur theatres to eschew pre-revolutionary drama and bourgeois bohemian intellectuals and to discuss the performances with working-class audiences. These ideas reached Finland as well (see Seppälä 14146). Most importantly, the programme of proletarian culture encouraged young workers to write. It meant that the workers’ voice and authentic experience were important and real-life local incidents constituted worthy topics for drama. Awareness of the proletarian theatre movement in Finland grew rapidly at the beginning of the 1920s. Its promoters were young amateur writers and actors who had taken part in the Civil War on the Red side and been sent

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to concentration camps. Once they regained freedom, they expressed their experiences in the plays they wrote specifically for their own amateur acting clubs. Unprinted, these plays were copied and circulated all over the country and were performed by workers’ acting clubs. It should be stressed that this wave of proletarian theatre in Finland is characterized by its violent topics and revolutionary rhetoric, which sets it apart from the modernist expressionist aesthetics that flourished in central Europe or the agitprop aesthetics that spread from the Soviet Union some years later.2 Although some of the plays were quite accurately based on real events and even contained tribunal scenes, their affective dimension was too powerful for them to count as analytical documentary theatre.3 The writers worked their material into melodramas. In addition, one can detect a lack of professional theatre practitioners in the revolutionary movement in Finland. After the Civil War, there were only a handful of socialist intellectuals left in Finland. Most of them had either lost their lives in the aftermath of the war or moved to the Soviet Union. Ivar Lassy, one of the few remaining voices, promoted modernist aesthetics instead of conventional text-based dramas. In a speech delivered in 1922, Lassy insisted that workers’ art should encourage the audience, open their eyes and give them strength in their daily class struggle. Art should directly affect the emotions, not the intellect (see Seppälä 151-52). The problem with Lassy – and other socialist intellectuals of the time – was that he never took part in practical cultural work and failed to collaborate with the theatre clubs. In addition, as the Finnish Communists in Soviet Russia wanted to maintain their leading position, they did not support independently minded intellectuals in Finland. As a matter of fact, Lassy was invited to flee to the Soviet Union in 1923 (see Thing and Jansen 221).

3

The Civil War in Theatre: Three Cases

3.1 Biographic Melodrama: Valkoinen kosto Kekäläinen’s play Valkoinen kosto (The White Vengeance) was the first proletarian play to be banned in Finland. A straightforward melodrama with black-

2 On agitprop in Germany, see Bodek (81-90). Because of the restrictions on political activity, agitprop in Finland mostly meant carefully directed German-style speaking choirs (Sprechchor) that came into fashion in the late 1920s. Modernist aesthetics also reached Finland gradually over the 1920s, smuggling in German expressionist drama as well (see Orsmaa 202). 3 On documentary theatre, see Filewod.

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and-white characters, Valkoinen kosto has been described as one of the most class-conscious fictional depictions of the Civil War (see Palmgren 268). The play was entirely based on Kekäläinen’s personal experiences as a metal factory worker in Lehtoniemi (Varkaus region) and as a Red captive, released from prison camp in 1919. He also witnessed some of the most brutal executions carried out by the Whites during and after the Civil War (see Poika maailman 121-49). Kekäläinen was an amateur actor before the Civil War and he wrote Valkoinen kosto after it for his own company, Enso Workers’ Theatre in southeastern Finland. Valkoinen kosto is a twofold play. On the one hand, it seeks to understand the reasons behind the Civil War and, on the other, it bears witness to the evil brutality that the workers experienced after the rebellion was crushed. The first two acts take place in a metal factory and depict the clash between capital and labour at the time of the first Russian Revolution in the spring of 1917. The third and fourth acts are set in the winter of 1918, when the Whites have just vanquished the rebellion and are building concentration camps and implementing executions. In the third act, the Red protagonist Aarne, who has been hiding, is about to set out for the Soviet Union with his working-class fiancé Lyyli but he is arrested. In the bleak final act, Aarne mocks the war court that sentences him to death. After the shots have been heard offstage, Lyyli dashes on stage and accuses the court – consisting of local leading men: the factory owner, shopkeeper, priest and White officer – of being murderers. She is brutally silenced and shot dead onstage by the shopkeeper. When the play premiered at the Enso workers’ house in December 1921, the critic writing for the socialist newspaper Suomen Työläinen (The Worker of Finland) praised the protagonist’s accusations and defiance in front of his executioners (see T. 7).4 When Kekäläinen was fired from the factory because of his play, he set out on a tour around Carelia until the troupe was arrested in the town of Sortavala in May 1922. Kekäläinen had sent copies of his drama to other socialist acting clubs, but the play did not receive many performances before it was banned by the Ministry of Justice (see “Työläisten”). As the writer of a play that mocked the legal authorities, Kekäläinen was sentenced to an eight-month conviction (but he sat in prison for only four months). After his imprisonment, he continued to lead amateur workers’ theatres in Carelia (see Palmgren 267-68).

4 Suomen Työläinen subsequently changed its name to Suomen Työmies (The Workman of Finland) in an attempt to dodge censorship.

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3.2 Virtuous Reds: Veljesvihaa and Voitetut Sankarit A painter and amateur actor, Jokiruoho had a tremendous success with his debut play Veljesvihaa (Brotherly Hate), which premiered in 1921 at the local workers’ association in the industrial town of Hyvinkää in southern Finland. The performance toured to other towns and the manuscript was copied and sent to other workers’ theatres, which led to tens of other productions and hundreds of performances all around the country.5 A romantic depiction of the Civil War with nuanced characters and a Red protagonist, the play was welcomed as the first proletarian play in Finland. For the working-class audiences, the performance dramatized the sore traumatic, violent incidents of the near past. The play even seems to have had a therapeutic, cathartic effect on the audience. As described in the social democratic press, “The incidents are so near to us that it makes the performance feel almost too real, which does not, however, bother the audience but instead brings in more spectators” (“Hyvinkään”).6 Thematically, Jokiruoho’s second play Voitetut sankarit (The Beaten Heroes) was a sequel to his earlier play and depicted two Red soldiers who, having escaped from a prison camp, try to survive as outlaws living in the forest (see Ässä). The play premiered in Hyvinkää in August 1922 and was widely performed all over the country before it was banned in Tampere in the spring of 1923. The Tampere court sentenced the troupe, composed of workers from a local shoe factory, to pay fines. As the author of the play, Jokiruoho himself was sentenced to prison for four months. In the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s, he continued his activity as a part-time theatre director and actor in various workers’ theatres around the country, while remaining a keen supporter of agitational theatre (see Verneri Jokiruoho’s File). 3.3 Lessons of the Civil War: Sovittamattomat A tailor from southwestern Finland, Valli wanted prisons to act as proletarian universities for the promotion of class-consciousness. After being released from prison camp in 1921, he declared himself a proletarian writer (which was quite exceptional in Finland) and tried to earn a living by writing for socialist theatres and newspapers. Valli’s play Sovittamattomat (The Incompatibles)

5 According to the Finnish National Library’s digital newspaper database (DIGI), Veljesvihaa had received at least thirty-four different productions by the end of 1924. The Helsinki Workers’ Theatre performed the play nearly one hundred times (see DIGI). 6 The Finnish original reads, “Tapahtumain läheisyys tekee todellisuustunnun melkein liialliseksi, mutta yleisömenekkiä se ei suinkaan haittaa, vaan päinvastoin lisää sitä”. All translations from Finnish are by the author of this chapter.

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premiered in his own workers’ association, Tarmo, in the city of Turku in February 1922 (see Kaarlo Valli’s File). Showing the workers’ violent occupation of a factory and its depressing aftermath, the play can also be read as a symbolic (and class-conscious) narration of the Civil War itself. Engaged to be married with the factory owner’s daughter, the working-class foreman Urho is converted to communism and becomes the workers’ leader in the clash between capital and labour. In the second act, Urho is wounded and several soldiers are shot dead onstage as the rebelling masses take over the factory. In the final act, time has elapsed and the rebellion has been harshly vanquished by capitalist military forces. The underground survivors meet in the forest in order to head towards the Soviet Union and prepare a new revolution. In an interview held in August 1922, Valli stated that the handwritten manuscript had circulated well with the help of his former fellow prisoners and the communist youth. Some thirty organizations had already bought the play, a Swedish translation was on its way and negotiations with American Finns had started (see Valli, “Kaarlo Vallia”). The play was banned in Tampere in December 1923 and Valli was sentenced to prison for two months. Once again, having staged politically inflammable material, the leader of the Tampere shoe factory workers’ acting club also got a one-month conviction. The verdict argued that the play spurned the legitimate social order by claiming that the workers had the moral right to violently seize power and the means of production in 1918 (see Verdict of the Supreme Court of Finland). Unlike the protagonist of his play, Valli never made it to the Soviet Union. In 1928, he was denied his passport and two years later he was imprisoned once more because of his communist political activity. Addicted to alcohol even before that, his health deteriorated during his stay in prison from 1930 to 1933 and he died in 1936 at the age of 40 (see Kaarlo Valli’s File).

4

Witnessing Trauma, Commemorating Violence

Whether they were fighting for the commemoration of the silenced Red experience or for political change, for the Finnish proletarian writers, theatre provided an ideal technology of representation and communication. Drama spread effectively among working-class audiences and, being unprinted, left few traces behind. These writers created counter-narratives of the Civil War – in the Whites’ hegemonic narrative, the War of Liberation. Formally outdated as it may have been, Finnish revolutionary melodrama, with its violent inyour-face scenes and lengthy testimonial monologues, was an effective – and, indeed, affective – way to open up the trauma and awaken the emotions of the audience.

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For working-class spectators, facing the violent memories via Red protagonists offered a means of commemorating and healing the trauma, as well as regaining human value, self-esteem and dignity. Indeed, the main aim of these forbidden plays is to bear witness to the trauma of the White terror. For example, in Sovittamattomat, Kosti provides the following testimony: “Immediately after its victory, the bourgeoisie implemented its horrible vengeance. Hundreds of workers were executed without an examination or verdict. The so called ‘civilized’ bourgeoisie bathed in the blood of the poor and performed acts of cruelty that even the wild beasts would be ashamed of”.7 At the same time, the plays clearly promote a view of commemoration as political action. The working-class people should never forget the evils that they have witnessed and suffered. In Valkoinen kosto, Lyyli proclaims, “The judgment bells are tolling. Can you hear them tolling the doom of your crimes? But for me and for all who suffer they toll the break of a new morning. Toll, toll the bells! Louder! Strike harder so that the night of regression will sooner be over and the day of rightness and vengeance will dawn for the human race”.8 The plays’ demand to cherish the heroic memory of the Reds was enough to raise concern among officials. In addition, at least in Valli’s and in Kekäläinen’s plays, the Red protagonist professes an explicit revanchist communist ethos. The workers have no fatherland, they are internationalists. In Valli’s Sovittamattomat, Urho asks, “What has this country given to workers? Hunger, despair, prison, and death. […] They hate this country and how could it be otherwise?”9 When “The Internationale” is heard, Urho states, “That is the song of our fatherland. It recognizes no borders. Everywhere workers are singing that tune. It calls them to struggle for the dawn of the new era when even workers may be and live like humans”.10 In both Sovittamattomat and Valkoinen kosto, the protagonists are about to flee to the Soviet Union in order to organize a new revolution in Finland that will end 7

8

9 10

In the Finnish text, “Porvaristo oli heti voitettuaan pannut kaamean kostonsa käyntiin. Sadoittain työläisiä teloitettiin ilman tutkintoa ja tuomiota. ‘Sivistyneeksi’ itseään nimittänyt porvaristo kylpi köyhien veressä ja osoitti julmuutta sellaista, että metsän pedotkin sen edessä häpeäisivät”. In the original Finnish, “Ne ovat tuomion kellojen kumahduksia. Kuuletteko, kuinka ne soittavat teille tuomiota rikoksistanne? Mutta minulle ja kaikille kärsiville uuden aamun koittoa. Kumahtakaa! Kumahtakaa kellot! Lujemmin, voimakkaammin iskuin, että pikemmin poistuisi taantumuksen yö ja valkenisi ihmisille oikeuden ja koston päivän aamu”. In the source text, “Mitä on tämä maa antanut työläisille? Nälkää ja kurjuutta, vankilaa ja kuolemaa. […] Tällaista maata he nyt sen sijaan vihaavat ja voisiko toisin olla”. In Finnish, “Tuossa on meidän isänmaamme laulu. Se ei tunne rajoja. Kaikkialla laulavat työläiset tuota samaa säveltä, joka kutsuu heidät taisteluun sen ajan koittamiseksi, jolloin työläinenkin saa osakseen ihmisellisen olotilan”.

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capitalist society and bring vengeance to the Reds. In Valli’s play, the protagonist also announces the agenda that should be followed by the Communists. It is clear that drama here seeks to function as a means of political agitation, in addition to having a didactic purpose. From the hegemonic White point of view, the Red counter-narrative, although directed only to a working-class audience, was considered provocative and interpreted as revolutionary and communist. The authorities focused on the revolutionary political potential of the performances only and reacted harshly. As these expressions of the Red counter-narrative of the Civil War were criminalized by the State Police and the Ministry of Justice in 1922-1924, the rising proletarian theatre movement was crushed. Both the authors of the plays and the leaders of the amateur theatres performing them were sentenced to prison, and all copies of the plays were confiscated. The central organ for the state’s theatre policy, the State Dramatic Expert Committee, endorsed the criminalization of the proletarian plays. In 1923, the Committee checked the repertoires of all the sixteen workers’ theatres that had received state subsidies in order to find out whether they had contributed to “the agitation against society” (Annual Report 2).11 The inspection revealed that none of these institutionalized workers’ theatres had been agitating. After being successfully integrated in the subsidized theatre sector, they wanted to stay away from politically dissident theatre even though there was a social demand for it from working-class audiences. From then on, however, it was illegal to perform ‘subversive’ leftist material in Finland. All theatre activity, including that of minor amateur companies, had to limit itself to an apolitical repertoire and was required to contribute to ‘stabilizing’ society. As for the memories of the Civil War, commemorating the Reds of 1918 was systematically suppressed and even their red flags and shirts were banned in the 1930s. The trauma thus remained sealed until the 1960s with the arrival of new novels and dramas that opened it up for examination. Only then did historical research into the 1918-1919 postwar terror begin in earnest. In presentday Finland, even after a considerable amount of research has been conducted and historical fiction has been circulated, the Civil War still remains a problematic issue.

Works Cited Annual Report of the State Dramatic Expert Committee 1923. The Archive of the Ministry of Education, State Board of Drama, National Archives, Helsinki. 11

In the Finnish original, “yhteiskunnan vastaisen kiihoituksen välikappaleiksi”.

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Ässä. “Helsingin Työväen Näyttämö.” Suomen Työmies, 4 Dec. 1922, p. 3. Bodek, Richard. Proletarian Performance in Weimar Berlin: Agitprop, Chorus, and Brecht. Camden House, 1997. DIGI – Kansalliskirjaston digitoidut aineistot. digi.kansalliskirjasto.fi/. Accessed 3 Feb. 2018. Edkins, Jenny. Trauma and the Memory of Politics. Cambridge UP, 2003. Filewod, Alan. “The Documentary Body: Theatre Workshop to Banner Theatre.” Get Real: Documentary Theatre Past and Present, edited by Alison Forsythe and Chris Megson, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, pp. 55-73. Hite, Katherine. Politics and the Art of Commemoration: Memorials to Struggle in Latin America and Spain. Routledge, 2012. “Hyvinkään Työväennäyttämö.” Suomen Sosialidemokraatti, 6 Dec. 1921, p. 4. Jelin, Elizabeth. State Repression and the Labors of Memory. U of Minnesota P, 2001. Jokiruoho, Verneri. Veljesvihaa. 1921 (unpublished manuscript). The Archive of the Helsinki Workers’ Stage, The People’s Archives, Helsinki. Jokiruoho, Verneri. Voitetut sankarit. 1922 (unpublished manuscript). The Archive of the Helsinki Workers’ Stage, The People’s Archives, Helsinki. Kaarlo Valli’s File. The Archive of the State Police, National Archives, Helsinki. Kekäläinen, Uuno. Poika maailman hartioilla. Otava, 1973. Kekäläinen, Uuno. Valkoinen kosto. 1921 (unpublished manuscript). The Archive of the Helsinki Workers’ Stage, The People’s Archives, Helsinki. Lottes, Günther. Politische Aufklärung und plebejisches Publikum: Zur Theorie und Praxis des englischen Radikalismus im späten 18. Jahrhundert. Oldenbourg, 1979. Mally, Lynn. Culture of the Future: The Proletkult Movement in Revolutionary Russia. U of California P, 1990. Mouffe, Chantal. Agonistics: Thinking the World Politically. Verso, 2013. Orsmaa, Taisto-Bertil. Teatterimme käänne: Ekspressionismi suomalaisessa teatterissa. Gaudeamus, 1976. Palmgren, Raoul. Kapinalliset kynät I. WSOY, 1983. Saarela, Tauno. “Communism and Social Democrats.” Red Star in the North: Communism in the Nordic Countries, edited by Åsmund Egge and Svend Rybner, Orkana Akademisk, 2015, pp. 158-83. Seppälä, Mikko-Olavi. Suomalaisen työväenteatterin varhaisvaiheet. SKS, 2010. T., Hj. “Enson Työväen Näyttämö.” Suomen Työläinen, 16 Dec. 1921, pp. 7-8. Tepora, Tuomas. Sinun puolestas elää ja kuolla: Suomen liput, nationalismi ja veriuhri 1917-1945. WSOY, 2011. Thing, Morten, and Trine S. Jansen. “Communism and Intellectuals.” Red Star in the North: Communism in the Nordic Countries, edited by Åsmund Egge and Svend Rybner, Orkana Akademisk, 2015, pp. 217-27. “Työläisten juhliakin häiritään.” Suomen Työmies, 13 May 1922, p. 4.

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Valli, Kaarlo. Sovittamattomat. 1922 (unpublished manuscript). Kaarlo Valli’s Archive, The People’s Archives, Helsinki. Valli, Kaarlo. “Kaarlo Vallia jututtamassa.” Interview in Suomen Työmies, 12 Aug. 1922, p. 5. Verdict of the Supreme Court of Finland, 26 July 1926. Kaarlo Valli’s Archive, The People’s Archives, Helsinki. Verneri Jokiruoho’s File. The Archive of the State Police, National Archives, Helsinki.

From Revolution to Dissent: A Case Study of the Changing Role of Theatre and Activism in Bengal Pujya Ghosh

Abstract The Naxalbari Movement and the period of Emergency (1960-1970) generated a cultural impulse which framed the idea of ‘the political’ for the Left movement in Bengal, exerting a strong influence on forms of political action up to the present times. From this standpoint, the chapter focuses on two prominent, committed Bengali playwrights, Utpal Dutt and Debesh Chattopadhyay, to address the question of the artist’s position as a performer and an activist – individually and collectively. In the form of a performative conversation between Japen Da, the protagonist of Utpal Dutt’s Japen Da Japen Ja, and Paltu Da, a very similar character created by Debesh Chattopadhyay in Paltu Da Bolen Ja, the chapter confronts the playwrights’ theories about theatre with some of their own productions in order to establish what it means to be a committed left-wing activist-performer in Bengal.

Political theatre can be defined as that which emphasizes a political issue or issues in its plot. It can also be regarded as the kind of theatre that explores general themes central to society itself, although, traditionally, it has always been understood through its alignment with the history and evolution of left-wing politics. In India, especially in Bengal, the Group Theatre movement was synonymous with the development of a specific sort of political theatre, largely driven by left-democratic ideals since its inception. The great task started by the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) in the early 1940s spread throughout the country during that decade, acquiring national recognition and political relevance. While the institutional reaction against colonial theatre was to recover indigenous forms, particularly in dance, IPTA’s objective was instead to engage directly with the representation of political events. For instance, IPTA’s seminal play Nabanna (New Harvest, 1944) was an overt commentary and representation of the Bengal Famine (1943-1944) and the ensuing losses of lives. Continuing the work of IPTA, the Group Theatre movement became even stronger in the 1960s and 1970s, especially in the wake of the Naxalbari Movement as a political counterpart, yet by the 1980s it had

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begun to fade away. The Naxalbari Movement,1 like other political uprisings at the time, originated as a left-wing impulse which evolved into a democratic desire for the youth of the country and managed to transform itself into a cultural phenomenon that started featuring in visual art, cinematic productions and theatrical representations. As such, it generated an affect that marked the cultural, intellectual and political mood of the nation and still reverberates today, especially in the way leftist politics is understood in Bengal. It is, therefore, crucial to assess how such a moment in the history of the Left in Bengal framed the idea of ‘the political’ in terms of performative expressions and what it means for contemporary forms of political action. By the end of the Naxalbari Movement in the early 1970s, Bengali theatre was firmly situated as a component of civil society, a space in which political battles and future dreams would be reflected. There were many instances of brilliant stagecraft and intense depth of production during the decades in which a balanced mix of democratic politics – with certain groups drifting towards a revolutionary rhetoric – and humane ideals was embraced, based on literature drawn from around the world. From the late 1980s onwards, such fervor declined as the revolution which political theatre advocated became institutionalized.2 The establishment now spoke through the language of resistance, radicalism and revolution and soon critical theatre found itself being commended and even co-opted by the very political forces against which it was directing its dissent. Political theatre found stability as a ‘middleclass’ activity, surrounded by bourgeois theatre and by theatre for television, both of which constituted a regression of sorts, in which an unchanging cast of the same few actors stumbled through an equally unchanging series of mundane stories. After the 1980s, instead of promoting revolutionary slogans, impassioned rhetoric and socialist realism, political theatre began to collapse

1 The Naxalbari Movement (1967-1972) was inspired by a revolt in the northern part of West Bengal (India) in March-April 1967. Tribal workers who were mainly landless laborers took the land on tea plantations in the Naxalbari area by force, under the leadership of the local members of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), CPI(M). This movement, as various commentators have pointed out, was not a sudden outburst but the result of long-standing political agitation in the region going back to the 1930s (see Banerjee; Damas; Dasgupta). 2 At the Assembly election in West Bengal in 1977, the people came out to vote in very large numbers to dispose of the reign of terror perpetrated by the Congress against the Naxalbari Movement during the period of Emergency (1975-1977). The Left Front, of which the CPI(M) was the biggest group, won by more than a three-fourth majority. After taking office in 1977, the Left Front administration quickly became aware of the limitations constraining the state government to implement pro-people policies within the existing constitutional set-up and eventually gave way to the forces of capitalism.

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through the weight of its own ideological shortcomings. These became evident when confronted with the very different and less inspiring social reality of the Left Front rule in Bengal between 1977 and 2011. In the last decade or so in Bengal, theatrical productions have reflected a multiplicity of specific interests, departing from the often didactic, singleissue, class-based drive of political theatre. The new theatre makers have struggled to move away from a classical Marxist-inspired political practice into more contextual and differentiated models. They still utilize certain aspects of a Marxist epistemology, especially those that emerged and were celebrated during the 1960s and 1970s under the influence of Vsevolov Meyerhold, Erwin Piscator and Bertolt Brecht. Yet these connections with the Left, sometimes tenuous, sometimes pronounced, have wilted in recent years and many leading theatre personalities, artists and filmmakers have produced works in an effort to expose the true face of leftist totalitarianism in the guise of democracy. It was, in fact, after the unrest and upheavals in Singur, Nandigram and Lalgarh during 2008 that many Bengali plays emerged targeting the parliamentary Left ruling the state of West Bengal.3 Against this backdrop, this chapter will examine the artist’s position as an intellectual and an activist and how that position is expressed through political theatre; more precisely, to what extent can an intellectual/artist with a left political ideology perform his/her ‘political’ role under the growing pervasiveness of the capitalist order? Exploring how some individuals and groups engage in activist and performance worlds simultaneously, that is, understanding the relationship between activism and performance as an exchange, offers 3 In Singur, local protests erupted over the state government’s decision to confiscate the population’s agricultural land in order to build a Tata Motors factory. The people of Singur, especially women, sustained their protest, which led to many violent episodes and accusations of rape and sexual assault inflicted by CPI(M) cadres. On 23 September 2008, Tata motors decided to leave Singur. In Nandigram, the CPI(M) in office tried to expropriate 10,000 acres of land to establish a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) for the Indonesian-based chemical hub Salim Group. The police shootings against demonstrators resulted in ten dead villagers and another seventy wounded. In May 2008, fresh violence broke out between supporters of the Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee and CPI(M) activists. In September the plan was dropped in favor of the sparsely populated island of Nayachar. In Lalgarh, the entire chain of events started on 2 November 2008, with the explosion of a land mine directed at the convoy of West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Union Steel and Mines minister Ram Vilas Paswan, as they were returning from the inauguration of the Jindal Steel Works SEZ in Salboni. Police brutality ensued, leading to the creation of the People’s Committee against Police Atrocities (PCPA). This was deemed to be a Maoist organization and Operation Lalgarh was launched to curb it on 18 June 2009. After months of violent clashes, the movement was dismantled with the arrest of Chattadhar Mahato, head of the PCPA, and the killing of Kishenji, the Maoist leader.

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an inclusive view that accounts for radical performances produced both inside and outside theatrical environments. I will undertake my analysis by comparing Japen da, the protagonist of a 1971-1984 compilation of essays by Utpal Dutt titled Japen da Japen Ja (What Japen da Chants about, 2008), and Paltu da, a very similar character created by Debesh Chattopadhyay in his work Paltu da Bolen Ja (Things that Paltu da Says, 2012). As Bratya Basu, a contemporary theatre practitioner, suggests in the introduction to Chattopadhyay’s book, “Paltu da is witty, ill-tempered, a theatre lover but also an addict of the first order. He reminds us of Utpal Dutt’s famous character Japen da, but the difference is that he is today’s Japen da. What he talks about is today’s theatre, today’s time and most importantly today’s politics” (2).4 The authors’ conflicting engagement with their respective fictional figures provides suitable evidence to extricate the foundations on which the theatre that they devise rests. Moreover, both theoretical texts focus on the artist’s and theatre’s relationship to politics at a specific moment in history, thus constituting an invaluable source of information to assess how the performance of politics and the category of political theatre have changed over the years in India.5

1

Introducing Japen da and Paltu da

Dutt (1929-1993) was actively involved with the Communist movement in India since the late 1940s. He participated in the Naxalbari Movement, embracing the ideology of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist),6 had to go underground for a long period and was eventually arrested. Upon his release,

4 “Paltu da ekjon rasatmak, bodmajaji, theatre premik ebong khanikta matal. Onekta mone poriye deye Utpal Dutt er priyo charitra Japen da r kotha. Kintu tafat hole, Paltu da aajker Japen da. Paltu da kotha bole aajker theatre niye, aajker somay niye ebong sobchaye guruttopurno bhbabe, aajker rajniti niye”. All translations from Bengali are by the author of this chapter unless otherwise indicated. 5 Utpal Dutt’s book, written during the playwright’s most active years as a theatre practitioner and activist, is considered a seminal work in Indian, especially Bengali, theatre. It illustrates his engagement with various facets of theatre-making and critically evaluates the predominant theatrical styles of his era. Concurrently, despite Paltu da Bolen Ja’s limited circulation, Chattopadhyay’s book can be read as a manifesto of present-day Bengali theatre by a major actor in the region’s political scenario, who has bestowed a new face to the legacy of Dutt and his contemporaries. 6 The Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), CPI(ML), was formed in 1969 by the radicals within the Communist Party of India (Marxist) who were becoming increasingly concerned about the parliamentary politics of CPI(M). They alleged that the CPI(M) party leadership was turning towards revisionism. A debate ensued which resulted in the expulsion

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he carried out an assessment of the movement and concluded that it was problematic in its strategies. He later became a member of the parliamentary CPI(M). Chattopadhyay (b. 1966), on the other hand, has always maintained that he endorses a leftist stance but, being strongly against any form of organized Left, he claims that his only interest lies in doing political theatre. Even though, to date, he has never joined any political organization, his criticism of the Left Front government led him to work very closely with, and advocate, the policies of the right-centrist Trinamool Congress party, which has been ruling the state of West Bengal from 2011. Dutt’s treatise on theatre, although based on a specific history – that of the radical Left, with which he had an enduring association – can also be read outside its own times because of its fundamental focus on theatrical practice; whereas in the case of Chattopadhyay, his reflections are better evaluated in terms of political contemporaneity. Hence, while Dutt’s views testify to the power of theatre driven by ideology to initiate public debate, to provoke thought, to encourage community and even to generate action, Chattopadhyay considers that it is almost laughable to talk about political commitment in current times, confining politics and its representation to immediate issues. In Dutt’s essays the conversation takes place between his character Japen da and an unnamed young boy. As such, it is difficult to assert with any certainty what the author’s own position is. Most of the dialogue appears to present an older Utpal Dutt sharing his experiences with his younger self, although there are some moments when he seems to be explaining the motivations of his own theatrical practice, with Japen da adopting the external voice of critique and introspection. Conversely, in Chattophadyay’s work, whose time scope covers up to the first decade of the twenty-first century, the dialogue distinctly features Paltu da and the author himself, which makes it much easier to identify the latter’s standpoint. Given that Paltu da is constantly criticizing Chattopadhyay and his contemporaries, the character’s comments can be more easily interpreted as targeting the theatre that these practitioners are trying to leave behind. In this respect, Japen da engages with the question of political activism in the theatre in a much more detailed and nuanced fashion than Paltu da does. When Paltu da compares current theatre with that of Utpal Dutt or Ajitesh Bandhopadhyay, another iconic theatre actor and director of the 1960s and of the radicalized faction within the CPI(M) and led to the formation of CPI(ML). The CPI(ML) went on to rule the Naxalbari Movement from 1967 to 1972 under the leadership of Charu Majumdar. After 1972, the CPI(ML) broke into various factions, some of which are still politically active and relevant.

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1970s, Chattopadhyay quickly retorts that these people have now acquired a quasi- mythical status.7 And he points out the differences in the respective socio-economic and political situations in order to dismiss the legitimacy of judging contemporary theatre with the parameters of the past. He believes that, following the excesses of 1960s and 1970s radicalism, critiques have risen from the Left, as well as the Right, which suggest that current activism at a time marked by increased apathy and passivity cannot elicit the same wide-eyed optimism as before. Nonetheless, he continues, many contemporary plays illustrate the theatre makers’ relationship to the political history of their places of origin, the crisis in negotiating that past and their larger understanding of politics in Bengal (Chattopadhayay 17). Present-day Indian plays are written with a comparable urban milieu in view. The protagonist in most of them is a lonely character who progressively discovers how the conflicts between the individual and society are sharpening to the disadvantage of the former. Such loneliness, verging on an existential ‘no exit’ situation, acquires a specific significance in Indian political theatre today as the articulation of the contradiction between the possibilities of the past and the futility of the future. This is so because, as Nicholas Ridout puts it, The theatre is also a good (because perverse) place to go looking for communist potential – not, crucially, because it offers any kind of space beyond or outside capitalism, but precisely because it usually nestles so deeply inside it. Much romantic anti-capitalism looks to the past because it offers an image of an outside upon which a future utopia might be modeled. In the same gesture it also assumes that there exists some essential, whole, and unalienated humanity, from which capitalism has torn us and to which we may one day return through a restoration of past experiences and practices of community. (9)

2

Theatre According to Japen da and Paltu da

In the recent past, plays criticizing the state government’s policies have proliferated. Examples of this type of practice are Saonli Mitra’s troupe Pancham 7 Bandhopadhyay (1933-1983) was known for his adaptations, such as Natyakarer Sandhane Chhati Charitra (Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author) in 1961, Manjari Amer Manjari (Mango Blossoms) from Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard in 1964, Sher Afghan (Pirandello’s Henry IV ) in 1966, Tin Paysar Pala or Three Paisa Pala (Brecht’s Threepenny Opera) in 1969 and Bhalo Manush (Brecht’s The Good Person of Setzuan) in 1974.

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Vaidik’s production of Poshu Khamar (Animal Farm, 2006), an adaptation of George Orwell’s novel; Kaushik Sen’s Swapnasandhani Ensemble, with their versions of Dak Ghar (The Post Office, 2007) and Birpurush (The Valiant, 2010);8 and Chattopadhyay’s own Phandigram (2008) – a pun on the aforesaid Nandigram, Phandi meaning conspiracy and Gram, village. However, on closer examination, one can notice the parochialism of mainstream theatres, where, too often, practitioners have decided to ignore the social implications of their work and privilege ‘the classics’,9 contemporary melodramas and vapid spectacles over social engagement, sidestepping political questions such as “What does the work say?” and “Who is it for?” Relating these crucial questions about spectator/audience response to the full critical impact of any kind of art, Alain Badiou argues that “the collective dimension of theatre is essential because the present of the Idea is experienced and investigated through the presence of the public. Theatre is the exemplary artistic form of an immediate liaison between temporal form (the present) and spatial form (the presence of a crowd in a place)”. He adds further that the notion of performance, as anticipated and propagated throughout the twentieth century via agitprop theatre and its connections with revolutionary experiences, consisted in treating such a relationship as a “shared act, an indistinction” between the time of the ‘Idea’ and the space of the crowd (Badiou and During 25). Therefore, Badiou’s ‘Idea’ materializes only through its public and, thus, it can be argued that the activities of political theatre allow the spectator to gain ‘critical awakening’ about the operations of dominant power structures which prevent human subjects from perceiving the ‘true’ state of affairs. It follows, then, that the spectator attains the subsequent capability to intervene in those affairs. This prompting into action encompasses a varied set of goals such as the propagation of “radical” (Badiou and During 25) ideas in order to change opinions and attitudes, or direct political action, even on the streets.

8 Inspired by Rabindranath Tagore’s homonymous poem, the play, however, was based on the contemporary social and political conditions of West Bengal. Opening with the metatheatrical ironic device of presenting the backstage business before the show commences, the main story revolves around a village boy who has learnt Tagore’s poem at school and recites it from memory, fascinated by its child-hero. When the paramilitary forces enter the area to fight the Maoists, the boy’s family and the villagers are caught in the cross-fire, being oppressed by the paratroops by day and terrorized by the radicals by night. The piece ends with the child’s family ready to leave the village after having lost their father, followed by director Kaushik Sen coming on stage as himself and delivering a self-critical piece on civil society’s inability to fully understand the plight of these people, let alone do anything to help them. 9 The play Dak Ghar (1912) and the poem “Birpurush”, both written by Tagore, are indeed considered classics of Bengali literature.

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Although Japen da would approve of agitprop theatre if conceived along the lines stated above, he denounces the presentation to the audience of superficial approaches and simplistic solutions. Therefore, he criticizes the people’s theatre for relying on the naïve formula where an ordinary-looking guy arrives from the city to enlighten the peasants or workers, who, as a result, experience a revelation, get together and beat/kill their oppressor. He tells his interlocutor boy that, if they had ever bothered to read Mao, they would have realized their mistake. Mao called these forms of theatre, which never help the revolution but are rather detrimental instead, ‘poster and slogan theatre’. Japen da believes that the classics have much more to offer and explains how Shakespeare successfully manages to talk about the mind and inner conflict of his characters, going from “bloody deeds” to “bloody thoughts”, which is what a playwright needs to reveal – the motivation behind an action and not the action itself (Dutt 133). At another instance, Japen da goes on to compare a real-life event with a theatrical performance, emphasizing the theatricality of the former. He opines that the real-life “theatre” (natak) that they have just witnessed is the fodder for stage productions. For Japen da, performances staged at the intersection of political and performance worlds create meaning for their audiences by offering them pieces of a social puzzle that they, then, assemble with other experiences, as part of an ongoing engagement with political issues. In these two cases, it seems clear that, through Japen da, Dutt is talking to his younger self (see 129-38). The kind of performance that Japen da advocates aims at generating profound, long-term effects upon a broad segment of the population, ranging from the educated elite to the illiterate and penurious (see 226-34). In that respect, his proposal resembles the concept of the ‘third thing’ formulated by Jacques Rancière in The Emancipated Spectator (see 14-15). Such ‘third thing’, which exists in-between the artist’s intention and the spectator’s reception, affords a plurality of audience responses endowed with the potential to emerge thereafter in unexpected and unmeasurable attitudes and actions in the guise of real-world engagement outside the theatre. The shows should thus be capable of exhibiting an idiomatic and evocative rhetoric which compels audiences to reflect upon pressing social, economic and political problems, as well as to work towards reform through active engagement. Therefore, according to Japen da, activist performers must reinterpret practices and infuse them with new meaning in order to raise critical consciousness, mobilize communities, build up identities and elicit suitable responses to particular demands (see Dutt 163-75). As Shirin M. Rai points out, “The reaching out and the reading of performance depends as much on the text or the political narrative being performed as on invoking and harnessing many audiences. It also depends on

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the ability of the performer to read the audience, to re-calibrate the performance as it unfolds in response to reception indicators of/from the audience” (1188). On the other hand, after disdaining contemporary theatre productions such as Birpurush, Chattopadhyay’s Paltu da launches his onslaught on the young brigade of theatre makers who play the revolutionary from the comfort of their homes by contributing media bites, articles and pictures in the newspapers. Including a little bit of Singur or Nandigram here and there into a story where it has no real relevance – he claims – does not amount to being a revolutionary, but rather reflects a lack of politics and political focus (see 19). Chattopadhyay accepts Paltu da’s allegations about their disorientation and chooses Nabarun Bhattacharya’s Fataru (2004), one of the most successful plays he has directed, to illustrate what epitomizes political theatre for him. The motivation behind the play springs from the realization that the language of protest is changing and chaos becomes a major channel to express resistance (see 19). In this sense, ‘fatarus’ are functional in creating such a discordant condition by sabotaging everything that the establishment values. For them, allegiance to any party cannot bring revolution nor can anyone really upturn the inflow of capital and industrialization, so the only effective action left is to clash with these structures and create as much disruption as possible (see Bhattacharya 9-20). Hence, the ‘fatarus’ exemplify the apathy and confusion that today’s youth feels in the throes of capital. For Chattopadhyay there is no inherent contradiction in this state of confusion and, to support his claim (see 23), he resorts to the figure of Dutt who, during the Naxalbari Movement, staged Teer (Arrow), later to concede that the play reflected a kind of misplaced politics (see Japen da’s argument about Mao’s ‘poster and slogan theatre’ above). Staged in 1969, two years after the firing at Naxalbari, Teer was one of the first plays to embrace the Naxalbari ideology explicitly. Its structure comprised a combination of styles including a faithful reconstruction of the police shootings and the ensuing killing of innocent women and children, didactic scenes from Mao’s Red Book addressed to illiterate peasants and instances of guerilla warfare tactics aimed at demonstrating how to defend the land. The show culminates with the villagers taking up arms (bows and arrows) and killing the oppressive zamindar, thereby embarking on a path to liberation. Chattopadhyay claims that while a political situation is unraveling it is not always possible to clarify one’s own stance, which does not necessarily mean that one has renounced one’s political or critical commitments (see 24). However, contrary to Chattopadhyay’s assertion that the blurring and effective erasure of ideological boundaries on the Left has brought about such a state of

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confusion, Dutt never suffered a crisis of beliefs, nor were his political motivations merely reliant on the strategy of legitimate opposition. Instead, he questioned his affiliation to different parties at various points throughout his career, which, in turn, may have shown in his theatrical practice. Nevertheless, his endorsement of the larger ideology of leftist political theatre and its efficacy in testifying to its age-old power remained unaltered. A large part of Dutt’s career was conducted in an ever-changing political climate: jailed in 1965 for his play Kallol (The Sound of Waves), he later suffered threats for, and the subsequent ban of, his 1974 show Dushswaper Nagori (The City of Nightmares) and worked through the period of Emergency. In those days, political theatre workers faced persecution, repression, brutal assaults and even death, as in the cases of theatre personalities Prabir Dutta and Satyen Mitra. Despite such unfavorable conditions, Dutt was always extremely critical of the violent excesses committed by both the state and the Naxalites or CPI(M) cadres, but he never considered eschewing the ideology that his comrades were fighting for, even if he did not entirely agree with their methods. Regarding the use of theatre as a political tool, Japen da informs the young boy that it is equally important to show what the working class is as what it can evolve into. So, any depiction of the working class in engaged dramatic works should not omit its faults, be it corruption, betrayal, narrow-mindedness, greed, violence or gender inequality, among others, just as Maksim Gorky did in The Mother. Noticing the boy’s concern, Japen da acknowledges the problematic nature of such a statement, since criticizing the working class would garner counter criticism from left-wing intellectuals, the middle class and the party workers. Accordingly, he blames their petty bourgeois mentality for having chosen the unproblematic path of revering the working class rather than accepting the responsibility of building political awareness and striving for equality. Japen da urges the boy not to judge a worker through the lens of the middle class but through the lens of another worker for, in such a manner, he will realize that he is not just criticizing but also doing an exercise in self-criticism and self-reflexivity (see Dutt 167). It is arguable, though, whether Dutt himself managed to transpose those ideas to his own works. Nevertheless, Japen da’s lesson illustrates the flawed logic behind simply appreciating, even celebrating, the lumpen proletariat that Fataru and Birpurush espouse. Performances such as these do not modify community ideology so much as stir the spectators’ emotions and catalyze their opposition. As David A. Schlossman suggests, the perennial question that embroils overt political performance – i.e. what constitutes effective communication beyond the ‘converted’? – extends to all contemporary political action as well.

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Revolution or Dissent?

Indeed, the production of plays like Fataru or Birpurush in the context of political conflict reveals that the only value attached to activist theatre by their authors is that of preaching to the converted, of recommitting the committed to struggle so as to validate their cause and of reaffirming their identity as ‘peace’ activists opposed to current conflict. Though the ‘fatarus’ have been described as rebels of a kind who assemble at night and do damage indiscriminately (see Bhattacharya 14-16; Chakraborty), it is important to note that this anarchist strategy of disruption is opposed to the actual political violence derived from revolutionary action and its violent repression by the state. It resembles, Paltu da reminds us, the attitude of the intellectuals who held meetings and rallies of protest for Nandigram (Chattopadhayay 32). On such an occasion, the treatment of the events at Singur, Nandigram and Lalgarh was stripped of its political and ideological implications and approached only as a case of human rights violations, in which violence was perpetrated against innocent villagers who were just trying to hold on to their land. Paltu da stresses the bland, short-lived nature of the protests to prove his point, adding that some of the intellectuals involved joined the CPI(M) while others sided with the opposition (see 33).10 To this effect, on her return from Lalgarh, theatre director and actor Saonli Mitra gave vent to her anger by stating in the column of a Bengali weekly: “Will we let the Maoist story take the focus away from the neglect and deprivation that the tribal people have faced for decades?” (2).11 Similarly, in an interview, director and actor Kaushik Sen condemned the Maoists for taking advantage of the humiliation and oppression endured by the people at the hands of the state, instrumentalizing them into fighting their own political war, a war which had no future (see 5). Not surprisingly, the ‘pro-people’ stand of these and similar artists soon turned into a broad anti-Left position. Accordingly, for Chattopadhyay, as he assures Paltu da, the political action deployed at the time of Singur and Nandigram was satisfactory because, at least, it displayed dissent, which the state had to acknowledge. However, Paltu da disagrees with this form of political articulation and therefore urges Chattopadhyay to have the courage to defend and practice ideas and principles of equality, to say what needs to be 10 11

As an example, Natya Sojon, an initiative to promote suburban and rural theatre, was created in an attempt to silence non-conformist theatre makers. “Maobadi domoner aarale, sarkar focus shoriye nitey chaiche sei adibashider kahini theke, jara bigoto bahu dosok dhore abohela oo attayachar sojhho koreche ei Sarkar er hathe. Seta ki mene nitey pari?”

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said and to demand what is rightfully the people’s (see 33). This would entail pushing his critique further and engaging in an alternative form of theatre making. For, as Paolo Virno argues, “in order for mass intellectuality to enter the political scene and destroy what deserves to be destroyed, it cannot limit itself to a series of refusals […] it must exemplify positively through construction and experimentation what men and women can do outside the capitalist relationship” (254-55). Notwithstanding all the criticism levelled at them, the present-day plays discussed above successfully show their status as “historical traces for thinking resistance, for formulating agency that scars the smooth texture of the linear historical terrain of capitalist development” (Basu Towards Naxalbari 62). They do so by speaking of the complex and compelling ways in which the Naxalbari movement of the 1960s and early 1970s continues to pervade the notions of ‘the political’ in the quotidian life of Kolkata at a time of rapidly evolving neoliberal economic and societal transformations. Yet over the years, from Dushswapner Nagori to Fataru or Dak Ghar, a change has occurred within the subjectivity of the Left movement, its culture and its outlook towards the future. There is almost a complete rejection of the entire tradition of peasant and tribal movements or, as Lucio Castellano et al. put it, the idea of “seizing power” and the canonical goal of the “dictatorship of the proletariat” (229).12 The associations that existed between the new aspirations of the movements in the 1960s and 1970s and the model of a communist political revolution have now largely been broken, and the very idea of such a revolution has given way to an articulation against power emerging from a civil society position. Power, as Chattopadhyay tells Paltu da, is perceived as the enemy force against which society must defend itself. It is futile trying to conquer or overturn power. One can only attenuate it and keep it at bay, which is what Fataru represents (see 37). In spite of the existing differences between older and contemporary notions of activism, both share the recognition that practice can shape the world. On this count, both Paltu da and Japen da concur – they do not judge rebellion in terms of what is rational or beneficial for their individual and professional growth. From Dutt to Chattopadhyay, as we have seen, the language and

12

West Bengal and India at large have a long history of peasant movements, usually under the leadership of a Marxist organization. For instance, and in addition to the Naxalbari Movement (1967-72), the Santhal insurrection (1855-56), the Indigo revolt of 1859-60, the Munda rebellion (1899), the Kisan Sabha movement (1929), the Tebhaga movement (194647), the Telangana peasant struggle (1947-51) and the Jharkhand Movement (early 1900s up to 1995), to name just a few.

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parameters of theatre and activism have indeed shifted from revolution to dissent. Therefore, to reformulate the relationship between theatre and politics through the prism of activism implies the reassessment of the Left’s understanding of politics or, as Jean Luc Nancy has pointed out, “the task that now befalls us is to elucidate, to review, indeed to revolutionize what the term ‘left’ means”. And with extraordinary insight, he suggests that “‘left’ means, at the very least, that the political, as such, is receptive to what is at stake in community” (xxxvi).

Works Cited Badiou, Alain. Rhapsody for the Theatre. Verso, 2008. Badiou, Alain, and Elie During. “Theatre of Operations. A Discussion between Alain Badiou and Elie During.” A Theater without Theater, edited by Manuel J. Borja-Villel et al., MACBA / Fundaçao de Arte Moderna e Contemporanea – Colecçao Berardo, 2007, pp. 22-7. Banerjee, Sumanta. In the Wake of Naxalbari: A History of the Naxalite Movement in India. Subarnarekha, 1980. Banerjee, Sumanta. “Naxalbari: Between Past and Future.” Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 37, no. 22, 1-7 Jun. 2002, pp. 2115-16. Basu, Bratya. “Bhumika.” Paltu da Bolen Ja, by Debesh Chattopadhyay, Bratyajon, 2012, pp. 1-5. Basu, Pradip. Towards Naxalbari, 1953-1967: An Account of Inner Party Ideological Struggle. Progressive Publishers, 2000. Bhattacharya, Nabarun. Fataru Bombachok o Ananyo. Saptarshi Prakashan, 2008. Castellano, Lucio, et al. “Do You Remember Revolution?” Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics, edited by Paolo Virno and Michael Hardt, U of Minnesota P, 1996, pp. 225-40. Chakraborty, Gautam, “Sabdhan, Monch e Fataru.” Anandabazaar Patrika, 9 Aug. 2004. Natya Shodh Sansthan, File No. CF/497. Chattopadhyay, Debesh. Paltu da Bolen Ja. Bratyajon, 2012. Damas, Marius. Approaching Naxalbari. Radical Impression, 1991. Dasgupta, Biplab. The Naxalite Movement. Allied Publishers, 1974. Dasgupta, Biplab. “The Naxalite Movement: An Epilogue.” Social Scientist, vol. 6, no. 12, Jul. 1978, pp. 3-24. Dutt, Utpal. Japen da Japen Ja. Gadya Samgraha, edited by Samik Bandyopadhyay, vol. 1, Dey’s Publishing, 2008, pp. 123-236. Mitra, Saonli. “Lalgarh e Maobadi Kara, Etodin Kothaye Chilen.” Dainik Statesman, 27 Jun. 2009, p. 2.

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Nancy, Jean Luc. The Inoperative Community. Edited by Peter Connor; translated by Peter Connor et al., U of Minnesota P, 1991. Rai, Shirin M. “Political Performance: A Framework for Analysing Democratic Politics.” 2014. Political Studies, vol. 63, issue 5, 2015, pp. 1179-97. Rancière, Jacques. The Emancipated Spectator. Verso, 2009. Ridout, Nicholas. Passionate Amateurs: Theatre, Communism and Love. U of Michigan P, 2013. Schlossman, David A. Actors and Activists: Politics, Performance, and Exchange among Social Worlds. Routledge, 2002. Sen, Kaushik. “Mukhomantri Bhabun, Keno Aaj Bichinno Holen Manusher Theke.” Sangbad Pratidin, 22 May 2009, p. 5. Virno, Paolo. “Do You Remember Counterrevolution?” Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics, edited by Paolo Virno and Michael Hardt, U of Minnesota P, 1996, pp. 241-60.

Who Gets to Represent the Past and Why Should They Bother? Maltese Political Theatre in the 1980s Marco Galea

Abstract This chapter analyses the context leading up to and the reactions to Ġużè Chetcuti’s 1919, a political play written and performed in Malta in 1987 and commissioned directly by the government to commemorate an important historical event, as well as to establish an authoritative version of history. The political and cultural contexts of its genesis are examined in order to shed light on the meanings intended for and attributed to the text and the performance. At the centre of the argument is a discussion of the close relationship that exists in many postcolonial societies between theatre-makers and political decision-makers. Through the example of Malta in the 1980s, the chapter questions whether it is possible for political theatre-makers to acquire an autonomous voice in situations where their practice is watched over by politicians, policy-makers and distributers of funding, who can be in turn affected by the theatre-makers’ activity.

Most postcolonial societies share a preoccupation with the continual search for national identity, usually focusing on events, symbols or historical characters that are conceived as conducive to the establishment of common value systems that are considered imperative for their survival and growth. That this is the result of decades or centuries of colonial negation regarding any selfdetermination is an issue that has been extensively documented and theorised (see Chrisman 2004). To use Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s phrase, in the colonial period the colonial world “was dismembered from its past” (71). At the centre of the colonial project lay the issue of representation, with cultural and artistic representation often being a direct reflection of the colonised and the colonisers’ political agency or lack thereof. Colonised people were perceived by their colonisers as unable to represent themselves, and thus depended on the representation made of them by others. Whatever means they had to attempt self-representation – language, indigenous art and culture – was discredited or suppressed. Resistance to colonisation very often consisted in countering the narratives that portrayed the colonised as worthless and devoid of a history (see Said 3).

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However, recovering the past or reconstructing a postcolonial identity is never the result of a straightforward replacement of colonial discourse by a ‘true’ narrative rooted in indigenous culture or based on the restoration of historical events that had been displaced by colonialism. More often, postcolonial identity relies on the narratives foregrounded by influential and dominant groups within the community during the decolonisation process and its aftermath. National elite groups tend to co-opt, adapt or invent national symbols both as instruments for garnering popular support during such periods and as a means to legitimise specific political positions after the end of colonialism. This is particularly evident when it comes to the interpretation of the historical past, as elite groups in previously colonised societies usually try to appropriate distinctive moments so as to increase the public perception of their own value, most commonly by claiming a predominant historical position (see Fanon 114). Helen Gilbert and Joanne Tompkins suggest that the performing arts are better suited than literature to problematise the imperial past because of the possibilities they offer to layer signifiers and express different versions of prior events (see 109). However, as these authors admit, postcolonial plays, in their deployment of strategies aimed at foregrounding particular visions of history, are not immune to the implications of deconstruction, including the suppression of alternative visions (see 108). It is this contested space that I am interested in and that I will explore in this chapter. Specifically, I will discuss a number of explicit political performances from the 1980s and then focus on the state-sponsored play 1919, which was performed in March 1987, a few weeks before the advent of a momentous general election in Malta. My claim is that this play was an attempt by the Labour Party in government to gain legitimacy by referring to a past that could be fashioned into an image that suited their present needs. Moreover, I will also argue that the play can be framed as part of a larger strategy to write history from beneath, something akin to what intellectuals in the Indian subcontinent were striving for in the same decade through the Subaltern Studies Group (see Chaturvedi vii-ix). To that avail, this chapter will look into one of the most contentious and contested events in Maltese political history and its various re-appropriations: the uprising referred to as Sette Giugno that took place in and around Valletta, the capital city of Malta, in 1919, one of the very few episodes during the British colonial period when the Maltese and their rulers clashed violently. In his analysis of the historical event in question, historian Dominic Fenech, who also served as secretary general of the Labour Party between 1977 and 1983, made a revealing declaration: “Few events in Malta’s modern history have undergone more post-mortems than the Sette Giugno, ranging from two commis-

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sions of enquiry (a public and a secret one), to the various works that have been published, to the commemorative speeches still made by politicians of different hues assuming ownership of something that no-one at the time claimed responsibility for” (38; emphasis added). The statement is itself contentious, for Nerik Mizzi, leader of the Nationalist Party at the time of the Sette Giugno events, almost immediately launched a campaign to have a monument built on the grave of the victims. The Labour Party, on the other hand, was born as a result of the political developments following those tragic circumstances, so could not effectively claim responsibility or any active participation. It is precisely the retrospective appropriation of Sette Giugno by the Labour Party that I would like to investigate, laying special emphasis on the role played by theatre in remembering and possibly refashioning the past according to contemporary political urgencies. A British colony from 1800 until it was granted independence in 1964, Malta has had a more or less equal alternation of political power between the Nationalist Party, a conservative pro-European group, and the Labour Party. National politics has been dominated by these two parties since the early twentieth century, both having played an important role in the decolonisation process. During the colonial period, the Nationalists were opposed to most British initiatives on the island, especially their attempts at anglicisation, while the Labour Party, with its grassroots more dependent on jobs created by imperial interests on the island – mainly servicing the British Navy – was generally receptive to British projects as long as they improved living conditions. The dichotomy persisted almost up to independence, with Labour asking for integration with Britain in the late 1950s. It was not until after this project failed that a pro-independence consensus started to emerge. Yet, while the Nationalists were content with a monarchic independence – similar to that of Australia – which retained close links with Britain, including the hosting of a British military base on the island, the Labour Party endeavoured to sever all political connections with the previous coloniser. Labour politicians aimed at making the country a republic and often flirted with non-Western powers such as the Non-Aligned Movement, North Korea and China, that were perceived both by political opponents in Malta and international observers as dangerously nondemocratic (see Frendo 765-89). In time, the Nationalist Party evolved into a conservative centre-right party which defined itself as the defender of human rights and civil liberties. Its association with the Catholic Church even when Maltese society was becoming increasingly secularised caused it to be deemed a ‘confessional’ party by its critics. By contrast, the Labour Party – which at different times in history referred to itself as the Workers’ Party or Socialist Party – often clashed with

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the very powerful Church hierarchy, which it perceived as interfering in secular politics, while the Church claimed that its freedom of speech was being curtailed.1 Historically, the party’s support base came mostly from the very often uneducated working classes, and it firmly advocated the establishment of the welfare state in Malta. After independence, especially when in government, each party used the arts as an instrument to push its own ideology forward. The Nationalist Party, for example, was generally keen to sponsor events which highlighted a harmonious, almost classless society united against foreign rule, where Christian and European values were often portrayed as unifying factors. The Labour Party, on the other hand, construed history as a struggle between the workers and the long-established dominant classes in Maltese society, that is, the aristocrats, the professional classes and the leaders of the Catholic Church (see Mayo 132-34). Until the beginning of the present century, Malta had only one state-owned theatre which produced drama on a regular basis. Theatre-makers were mostly semi-professional or amateurs who, in many cases, were directly or indirectly state employed and made their living from other jobs such as teaching or clerical work. Sponsorship of the arts was not managed in any coherent fashion and this often led to artists having to negotiate their way through dominant political agendas.2 This state of affairs was exacerbated from the late 1970s to the late 1980s, when political relationships became highly strained and related violence caused unprecedented levels of concern. During this period, political motives were attributed to a number of murders, most of which remained unsolved. In 1981, the Labour Party secured an absolute majority of seats in a parliamentary election in which the Nationalist Party was voted by more than half of the electorate. Thus, the legitimacy of the Labour government between 1981 and 1987 was continuously questioned. Like many other countries struggling with the after-effects of decolonisation, Malta was dangerously close to a collapse of the rule of law as both political parties claimed to have the citizens’ mandate to govern (see Boissevain 153-54). As the Labour Party in office followed a consistent strategy of limiting the outlets for the opposition to air its views by keeping a tight control on state broadcasting – the only broadcasting that was permissible – and by imposing

1 Although the Labour Party has always proclaimed a socialist creed and maintained ties to international socialist federations and groups, it only used the name Socialist Party unofficially, mainly during the 1980s. 2 It was only in 2003 that a Council for Culture and the Arts – which became known as Arts Council Malta in 2015 – was set up and given the responsibility and the regulatory framework to become a public funding body for the arts, including the theatre.

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limitations on the free press, the theatre was one of the avenues commonly used to criticise the government. Very often, this critique adopted the form of allegorical plays, such as the ones performed during activities organised by the Nationalist Party (see Spiteri 27-8) or productions of Maltese translations of European classics like Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi (1985) and Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist (1985).3 The choices made by the theatre-makers involved in these productions were part of a strategy to communicate political messages while avoiding government retaliation, since even performances of Christmas pantomimes were scrutinised for political content and were subject to punishment when they were considered to be too critical of the government (see Cremona and Sant 185). Nevertheless, political theatre which overtly targeted the government was very fertile in that period. One of the major successes was Bertolt Brecht’s Life of Galileo (1986), and Alfred Buttigieg’s pseudo-historical play Ir-Rewwixta tal-Qassisin (The Priests’ Revolt) was given its first production in December 1986 (see Galea 9-11), followed by an adaptation of Oliver Friggieri’s 1986 novel Fil-Parlament ma Jikbrux Fjuri (Flowers Do Not Grow in Parliament) in March 1987.4 Sympathisers for the government felt that it was being unfairly attacked by theatre-makers, to the extent that an article in the Labour Party newspaper Il-Ħelsien begrudged the fact that a local bank had sponsored Ir-Rewwixta talQassisin (see “Il-Kitba tal-Ħaddiem” (The Workers’ Writing)). Therefore, in a sense, 1919 was Labour’s answer to what it denounced as an orchestrated campaign. To be fair, there had been a very successful pro-Labour antecedent in Ġensna (Our Nation), a celebratory historical musical first performed in 1982. It was against this background that, in 1986, the Prime Minister of Malta, Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, commissioned 1919 from Ġużè Chetcuti, whose main contributions to theatre had been two naturalistic plays written and performed in the early 1960s. Chetcuti was better known as a novelist who engaged in the chronicling of the miserable lives of working-class characters in early twentieth-century Malta. As this was a direct commission, it is very

3 Jarry’s P’Ubu, translated by Alfred Buttigieg and Michael Fenech, was directed by the latter at the Ateatru in Sliema. Fo’s play (in Maltese, Mewt b’Diżgrazzja t’Anarkiku) was translated by Joe Camilleri and directed by Peter Busuttil, also at the Ateatru in Sliema. 4 All translations from Maltese are by the author of this chapter unless otherwise indicated. Il-Ħajja ta’ Galileo, translated from German by Evarist Bartolo and directed by Mario Azzopardi, was staged at the University Theatre in Msida. Ir-Rewwixta tal-Qassisin was directed by Michael Fenech at the Manoel Theatre in Valletta, while Fil-Parlament ma Jikbrux Fjuri, adapted and directed by Joe Saliba, was staged at the Catholic Institute Theatre in Floriana.

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probable that the playwright was chosen because of his allegiance to the Labour Party ideology of the time. An increasingly unpopular Labour government relied on its propaganda machine to present a narrative in which the working classes – guided by the Labour Party – had conducted a successful struggle for emancipation against an oppressive and reactionary opposition. The party could make reasonably legitimate claims to having brought thousands out of poverty through its commitment to the welfare state whenever in government. Additionally, its housing policies had gone a long way towards eliminating slums and giving most citizens the possibility of living in decent accommodation. Its pretensions to ownership of historical events and heroic figures, as we shall see, were somehow more questionable. According to the brief given to the playwright, the piece had to address the Sette Giugno events (see Chetcuti 1919 viii). The play was written in 1986 and first performed in 1987 by the Kumpannija Nazzjonali tad-Drama (National Drama Company) at the Manoel Theatre in Valletta, under one of the most energetic and imaginative directors of the period, Mario Azzopardi. His involvement included the scriptwriting level, which would explain why the play, both in its performed and its published versions, tries to reconcile two discordant styles: the naturalism that Chetcuti deployed for the portrayal of the lower classes of society and the Brechtian techniques that Azzopardi had been adopting and that would continue to inform his work for some time.5 1919 was not a remarkable piece by any artistic standards and it was only some imaginative staging decisions that made it watchable. However, it was probably the most talked about and controversial production in Malta during the 1980s. The historical events on which the play was based happened on 7 and 8 June 1919 at the height of British colonialism in Malta. On the first day, people gathered in Valletta in expectation of a meeting of the National Assembly, an ad hoc federation which in February that year had passed a resolution asking for de facto autonomy from the British Empire and which on that day was discussing, and reacting to, the British government’s negative response to its demands (see Fenech 34). It is generally agreed that what triggered the unprecedented riots were the harsh economic realities that many sectors of the population were facing, with the price of bread spiralling upwards, unemployment rising after the end of the First World War and wages not rising to keep up with the increasing cost of living. However, political realities must have played their part as well. After all, politicians were meeting in Valletta on that day and university students, not the hungriest sector of the population in 1919, are known

5 As noted above, Azzopardi had directed Brecht’s Il-Ħajja ta’ Galileo in 1986.

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to have taken part in the events. The obvious targets of the protestors were the British flag, which was torn down from several government buildings; the pro-British press, with the building housing the pro-British Daily Malta Chronicle attacked and its printing press vandalised; and the successful merchants of Valletta, especially the grain importers, who were perceived as making a profit on the hardship of the poor masses. As a result of the charges of the British troops sent to control the riots, four Maltese people died and about another fifty were wounded, most of them by bayonets aimed at the stomach. After the events, mass arrests ensued, but no government responsibility was shouldered for the deaths or injuries inflicted upon the Maltese protesters.6 The events were used strategically to create a national mythology that places politics above all other considerations. It is clear that the Nationalist leader Mizzi instrumentalised this episode to strengthen his political party’s position: it was he who suggested that a memorial be commissioned for the victims and that their deaths should continue to be commemorated. It is no wonder, therefore, that the events are still referred to in Italian (Sette Giugno), the preferred language of the Nationalists at the time. Similarly, in the 1970s efforts were made by the ruling Labour Party to reclaim a past that had remained problematic. This included the rehabilitation of Manwel Dimech, a very controversial writer and activist who had died in exile in 1921, to the extent that for the first time he started being portrayed as a precursor of the Labour Party, something that few would have dared to declare publicly during the previous decades. In this context, appropriating Sette Giugno was part of a deliberate project to create a national mythology that would place politicians at its centre. The Labour government, thus, commissioned its own Sette Giugno monument, which was placed opposite the President’s Palace in Valletta and unveiled on 7 June 1986. The designated artist was Anton Agius, a sculptor who had built monuments dedicated to a number of patriots as well as others commemorating Freedom Day and Unionised Workers, all of them closely related to the Labour Party’s core ideology. The inauguration was attended by representatives of the government and of the opposition, who would later complain that the occasion had been instrumentalised by Labour to advance its partisan interpretation of that historical moment. According to the Nationalists, such a world-view “did not carry much weight” (“PN Speaker”), in consonance with their own vindications in 1986, which construed the 1919 riots as the expression of a united people rising against their foreign oppressor and as an important

6 Several accounts of the riots have been published, mostly in Maltese. For an English language analysis, see Fenech (34-41).

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step towards self-government.7 The commissioning of the play, the hype created around it in the press and its eventual performance and reception cannot, therefore, be separated from the struggles directed at appropriating the past. Significantly, the play was staged seven weeks before the general election that would end sixteen years of Labour government. For a play that sets out to discuss a riot by a colonised group that was quashed by colonising military forces, the absence of characters representing the British is striking. Of the almost one hundred characters featuring in the play, not one is a British soldier or administrator. In fact, the play pans out as a series of scenes where the working classes are contrasted with the aristocrats and the business classes. While the former endure poverty, unemployment and discrimination, the latter appear untouched by the colonial situation or even stand to gain from it. Thus, the play goes on to establish the view that it was the working classes who confronted the foreign rulers on their own while the aristocrats and the higher clergy lived a relatively comfortable life. The few scenes in the play which portray these social classes directly exhibit the aura of idleness usually associated with colonialists: they are always sitting down, drinking or being served refreshments. Even the relationship with the pro-British press is described as a battle that the proto-Labourites had to fight, when historically there was probably more collaboration than resistance. The promotion of such a narrative in the play can be attributed to its authors’ efforts to give the workers – roughly equivalent to the social groups that Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak refers to as the silent and silenced subalterns (see 283) – a voice, an important role to play a posteriori in the struggle against colonialism. In this sense, it is a legitimate exercise aimed at reclaiming a space, however belatedly, for a subjugated group in history.

7 The Nationalist Party’s interpretation of the Sette Giugno is more complex and problematic than that of the Labour Party. While official narratives place the Nationalists at the centre of events, some Nationalist sympathisers are happy to accept the Labour Party’s claims. For example, referring to Labour Party leaders in 2010, the late Daphne Caruana-Galizia, a very popular journalist and blogger who had close ties to the Nationalist Party, stated that they were “incompetent nutters who are the direct spiritual and political descendants of the mob who ransacked ‘id-djar tas-sinjuri’ [the houses of the rich], sacked a newspaper building and burned all the mills but one to the ground during the Sette Giugno riots, a day on which we now perversely celebrate the mob rather than the real victims”. Caruana-Galizia was assassinated in 2017, in what is generally assumed to be a politically motivated murder in retribution for her role in unearthing cases of corruption and money-laundering by Labour politicians. Some of her last published stories concerned Maltese politicians mentioned in the Panama Papers as well as business dealings between the governments of Malta and Azerbaijan.

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However, the play’s analysis of the historical situation as a class struggle rather than an anti-colonial one remains problematic, for by placing the former at the centre of colonial history, the story denies agency to the national(ist) group as a force of resistance. As Bhabha has demonstrated, national narratives are not unproblematic, and yet he suggests, following Fanon, that they have to be pursued, as it is through the very instability of the national narrative that a credible, and creditable, articulation of a national culture can emerge (see 152). Such narratives have more to do with the moment of enunciation than with that of recollection. 1919 was performed in a historical moment that is possibly as significant as the moment in the colonial past that is discussed in the play. For the Labour Party in 1987, this entailed re-appropriating Sette Giugno at a time when the social group the play claimed to represent and give a voice to – or its emancipated equivalent, almost seventy years after the events – needed to be mobilised to face an antagonist that was not the former coloniser, but a different, local, enemy, with its own narrative of the colonial struggle. Despite all of the above, 1919 was never presented as a party endeavour. As already stated, it was commissioned by Prime Minister Bonnici and produced by the Ministry of Education in collaboration with the Kumpannija Nazzjonali tad-Drama, a company set up by the Manoel Theatre to create “a repertory of theatrical works with a special emphasis on Maltese identity and characteristics” (Programme),8 which would offer opportunities for playwrights to stage their work and for actors trained by the theatre’s own academy (MTADA) to perform relevant dramatic pieces. They were seriously committed to staging original material, as attested by the three plays produced from October 1986 to March 1987: Anthony Portelli’s Il-Borg Pisani (Borg Pisani), Stephen Florian’s Id-Disklu (The Immoral Man) and 1919 itself.9 If the three plays had anything in common, it was that they were all controversial. The first was based on the life of an artist executed for treason during the Second World War; the second drew a lot of criticism because of its anticlericalism; while 1919, as noted, put forward a contentious re-appropriation of the decolonisation process. The publicity build-up to 1919 was impressive by Maltese standards. Articles in many newspapers made it crystal clear that this would be no ordinary production. The main actors, most of them household names, were listed 8 The original text in Maltese read, “repertorju ta’ xogħlijiet teatrali b’emfasi speċjali fuq identità u karatteristiċi Maltin”. 9 Il-Borg Pisani was directed by Josette Ciappara and Id-Disklu was directed by Florian himself. Both plays were staged by the Kumpannija Nazzjonali tad-Drama at the Manoel Theatre in Valletta.

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and their photographs reproduced along with those of the playwright and director. References to the recently inaugurated monument were also made. The Labour-leaning press portrayed the play as a work of art that would finally give a voice to “the lower working class, which is a force for revolution in social, economic and political life in our country and embodies the main features of the identity and culture of the Maltese people” (“Id-dramm dwar”).10 With hindsight, the description of the play as a watershed in Maltese theatre history can be regarded as an overstatement. Such an emphasis by its producers and supporters needs to be contextualised against the backdrop of the concurrent fierce polarisation in the fields of theatre and culture and the growing hostility towards the ruling Labour party. As mentioned earlier, in 1986 Friggieri published his novel Fil-Parlament ma Jikbrux Fjuri, which was immediately claimed by the Nationalist Party as a direct indictment of the government of the day. Endorsed by the country’s most prominent anti-government intellectuals, it soon became a symbol of anti-Labour sentiments. Moreover, within a few weeks it was adapted into a play and performed six times by the Catholic organisation Żgħażagħ Ħaddiema Nsara (Young Christian Workers) at the Catholic Institute Theatre. Although 1919 had been planned for months, it ended up competing for attention with this hastily put together play. The piece was acted in a “Brechtian” style (see Saliba qtd. in Cremona 137), although the utilisation of Brechtian techniques stemmed from a desire (or necessity) to produce a non-realistic performance rather than a serious engagement with or adherence to Brechtian ideology. Predictably, the play was hailed as a masterpiece by the opposition press and by the English language newspapers, The Times and The Sunday Times, while being vilified by the Labour press. Thus, the metaphorical stage was set for 1919 as a battlefield. Apparently, many actors who were invited to take part refused to do so (see “Ir-risposta”). This could also have been the case with the composer who was initially commissioned to write the score but was replaced at a later stage. Even before it opened, two anonymous correspondents in The Sunday Times attacked the play simply because of its subject matter, arguing that the Sette Giugno events should not be commemorated at all, as they were a blemish on the nation’s history and especially on its relationship with Britain (see “Revising a Wrong Move” and “Proposed Play”). Additionally, correspondents writing in Il-Mument, a Sunday newspaper owned and run by the Nationalist Party, found it strange that a play dealing 10

The Maltese original reads, “lill-klassi ċkejkna tal-ħaddiema li jqajmu rivoluzzjoni fil-ħajja soċjali, ekonomika, politika ta’ pajjiżna u li jservu bħala l-fatturi prinċipali tal-identità u l-kultura tal-poplu Malti”.

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with a revolt against a despotic government should be staged at a time when, in their opinion, the government was itself acting despotically and creating new victims (see “1919, jew l-artist”). A letter sent to this newspaper suggested ironically that a sister play should be produced to represent the violent episodes of the previous year, going as far as to sketch out the main scenes this play should revolve around (see Scerri). Conversely, the Labour press was full of expectation. “1919 – dramm tal-Ħaddiem” (1919 – A Play for Workers), wrote Il-Ħelsien on 20 February 1987. By March 6 the headlines were “Id-dramm talħaddiema” (The Play for the Workers; see Chetcuti “Chetcuti dwar 1919”) and “Id-Dramm wasal” (The Play Has Arrived; see “Id-dramm wasal”), emphasising the extraordinary nature of the performance. It was plugged as the play every worker should make an effort to watch. In fact, a special show was organised for dockyard workers and “their behaviour was very appreciative and most exemplary” (“Tat-Tarzna”).11 According to the Nationalist press, however, their presence was paid for directly by the Prime Minister, who handed them all free tickets (see “1919, jew l-artist”). In the weeks following the performances, the Labour-supporting press was unanimous in its praise of the play, while the reviewers writing for the newspapers which belonged to or sympathised with the opposition were just as unanimous in their condemnation. Il-Mument’s reviewer discarded the play simply as propaganda. He found very little to redeem it except for a choreographed crowd scene and denounced that 8,000 Maltese lira of public funds had been used for a production which served no purpose other than to advance the Labour Party’s agenda. Of course, it did not help that a few months earlier director Azzopardi had written to Il-Mument to accuse the Nationalist Party of having a fascist past which it had never disowned. The Times’s reviewer remarked that the playwright’s and the director’s imaginations had run riot. Although this critic seems to have enjoyed many of the individual performances, unlike the reviewer in Il-Mument s/he saw no point in the carnival crowd scene. The review’s parting shot dismisses the production further by describing a semi-deserted playhouse and suggesting that, in any case, the few attendants must have been friends or family (see “June 7, 1919”). The longest and most scathing review, however, would be published by The Sunday Times. Entitled “Myth of the Sette Giugno” and penned by Paul Xuereb, its opening paragraph set the overall tone: “Ġużè Chetcuti’s new play 1919 is no masterpiece. It is long-winded, repetitive, and peopled with characters so shadowy,

11

In the Maltese original, “l-imġieba tal-ħaddiema kienet mill-aktar apprezzattiva u eżemplari”.

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so two-dimensional, that even during a performance one is sometimes not sure who is who. Yet again the Kumpannija Nazzjonali tad-Drama has shown a woeful lack of judgement in its choice of plays”. The review then proceeds to refute the viewpoint advanced by the play as well as to condemn its structure. Azzopardi’s direction did not impress Xuereb either, except for the crowd scene already referred to in other reviews. It is clear, however, that what irked the critic most was the unsympathetic portrayal in the play of anyone who was not proletarian. In due course, the conservative-driven reviews came under attack. Multiple columns in the Labour press were written to counteract them and Xuereb, being the only critic in the opposition press to have signed his review, was inevitably targeted. In a letter published in Il-Ħelsien, he was described as someone who “has a lot of prejudices against us” (Brincat) and his professionalism was placed under scrutiny.12 But more interestingly, the playwright, the director and one of the producers wrote to the three opposition-supporting papers mentioned above to ‘set things right’. Even the country’s Director of Information was summoned to explain that the play was never intended to be performed in the weeks preceding the general election, but that it was only the Manoel Theatre’s schedule that had dictated this (see Mifsud). His claim seems to be contradicted by the printed version of the play, where the prologue delivered by the narrator makes a direct reference to said election and appears to be defending the playwright from just that type of accusation: Ladies and gentlemen, let’s not beat about the bush: you have come here to watch a political play. Instead of watching politicians perform in rallies, in parliament or on television, tonight it is us, the actors, who will perform. As it should be. And we know that as far as your vote in the coming election is concerned, you have already decided. We will not convince Nationalists to vote Socialist or the other way round. In this regard, my conscience, all our consciences are clean. Even though there may be people who think that tonight we’re conducting an exercise in propaganda. (Chetcuti 1919 3)13 12 13

In Maltese, “il-preġudizzji kbar li għandhom kontra tagħna”. The Maltese text reads, “Sinjuri, ħalli ma noqogħdux induru mal-lewża: ġejtu biex taraw dramm politiku. Minflok toqogħdu taraw lill-politiċi jirreċtaw fil-meetings, jew filparlament jew fuq it-television, illejla se nirreċtaw aħna, l-atturi. Kif suppost. U nafu li fejn jidħlu l-voti tagħkom fl-elezzjoni li ġejja, issa li hemm hemm. La se ndawru linNazzjonalisti u lanqas lis-Soċjalisti. Minn dan l-aspett il-kuxjenza tiegħi, tagħna lkoll, tal-kumpanija kollha li se tirreċta llejla, il-kuxjenza tagħna nadifa. Avolja jista’ jkun hawn min jaħseb li dan ta’ llejla huwa xi eżerċizzju ta’ propaganda”.

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1919 also had the dubious privilege of being one of the few plays in the country’s history to have an editorial of a Sunday newspaper devoted to it. In a leader bearing the title “Abbużi bi flus il-poplu” (Abusing the People’s Money), Il-Mument, after listing a series of malpractices allegedly perpetrated by the government, criticised the play as being not only an abuse of public funds but also an abuse of history. This story does, however, have a coda. On 14 April 1987, the first part of the play was screened on TVM, the public television station and the only local station at the time. This annoyed the Nationalists even more, prompting accusations of imbalance as, presumably, what had been watched by a few hundred people in the theatre would now be made available to the population at large. However, what puts the matter into perspective is the fact that the rest of the play was never screened, although not as a result of protests by the opposition. As the election was now on the doorstep, airtime could not be used up by a filmed stage performance. Instead, turning around the play’s prologue, the main actors taking over television prime-time had to be the politicians themselves, performing live to an audience which apparently, despite what Chetcuti’s narrator had stated, still had to be convinced who to vote for. 1919 is a good example of how theatre, like history, can often be placed on a country’s agenda at the whim of politicians. Theatre is very often discussed simply for what it can offer to whoever is placing it on that specific agenda and, for that matter, it might be as easily removed from it. This appears to be especially the case in smaller countries or in communities where the artists find it hard to sustain themselves through their work. Although state funding is considered a contribution made to artists in return for work that is aesthetically valid, it cannot be denied that political criteria often come into play before money is handed over. How is theatrical work compromised not only through lack of funding but, more worryingly, because of funding? In a small country with a colonial past like Malta, history is there to be appropriated by hegemonic groups, but it is just as possible for artists to be appropriated by the same powers.

Works Cited “1919 – dramm tal-Ħaddiem.” Il-Ħelsien, 20 Feb. 1987, p. 8. “1919, jew l-artist bħala giddieb.” Il-Mument, 29 Mar. 1987, p. 12. “Abbużi bi flus il-poplu.” Il-Mument, 5 Apr. 1987, p. 7. Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. Routledge, 1994.

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Boissevain, Jeremy. Saints and Fireworks: Religion and Politics in Rural Malta. 2nd ed., Progress Press, 1993. Brincat, Angela. “Rosser vs Xuereb.” Il-Ħelsien, 3 Apr. 1987, p. 5. Buttigieg, Alfred. Ir-Rewwixta tal-Qassisin. 2nd ed., Agius and Agius, 2003. Caruana-Galizia, Daphne. “The Political, Spiritual and Genetic Descendants of Labour Thugs Tend to Turn Out the Same Way.” Running Commentary, 1 Apr. 2010, daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2010/04/the-political-spiritual-and-genetic-de scendants-of-political-thugs-tend-to-turn-out-the-same-way/. Accessed 22 Sep. 2017. Chaturvedi, Vinayak. “Introduction.” Mapping Subaltern Studies and the Postcolonial, edited by Vinayak Chaturvedi, Verso, 2000, pp. vii-xix. Chetcuti, Ġużè. 1919. Ministeru tal-Edukazzjoni u l-Ambjent, 1987. Chetcuti, Ġużè. “Chetcuti dwar 1919: id-dramm tal-ħaddiema.” Il-Ħelsien, 6 Mar. 1987, p. 8. Chrisman, Laura. “Nationalism and Postcolonial Studies.” Postcolonial Literary Studies, edited by Neil Lazarus, Cambridge UP, 2004, pp. 183-98. Cremona, Vicki-Ann. “Politics and Identity in Maltese Theatre: Adaptation or Innovation?” The Drama Review, vol. 52, no. 4, 2008, pp. 118-44. Cremona, Vicki-Ann, and Toni Sant. “Two Hundred Years of Colonial Laughter in Malta: Carnival and Pantomime in Malta under British Rule.” Comedy, Fantasy and Colonialism, edited by Graeme Harper, Continuum, 2002, pp. 175-88. Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Grove Press, 2004. Fenech, Dominic. Endemic Democracy (1919-1930). Publishers Enterprising Group, 2005. Frendo, Henry. Europe and Empire: Culture, Politics and Identity in Malta and the Mediterranean. Midsea Books, 2012. Friggieri, Oliver. Fil-Parlament ma Jikbrux Fjuri. Bugelli, 1986. Galea, Marco. “Introduction.” The Collected Plays, by Alfred Buttigieg, Alfred Buttigieg, 2017, pp. 9-13. Gilbert, Helen, and Joanne Tompkins. Post-Colonial Drama: Theory, Practice, Politics. Routledge, 1996. “Id-dramm dwar is-‘Sette Giugno’.” It-Torċa, 8 Mar. 1987, p. 17. “Id-dramm wasal.” Il-Ħelsien, 6 Mar. 1987, p. 8. “Il-Kitba tal-Ħaddiem.” Il-Ħelsien, 13 Feb. 1987, p. 8. “Ir-risposta tal-kritiku tagħna.” Il-Mument, 19 Apr. 1987, p. 5. “June 7, 1919.” The Times of Malta, 23 Mar. 1987, p. 9. Mayo, Peter. “Social Democracy in a Postcolonial Island State: Dom Mintoff’s Impact.” Socialism and Democracy, vol. 27, no. 2, 2013, pp. 130-39. www.tandfonline.com/doi/ full/10.1080/08854300.2012.759743?src=recsys. Accessed 23 Nov. 2016.

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Mifsud, Paul. “Stqarrija tad-Dipartiment ta’ l-Informazzjoni.” Il-Mument, 19 Apr. 1987, p. 5. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’. Something Torn and New: An African Renaissance. BasicCivitas Books, 2009. “PN Speaker Queries Cabinet Veto on Agreement.” The Times of Malta, 10 Jun. 1986, p. 24. Portelli, Anthony. Ċella Numru 5/Il-Borg Pisani. Anthony Portelli/Merlin Publishers, 2004. Programme for Stephan Florian’s Id-Disklu, Manoel Theatre, Valletta, 1987. “Proposed Play.” The Sunday Times of Malta, 1 Feb. 1987, p. 18. “Revising a Wrong Move.” The Sunday Times of Malta, 18 Jan. 1987, p. 19. Said, Edward. Orientalism. Penguin Books, 1995. Scerri, L. “1919-1986.” Il-Mument, 15 Mar. 1987, p. 6. Spiteri, Sarah. Political Theatre in Malta 1965-1990. U of Malta, undergraduate dissertation, 1995. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, edited by Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, U of Illinois P, 1988, pp. 271-313. “Tat-Tarzna marru l-Manoel.” Il-Ħelsien, 27 Mar. 1987, p. 8. Xuereb, Paul. “Myth of the Sette Giugno.” The Sunday Times of Malta, 22 Mar. 1987, p. 23.

A Film-Set Activism: Political Dimensions of a Labor Day Performance Fatine Bahar Karlıdağ

Abstract As part of local Labor Day celebrations in the Turkish city of Eskişehir, union workers utilized a desolate film-set replica of Istanbul’s iconic Taksim Square to stage their protest against the ban on entering Taksim on such a resonant date. This essay explores the performance aspects of this event, held from 2013 to 2015, enquiring about the power of space to promote social and political activism by mimicking both an actual place (Taksim Square) and a fictional space of rehearsal and production (a theatre stage). Following Scott Magelssen’s theory of simming, the chapter analyses the processes of meaning-making and the emancipatory dimension of the episode, understood as an upcycled relic of capitalist cultural production. Despite the progressive nature of the event, which suggested the empowering potential to construct social places from excess cultural products, the Turkish working class rejected that novel expressive experience and returned to the former institutional celebrations.

On 1 May 2013, Turkish workers gathered in a famous civic square charged with decades of memories of political protests and eventful Labor Day celebrations.1 Contingents from the three major workers’ unions were there, as were representatives of several leftist organizations and members of the media. After a planned march, a moment of silence commemorating the brutal killing of their countrymen in the 1977 İstanbul Labor Day parade (later to be dubbed Bloody Labor Day) and political speeches, a group of sanitation workers performed a dance which incorporated a synchronized broom routine. Afterward, all those in attendance shared food and drink in communion with their past and present comrades. It was a successful Labor Day demonstration. This event, however, did not take place in İstanbul’s Taksim Square, although the site replicated it in precise detail. It happened, rather, in a fake Taksim Square in Eskişehir, many miles away from the original, due to years of banned 1 I would like to acknowledge the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle, for supporting this research and its presentation at the Stockholm IFTR Conference (2016).

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entry to the real square on Labor Days. Constructed months earlier for a film shoot, the Taksim Square movie set had been abandoned, only to be repurposed for the performance of Labor Days from 2013 to 2015. While the demonstration and pageantry were on the local news and social media blogs the following day, apart from the workers/demonstrators and an invited group of viewers and media members, no one was physically there to see them. Moreover, during the three years that the film-set replica hosted the celebrations, hardly anybody in Eskişehir realized that their fellow worker citizens had found their own Taksim Square in the town and that they had marched in it, enjoying their own peculiar chance of finally being able to meet at Taksim Square on Labor Day. The paradox inherent in the Eskişehir event can be described as providing a performative working-class outlet that subsumes hopes of political efficacy by designing an experiential, utopian Labor Day. Given its experiential features, the film-set activism of the unions presents a unique opportunity to explore the power of space in political performance as analogous to that of ritual. The event invites a potentially more structured, theatrical action, too, as the space where the workers perform their utopian Labor Day is a fictional one, with a pronounced resemblance to a theatre stage. The union workers’ action seeks to recreate and renegotiate its own terms of recognition and resistance despite the fact that such demonstrations at the obsolete film set are unwitnessed and devoid of public support, therefore coming closer to the rehearsal of an ideal Labor Day or its utopian performance. The film-set Labor Day explored as performance lends itself to the “broad spectrum approach” that Richard Schechner classified as the type of performance that goes “beyond the idea of the performing arts as activities that take place on theatre stages” (5). The adoption of the idiom of performance art or drama is justified since the film set, as mentioned, is a stage-like space with an extremely convincing design. The action takes place in a secluded space, away from public acknowledgement, like a rehearsal; and there is a producer, which I claim to be the city council, that invited the unions to use the film set for their celebrations as if it were the real Taksim Square. Hence, a ‘vision of performance’ can aid in understanding the social processes unravelling through this event. What can a mimetic vision add to the workers’ operation when it has not yet realized its performative potential? By posing this question, we can look at how such an experience may change the behavior of (en)actors, allowing a potential shift in consciousness that may restore faith in social class. Moreover, we can also explore how the event is articulated at various levels of performance, inadvertently contributing to the formalisms by which our discipline recognizes a Labor Day.

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My analytical approach examines the dynamics of the Labor Day film set in so far as it offers a space of dialogue with an unarticulated loss. Likewise, the set helps workers to experience their utopian – desired yet conventional – Labor Day safely, while addressing the current oppressor who bans access to the real space. Thus, celebration creates a mode of social resistance which resorts to the spatial appropriation of an excess product of capitalism (see Harvey) and recycles it into a space of commemoration, emancipation and empowerment. Originally built to shoot a movie, the set mobilized capital investment in a cultural commodity production, served its purposes and was left behind intact. The Labour Day event, in its short three-year life, displayed the potential to step over the symbolic threshold: had the workers continued to use the film set in the same manner of enactment, they could have established a theatrical, rhetorical conversation about their historically oppressed and confined situation in Turkey and could have built performative tools to commemorate past traumas lingering in the history of the Turkish working class. However, in 2016 the unions quit the film set to focus on what seems to have weighed as a more serious agenda for them – they attended the public Labor Day parades dominated by the condemnation of terrorism, giving away their cause in favor of what they believed to be an overriding national priority.2 In this chapter, I draw from Scott Magelssen’s theory of ‘simming’ as an instance of participatory performance; Jill Dolan’s exploration of the social processes involved in utopian performances; and David Harvey’s examination of the social processes resulting from reversing hegemony’s spatial invasions. In so doing, the experiential and expressive terms of the Labor Day simulation will be examined within the historical and theoretical frame of the symbolic meaning attached to Taksim Square by the Turkish unions.

1

The Performance Site

The following is a first-person account of the film set drawn from my visit to the actual location in 2016 as part of my ethnographic investigation. The film set lies at the edge of the Anatolian city of Eskişehir, some 20 km from its center and roughly 300 km to the south-east of the original İstanbul Taksim 2 When I conducted telephone conversations with Egitim-Sen (Educators’ Union) and other unions in April 2016, before my visit to Eskişehir, I found out that they were planning to support other cities’ Labor Day parades (such as Canakkale) where there would be commemorations of the heavy military casualties attributed to terrorism in 2015. Therefore, they would not have enough members to send to the film set and it was not for certain whether the film-set Labor Day would be held that year (it was not).

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Square. The site, an enclosed ground with a security guard appointed by the city council, has only been used three times since it was abandoned as a shooting location in April 2013. There are signs of wear on the side walls and the guard advises me not to go near those at the far end of the set. At its center, there is an accurate replica of the Independence Monument in Taksim Square with all the entrances to the Square correctly positioned. The shop windows and the bus stops evoke the exact 1970s feel that I can remember from my childhood, making the historical Taksim Square of 1977 stand before me, regardless of the more specific relics of that Bloody Labor Day, such as beaten up military tanks and overturned benches. Despite these few signs of civil unrest, the film set feels like a known space and temporarily transports me to some moment of my past when I must have been taken to a concert or movie with family and friends in that exciting part of downtown İstanbul. As for this Taksim Square replica, its future remains uncertain at the time of writing, as it has already been dropped as a site for the 2016, 2017 and 2018 May Day celebrations.

2

The Simulated Ground: İstanbul’s Taksim Square

İstanbul’s Taksim Square was built in 1926 as the first monument designed in the new Turkish Republic to embody the universal ideals of civil rights, secularism and progress, therefore holding a solid foundation to host civic action. As “a locus of demonstration” (Baykan and Hatuka 56), Taksim Square had already attracted Labor Day events before acquiring its progressive Republican identity. It held official Labor Day celebrations between 1910 and 1912; 1921 and 1923 in the Ottoman period; and from 1976 to 1978 and in 2012, during the Republican regime (see 58). According to a recent oral history publication by Korhan Atay, the massacre that occurred in the square in 1977 was perpetrated by the right-wing government in office, which successfully played the clashing factions of the Left against one another as a measure to contain the growing socialism of 1970s Turkey. Atay’s book gives a vivid description of the event through the interviewees’ reports: a crowd of approximately 500,000 people were caught in the crossfire launched from the area’s hotel rooms and rooftops, killing thirty-four attendees and injuring many more, despite all the safety measures taken by the unions on the ground.3 After the 1978 Labor Day parade, Taksim Square 3 Atay’s interviewees express the shared view that anti-communist state agents were responsible for the massacre (see 44-47; 64-67; 80-82; 90-92).

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was excluded from these demonstrations and the 1977 event has progressively faded away from Turkish consciousness. In 2012, when the above-mentioned ban was suspended, various activist groups, such as LGBT representatives, university students, Kurdish people, environmentalists, artists and a civic crowd of individuals and families, who sought the national visibility and recognition the site offered, congregated in Taksim Square. In all, this represented a colorful combination of groups whose display of diversity challenged politicians’ tags of marginality (see Emin). At this time, journalist Mehveş Emin brought attention to the substantial redevelopment and gentrification projects that the government had launched in İstanbul, and stressed the danger of losing the emblematic Taksim to a plan to pedestrianize the square. The changes included a series of interventions – such as cutting down the trees around the square and Gezi Park next to it, and redirecting the significant flow of vehicles through an underground passageway – to downsize the daily crowds of thousands populating the area (see Emin). As a result, Taksim Square is now a domesticated space deprived of its former traffic and bustling urban masses. It almost feels like the desolate film set that struggles to replicate this once colorful, vibrant city landmark. While Taksim Square was going through these well-publicized spatial interventions, it was officially closed for the 2013 Labor Day parade. The unions did not comply and their heroic march to the square ended with a police crackdown, as if to foreshadow the coming Gezi Park protests of the following month, now globally recognized as the Occupy Gezi Movement. The Labor Day conflict started when the mayor announced on 1 May 2013 that it would be illegal to march on the square during Labor Day due to the ongoing redevelopment and redirected the event to a confined meeting space in a remote district. Nevertheless, unions and supporters did what they had been doing for years: they contravened the regulation and walked to the square, where they were met by a massive police intervention with water cannons and tear gas. Seventy-two people were taken into custody in İstanbul. Twenty-six days later, the Occupy Gezi protests began, spreading nationwide a feeling of unrest and a climate of revolution and civil disobedience, the aim of which was to reclaim the democratic space that was disappearing inch by inch every day. The subsequent Labor Days of 2014 and 2015 followed a similar pattern in İstanbul and across Turkey, ending with casualties and arrests and reaffirming the general militant spirit of leftist and public activism in the country, borrowed from İstanbul citizens’ oath to reclaim the denied land of Taksim Square. As its historical and current spatial conflicts suggest, İstanbul’s Taksim Square conjures up a symbolic resonance with interpellation dynamics in an Althusserian sense. Paying homage to the Monument of Independence at the

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opening of formal ceremonies would be broadcast on all media channels as a matter of course, earning the participants and their cause some national visibility, if not necessarily official recognition. Thus, it would bestow them with a part or a role – a subject status in the larger social definitions and ideological categories operating among Turkish people.4 Ayşegül Baykan and Tali Hatuka discuss Taksim Square’s significance for the visibility and representation it conferred on the unions and refer to the square “as a terrain of political practice” (50). They highlight Taksim Square’s monumental importance in representing the Turkish secular state according to the socio-spatial traditions which have shaped its meaning and point out its capacity to illustrate the diverse identities competing for that space. Baykan and Hatuka describe Taksim Square as: A lived, inclusive space, a place bustling with the movement of people, locals, and tourists. Its vastness and facilities allow for different practices […]. It is a place which maintains a reciprocal daily relationship between its space and the crowd’s trajectories […]. This relationship was a major concern (pragmatically and symbolically) in the configuration of the 1 May demonstration. (58) These authors emphasize both the public and ceremonious (ideological) aspects of the place, which have made Taksim a unique site for the Labor cause in Turkey.

3

Labor Day at the Film Set

The movie Ayhan Hanım (Mrs Ayhan), directed by Levent Semerci in 2013, depicts the challenging episodes in Turkish civil rights history that occurred in 1977. Parts of the film were shot on the film set in question. After filming, the city of Eskişehir was left with an intact 1977 Taksim Square replica, as the film crew did not pack the set away. The Eskişehir city council, usually controlled by a majority belonging to the main opposition center-left party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), took the initiative to invite various workers’ unions 4 From Althusser’s claim that any human being is “an ideological animal by nature” (299), I proceed with the idea that the workers in our case seek their suitable ideologies (in fact their ideological identities) and the freedom of the “material ritual practice of ideological recognition” (300) at a space that has the power to grant that recognition by interpellating or hailing, but also presenting (broadcasting) them to, the nation as such.

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to the film set. As mentioned above, the local government can therefore be considered as the producer of this film-set performance. In a press release, the council declared that their aim was to create a “representational Labor Day”, whereby an abandoned movie set would be utilized in an efficient manner, serving multiple purposes like commemorating the Labor Day of 1977 and performing the most peaceful and free Labor Day that Turkey had ever seen. In so doing, Eskişehir would gain further recognition by recovering İstanbul’s 1977 Taksim Square within its borders and re-enlivening Labor Day for the future generations: We have initiated a project that is likely to render this movie set functional. The place will be transformed into a park with extended functions. The current Taksim monument, square and environs have changed completely. Due to the building of new pedestrian ways, Taksim is not what it used to be; it is an entirely new space now. We will work to let the dated Taksim Square of that period stay alive. (Doğan News Agency)5 Accepting the city council’s invitation to this “representational Labor Day”, the unions assembled an entourage at around 11 am to observe the custom of visiting the Taksim Monument at the replica, as was traditional in all Taksim Square demonstrations. After a minute’s silence in memory of the people who died in the 1977 events, the various participating groups sang the national anthem. The president of the municipal district gave a speech and declared that from that year onwards, May 1 would be celebrated there and that it would become their tradition. He said, “Eskişehir is an independent city and Tepebaşı [the district hosting the film set] is civilized! And Taksim Square is free! Do you see the police here? Or any intervention? On the contrary, everyone is free. Everyone acts freely, talks freely. Nothing has gone wrong!” (qtd. in Dönmez).6 He finished his speech criticizing fascism and condemning police terror at Taksim Square.

5 “Platonun filmden sonra da fonksiyonel olarak kullanılması yönünde girişimlerimiz var. Orası geniş kapsamlı bir parka dönüşecek. Şu anda İstanbul’daki Taksim anıtı, meydanı ve çevresi tamamıyla değişmiş vaziyette. Yeni yaya yolları nedeniyle eski Taksim olmaktan çıkıp başka bir çehreye ulaşmış durumda. Biz belki o dönemin Taksim’ini yaşatmak adına bir girişimde bulunacağız”. All translations from Turkish are by the author of this chapter unless otherwise indicated. 6 “Eskişehir bağımsız bir kenttir. Tepebaşı çağdaştır. Taksim Meydanı da özgürdür. Bakın burada bir tane polis mi var, bir tane müdahale mi var? Ama herkes özgür burada. Dilediği gibi konuşuyor, dilediği gibi hareket ediyor. Herhangi bir olay yok”.

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The opening speeches were followed by the aforesaid performance by a group of sanitary workers from the municipality, who created a rhythmic show using their brooms, containers and brushes. A female worker gave a speech about the people detained in prisons illegally and the neglected female labor in the country’s workforce. There were marching tunes and folk songs in the air (see Dönmez). Participants included members from various unions, representatives of two other political parties, LGBT activists, student collectives, other leftist organizations and the media. The attendees were served simit (Turkish bagel) and ayran (a traditional beverage made by mixing yogurt, water and salt). Ayran had allegedly become Turkey’s national drink after the pro-Islamic cabinet promoted it in an attempt to de-popularize the nation’s favorite alcoholic drink, rakı. In this sense, serving ayran as the national drink functioned as a political gesture to support the widespread cynicism about government measures on alcohol sales that year. In 2014, the city council’s vice president delivered a similar speech welcoming workers and the attending crowd “to the free Taksim [Square]”,7 and denounced the government for committing a constitutional crime by banning the unions from İstanbul’s Taksim Square (Atlan and Türktan). Nevertheless, the political gesture of serving ayran and simit was dropped. The film-set Labor Day of 2015 showed no significant differences, except for the fact that the attending crowd increased, even though DİSK (the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey), one of the major organizations that had initiated the event, opted out in order to march in the city parade instead (see “1 Mayıs’a 3 kutlama” (3 Celebrations for 1 May)). The city council arranged free transportation to the film set from various central locations in town. Next to the politicians and the union delegates stood a reportedly ceremonious public, with representatives from the various guilds and chambers, and civil society at large, bringing the event closer to a conventional Labor Day than to political activism. Attendance figures for the event over the three years were not quantified in the media. Additionally, there appears to be a general lack of knowledge about, or attention to, the event by local residents: taxi drivers or hotel concierges do not know about the place and it is only neighbors in the immediate vicinity that can direct the visitor to the film set. As noted earlier, the reason alleged by the trade unions that I conversed with for not continuing the filmset commemoration was that they had decided to join the regular parades in the city, where the major agenda was to denounce terrorism and lament the military casualties in the Kurdish regions of Turkey. 7 “özgür Taksim’e”.

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‘Simming’ the Ideal Labor Day

Scott Magelssen conceives ‘simming’ as participatory performance, an embodied/immersive, experiential process of participation and learning which offers new perspectives to those involved by simulating political, historical events or various human conditions, such as the border crossings from Mexico to the US or just the corporal limitations of old age. Generally, in their lives, ‘simmers’ situate themselves quite far from the event they are simulating. They interact both physically and intellectually with a specifically created space or experience in order to document their own versions of an alien reality which has been “intentionally simulated […] as some aspect of real or imagined society, recognized as such by all parties” (Simming e-book 5). In the cases that Magelssen explores as ‘simming’, there is “a simulated, immersive, performative environment” whereby performance practices are used to achieve the kind of meaning-making which benefits from the process of co-creating a visceral understanding of the event. In order to differentiate ‘simming’ practices from other modes of performance, Magelssen defines the ‘simming’ context in these behaviors as being “a bounded action that bears performative reference to another action, which is or stands to become more legitimate or weighty in another time or context”, thus “perform[ing] the execution of an action with the express intention to reference, if not necessarily to show, the doing in actuality” (3). In other words, ‘simming’ does not necessarily aim for the outcome that the action signifies. Magelssen draws attention to the fact that ‘simming’ has its separate efficacy from the event or action it references, so that the former may become a separate medium of pleasure, a hobby or, as I argue in this case, an emancipatory vehicle with potential for empowerment and resistance. ‘Simming’ as an exploratory tool fits the case of the film-set Labor Day, as the union workers open themselves to the possibilities of celebrating a peaceful, official May Day at the fake Taksim Square, the real space itself being a prohibited and therefore alien experience. The choice of a film-set replica of Taksim Square for the celebration provides the attending workers with the relief associated with an immersive, embodied experience. The film set has not been intentionally designed for a Labor Day simulation, though the city council’s offer constitutes a deliberate action comparable to the task of a producer or theatre owner. Additionally, the ‘simming’ script is one universally known to all unionized workers on a Labor Day, namely, to meet at a place of high national importance in order to show a sense of purpose and perseverance. The workers are also bodily open to the unique scripts inscribed in a space highly charged with historical and political narratives. The “rhythmic possibilities”

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(Magelssen Simming: Participatory Performance 80) of Taksim Square allow them to enact a living encounter with the 1977 site. Moreover, workers, in a display of collective identity, derive their own meanings from freely marching on the square, which, in turn, contributes to an understanding of the historical Bloody Labor Day of 1977 through the spatial encounter with the fictional massacre site that the replica offers them. All these conditions, I argue, enable the event to be regarded as ‘simming’. A differing feature from case studies of ‘simming’ in Magelssen’s explorations, where individuals perform characterizations of other individuals from whom they are distanced historically or by way of nationality, age, etc., is that the people marching on the film set share the same social background and perform the demands and rights of their own social (working-class) identity. They are there without the intention of ‘simming’. However, they do step into a foreign – banned – space and into a moment in time that is fading from living memory. They step into these roles as themselves and, simultaneously, they enter a spatially and temporally unavailable zone. They come prepared for the action, since they know exactly what to do at Taksim Square due to the ceremonious protocols attached to that space and Labor Day celebrations. What makes these union workers ‘simmers’ is that theirs is an impossible action under the current authoritarian circumstances. They are ‘simming’ an action that was attempted de facto by their fellow workers in İstanbul and suppressed by the State. And such an effect materializes irrespective of the fact that the workers may know the May Day protocols to follow by heart, for they are themselves workers playing their traditional role or taking part in a festive ritual that they have the right to perform. The most important feature inherent in ‘simming’ cases is the threedimensional, immersive settings that facilitate the simulation experience. The unions need such a symbolic space to achieve their aims and embrace the political agenda of Labor Day. While their counterparts in İstanbul fight every year for real visibility and representation by attempting to reclaim the actual Taksim Square, the film-set activists reach out for the simulated experience and the symbolic benefit of Taksim Square’s spatial powers of interpellation. In that sense, this ‘simming’ event may be considered an emergent alternative Labor Day performance as opposed to the regular Labor Day parades, which, in terms of political protest and contestation, may have grown inefficient, both for the parading workers and the supporting public, due to their overly-structured ritualistic patterns and stifling performative behaviors. By creating a utopian Labor Day in interaction with a surrogate space informed by the freedom found on the film set, the workers chose a new and potentially more expressive mode of celebration. Such a choice challenges the dysfunc-

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tional regular parades that no longer serve the pressing needs of the Turkish working class and further alienate them, thus preventing them from acquiring class consciousness and recognizing their oppressed situation.

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The Utopian Performance on the Film Set

It is evident that the workers have substituted the traditional, because alienating, street parade demonstrations with another well-scripted, albeit oppositional, ceremony of the Taksim Square gathering. As the heroic marches in İstanbul and the subsequent crackdowns have proved, this script is unfeasible and constitutes an unrealistic agenda for the workers. Its utopian nature thus renders it accessible only through ‘simming’. The matter of social and political efficacy is closely related to the utopian performance’s ability to establish an intimate rapport with its recipients, who will potentially instigate the conditions for its afterlife in their communities through a ripple effect. Jill Dolan resorts to Victor Turner’s term communitas to explore the effectiveness of utopian performances alongside reception processes, bestowing on communitas the power to “re-animate humanism” and “to re-invigorate a dissipated left” (21).8 Such a partnership in co-creating, expanding and applying the meaning of performance in their communities’ daily life makes the audience – or, in this case, parade spectators and supporters who gather in numerous cities’ streets and avenues to watch the workers go by, fervently echoing their declamations and songs – partake in the workers’ cause and become an integral part of the Labor Day communitas. By contrast, the film-set performance of the unions lacks this powerful sense of communitas. Following Dolan’s binary approach to performance as “conduct of life” versus “specialized activity” (91), the ‘simming’ of the utopian Labor Day may be categorized as a specialized activity which transfers the action from the streets to a fictional space and confers on the film set the qualities of a theatre stage that is both nowhere and Taksim Square at the same time. The filmset activism does not aim at becoming a historical agent capable of prompting 8 Turner explains his term communitas (Latin for community) as one that emerges during the liminal phase of societies, when they are a still “unstructured or rudimentarily structured and relatively undifferentiated comitatus, community, or even communion of equal individuals who submit together to the general authority of the ritual elders” (98). Rituals and rites of passage are important to the communitas as they are the authority/sacredness which creates a “recognition [of] an essential and generic human bond without which there could be no society […] high could not be high unless the low existed, and he who is high must experience what it is like to be low” (99).

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social change or addressing its supporting public directly. The limited agency provided by the film set resembles the constrained space of a theatre stage or a heritage site, stimulating a certain kind of interaction with such an emblematic space for Turkish Labor history. The film-set performance takes the Labor Day out of its public context effecting, thus, a domestication/sublimation process of the political exigencies traditionally found in the street parades. As such, it signals the transfer of the event from real life to the mimetic plane, disclosing the symbolic interpellation capacity of the replica (and the corresponding catharsis) for the workers to be recognized as a subject, rather than producing an affective response in the union workers and the public. Yet, according to Dolan, the choice to withdraw from public visibility poses a challenge to “that semi-permeable membrane comprising accepted prescriptions for [valued, moral] behavior” and creates a domain that is also “a social space necessary for innovative thought and action” (107). Thus, the film set enables the unions to exercise “social optimism and faith” since, as Dolan suggests following Paul Ricoeur, “to come together in groups to experience an expressive, symbolic world, one might open ‘the field of the possible… beyond that of the actual, a field for alternative ways of living’” (95). The flexibility of the union workers generates a strong, powerful agency and provides comfort in the face of oppression, facilitating their survival in a hostile political climate by recycling excess products of hegemony, such as the film set. Discarding the street parade, the workers’ chosen pattern of performance, that is, the ceremonial Taksim Square script, accessible only by ‘simming’ in the custom-designed set, releases the potential for the workers’ transformation in the process as they open themselves to the immersive, experiential, rhythmic possibilities of the film-set replica and its promise of a utopian Labor Day.

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The Appropriation of Space as a Revolutionary Process

The film set functions as the simulation ground that transports the workers, as ‘simmers’, both to a moment in Turkish Labor history and to the utopian Labor Day. The unions’ appropriation of the Taksim Square replica sparks hopes for potential mechanisms to reverse the hegemonic expansionist policies markedly felt in major urban centers in the last few years. Given the fact that the replica comes with the promise of becoming a heritage site, and since the city council’s vice president had announced that subsequent Labor Days would be celebrated there – although the site did not host the 2016, 2017 or 2018 Labor Days – the appropriation of the film set is a spatial

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performance that triggers a social process of reversal. Turkish workers are thus afforded political empowerment via the construction of an alternative social place. If we regard the Ayhan Hanım film set as a post-capitalist space, a leftover that has been “constructed through the logic of capitalist development”, which I read in this case as the culture industry’s appropriation of space, then the film set employed by the unions has indeed been “transformed and used for progressive purposes [rather] than be rejected or destroyed” by the hegemonic capitalist drives (Harvey 13). The spatial recategorization of the film set as a political performance ground could result in an open-ended empowerment process for the unions (see Harvey 21). Since social processes create social places that generate social power, the Labor Day performance at the film set is also a social act of commitment that turns this obsolete replica into a positive social space for the unions. The ‘simming’ performance repurposes a post-capitalist space to build behavioral muscle and enhance the empowerment of the Turkish workers, whose class identities and celebrations have been denied by banning them from the country’s most significant focal space, Taksim Square. It could be claimed that the recycling of the site generates a social power for the unions which is transferable to the sphere of real life. The event may also inspire future governmental initiatives for socially progressive urban planning if the city council keeps its promise to convert the film set into a heritage site.

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Conclusion

The celebration on the film set presents a performance that alters the normal Labor Day logic by quitting the public street parade and asking the unions to engage with utopian notions of Labor Day in a fictional space. The unions’ flexibility to work with a disused film set could have constituted an empowering tool to address their past and present distresses, while acting as a public model in their response to the oppressive violence and expansionist policies of hegemony. Moreover, they could have extended their harvested political prowess to various similarly oppressed communities in a ripple effect. Regrettably, as regards the experiential and expressive aspects of the case, the result indicates a complicit working-class tendency to remain behind the symbolic threshold and fail to own the performative potentials of the Labor Day film set. Having already moved into a symbolic space, a consistent step into the fictional side of action would not have entailed any danger, in my view, as theatre history abounds with examples of radical workers’ theatres that opened up spaces for developing the workers’ own expressive idioms and

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sense of social identity. The replica of Taksim Square, solidly revealing the significance of space as a way of responding to powerful political urgencies, lies desolate on the outskirts of Eskişehir as a collapsing film set, displaying the potential of a re-animated sense of working-class agency. By mimicking Taksim Square, the replica summoned up a hitherto unavailable process of commemoration and activism for the union workers, exposing them to the rhythmic possibilities of the past and present traumas of the Turkish working class. It also mimicked a theatre stage, a safe place for rehearsing their utopias. Workers, almost ritualistically drawn to the film set’s mimetic capacity – and also called by the city council – simmed the alien reality of a Taksim Square Labor Day within the confines of this upcycled place. The performances that took place were unique, for the various participants had their own individual, experiential motives for simming. This would potentially add new significance to both real and generic modes of Labor Day celebrations, even though the demonstrators stood aloof from the actual parades. Simming, thus, opens up new spaces for alternative meanings and debates that the actual event cannot produce. Turkish workers, however, devoid of the knowledge or practice associated with such an expressive medium, yet apparently much in need of it, chose the conventionally ritualistic idiom over the creative, expressive one. They humbly followed the national agenda for the 2016 Labor Day and withdrew from their newly found freedom of expression. Just as the fate of the film-set activism relies on future Labor Day celebrations in Eskişehir, so does our faith in a burgeoning workers’ subjectivity. As Alain Badiou explains with regard to the Commune, events that bring about a subversion do not necessarily jeopardize the hegemonic powers, but they destroy something more important: “The political subordination of workers and the people […] [and] the order of subjective incapacity” (168).

Works Cited “1 Mayıs’a 3 kutlama.” Sonhaber, 1 May 2015, www.sonhaber.com.tr/haber/18612/1 -mayis-2015-1-sayfa.html. Accessed 20 September 2015 [no longer available]. Althusser, Louis. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.” Literary Theory: An Anthology, edited by Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan, Blackwell, 1998, pp. 299-301. Atay, Korhan. 1 Mayıs 1977 İşçi Bayramı Neden ve Nasıl Kana Bulandı? Metis, 2013. Atlan, Kemal, and Hakan Türktan. “Eskişehir’de 1 Mayıs’a şenlik gibi kutlama.” Gerçek Gündem, 1 May 2014, www.gercekgundem.com/guncel/41543/eskisehirde-1-mayisa -senlik-gibi-kutlama. Accessed 30 July 2014 [no longer available]. Badiou, Alain. The Communist Hypothesis. Verso, 2010.

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Baykan, Ayşegül, and Tali Hatuka. “Politics and Culture in the Making of Public Space: Taksim Square, 1 May 1977, İstanbul.” Planning Perspectives, vol. 25, no.1, 2010, pp. 4968. Doğan News Agency. “1 Mayıs Taksim Meydanında Kutlanacak (!).” 24 April 2013, www.haber7.com/guncel/haber/1018120-1-mayis-taksim-meydaninda-kutlanacak. Accessed 4 April 2014. Dolan, Jill. Utopia in Performance: Finding Hope at the Theater. U of Michigan P, 2005. Dönmez, İrem. “Eskişehir’in 1 Mayıs’ı.” Bianet, 2 May 2013, bianet.org/bianet/emek/ 146292-eskisehir-in-1-mayisi. Accessed 20 July 2013. Emin, Mehveş. “Bu Son Olabilir mi?” Milliyet, 2 May 2012, gundem.milliyet.com.tr/ 1-mayis-2012-taksim-bu-son-olabilir-mi/gundem/gundemyazardetay/02.05.2012/15 35191/default.htm. Accessed 30 July 2013. Harvey, David. “From Space to Place and Back Again: Reflections on the Conditions of Postmodernity.” Mapping the Futures: Local Cultures, Global Change, edited by Jon Bird et al., Routledge, 1993, pp. 3-29. Magelssen, Scott. Simming. U of Michigan P, 2014. E-book. Magelssen, Scott. Simming: Participatory Performance and the Making of Meaning. U of Michigan P, 2014. Schechner, Richard. “Performance Studies: The Broad Spectrum Approach.” TDR, vol. 32, no 3, 1988, pp. 4-6. Turner, Victor. “Liminality and Communitas.” The Performance Studies Reader, 3rd ed., edited by Henry Bial and Sara Brady, Routledge, 2016, pp. 97-104.

Making the Audience Cry: Witnessing Violence and the Ethics of Compelled Empathy Julia Boll

Abstract Yael Farber’s 2013 play Nirbhaya was devised in response to the incident in December 2012, when a young woman was gang-raped on a bus in Delhi. Emotionally draining for both the performers and the audience, the show inevitably elicits strong, often tearful reactions. Correspondingly, the Belarus Free Theatre’s play Trash Cuisine (2012), exploring state violence and genocide, culminates in a scene that attempts to force tears from the audience by means of the aggressive use of an external provocation. However, can a reaction to the atrocities represented in these works be anything more than visceral? In order to be genuine, it should be deliberate – yet in some cases, the only acceptable reaction may have to be a forced response. In the context of emotional manipulation, witnessing, grief and excessive public mourning, the focus of this chapter is the ultimately ethical question of what it means to make the audience cry.

Intense emotional reactions to theatre plays have often been viewed with mistrust and have been regarded as precluding any intellectual engagement with political content, instead allowing audiences to experience a short-lived emotional release. Works that provoke such emotional reactions are suspected of engaging in direct, ‘cheap’ manipulation of the audience. Yet in the plays and performances discussed in this chapter, crying might be the only appropriate response to the atrocities they portray. And thus, we find ourselves confronted with a paradox: in order to be considered genuine and ethical, a response has to be deliberate and cannot have been forced – yet in some cases, the only acceptable reaction may be a forced response. The two examples chosen – Yael Farber’s play Nirbhaya (2013) and Belarus Free Theatre’s Trash Cuisine (2013) – aim at spectators having strong emotional reactions to the material presented to them. Nirbhaya was devised in response to the incident in December 2012, when a young woman was raped by several men on a bus in Delhi. The young woman, who later succumbed to her severe injuries, was named ‘Nirbhaya’ (‘fearless one’) by the press. This piece by South African playwright Yael Farber was devised and workshopped in India, had its premiere in Edinburgh in August 2013, then travelled to Mumbai, Delhi and

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Bangalore in 2014, and to New York City in 2015.1 Trash Cuisine was written by Belarus Free Theatre founders Nicolai Khalezin and Natalia Kaliada and devised by the company. It premiered at the Imagining Europe event at De Balie in Amsterdam in October 2012, then transferred to the Young Vic in London and came to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 2013.2 The play explores state violence and genocide. My contribution to this volume’s investigation of political performances as actions and events that can be counter-hegemonic to neoliberal life forms is an analysis of the way in which empathic emotions may constitute an affective/ethical alternative to the neoliberal discourse of fear, terror and short-lived, individual emotional release. Considering issues of testimony and witnessing, grief, coerced empathy and a rethinking of catharsis, the focus of this chapter is the ultimately ethical question of what it means to purposefully move the audience to tears.

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Nirbhaya

Yael Farber’s Nirbhaya is based on personal testimony: while an account of the young woman’s ordeal and eventual death frames the performance, all the other stories told in the show build on verbatim testimony and are delivered by the women who gave these testimonies in the first place. There is a famous actress who speaks out about the daily harassment she experienced when boarding a bus in Delhi and about the abuse she suffered at the hands of a family friend when she was a child;3 another recounts how her father savagely beat her; there is a woman who relates how she was gang-raped by four men in a back alley. Possibly, the moment when audience members first realise that they are in fact listening to true stories delivered and performed by those who lived through them is the segment narrated by a woman whose husband doused her in kerosene and set fire to her: there are actual scars on the performer’s face, the remainders she carries from her husband’s attempt on her life.

1 Nirbhaya was directed by Yael Farber with performances by Priyanka Bose, Poorna Jagannathan, Shena Jawale, Rukhsar Kabir, Japjit Kaur, Pamela Sinha and Ankur Vikal. References to the play are based on notes taken by the author of this chapter at the performance on 15 August 2013, Assembly Hall, Mound Place, Edinburgh. 2 Trash Cuisine was directed by Nicolai Khalezin with performances by Aleh Sidorchyk and Nastassia Shcherbak, among others. References to the play are based on notes taken by the author of this chapter at the performance on 13 August 2013, Pleasance, Edinburgh. 3 This is Poorna Jagannathan, who also produced the play.

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In one of the most harrowing scenes, the rape of Jyoti Singh Pandey, the young woman who died in Delhi in December 2012, is re-enacted on stage. As the performers descend upon the screaming, crawling girl, the scene is almost unbearable to watch; in fact, the whole show is emotionally draining for both the performers and the audience. Time and again, the performers state how the 2012 Delhi bus rape became a tipping point for them. Of the many stories of abuse and violation reported on a daily basis, this event became the one that prompted each of them individually to speak out. One describes how she felt almost angry at the young woman for not surviving, for not living through her ordeal – “it’s what we do!”, she says – but when the news emerged that ‘Nirbhaya’ had died, the women turned to the streets, to large-scale protesting.

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Trash Cuisine

Belarus Free Theatre’s Trash Cuisine uses elements of a cookery show as the frame for several scenes in which state violence is explored. The play opens on what was introduced for the Edinburgh production as “a Scottish specialty – strawberries and cream!” The scene features two executioners who discuss their job of supervising acts of capital punishment in their respective countries – Belarus and Thailand – while consuming strawberries with cream and drinking champagne. As they chat, two people are selected from the remaining cast, seemingly at random, then tied up and decorated with fruits, like chicken to be baked in the oven. This is the set-up of the show: a personal story giving testimony to state violence will be narrated and performed alongside, sometimes intertwined with or underscored by, the preparation and consumption of food on stage, such as the story of Northern Irish teenager Liam Holden, who was wrongfully convicted for the murder of a British paratrooper in 1972, and whose testimony was acquired by the use of torture. The story is retold and performed while one of the performers is preparing cock-a-leekie on stage, the pot and kettle at one point being re-appropriated for the waterboarding of the teenager. There is a scene set in a jazz bar, during which the performers mouth along to words by a US-American human rights lawyer who gives testimony on the execution by electric chair of one of his clients. The cast perform gestures, movements and mimics belonging to another social set-up entirely, namely a night out at a jazz bar. By the end of this scene, everybody has been strapped into their chair with leather belts. The jazz singer’s chair looks not unlike an institutional one, yet she is still mimicking performing a smooth song as she mouths along to the more and more gruesome description of the execution,

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while the lawyer explains that most elements are designed to spare the spectators having to witness the agony the person executed experiences. “It’s the middle of the night, of course”, the lawyer says, “because they only do it in… in darkness because everyone is sort of basically ashamed about the whole process” (Khalezin and Kaliada 24). Again, there is the depiction of a happily oblivious society sitting down for a nice meal or drinks at an up-market jazz bar while knowing, but not contemplating, the way their very same society is not only putting people horribly to death, but is also turning the execution into a public spectacle in a demonstration of both civility and barbarism. The last part of the show tells the story of two Belarusian teenagers who were accused of planting a bomb and were finally executed, their bodies never returned to their families. The imagery of the last scene is quite powerful: the silhouettes of the teenagers have been painted against the back wall with glue, black powder blown against the outlines to make visible the traces of the vanished son as a child, a teen, an adult, as the two cast members standing in for the teenagers hang off the same wall. They are covered in flour, which makes them appear as ghosts against the white canvas. The rest of the cast come to the front and fiercely proceed to hack onions to pieces with various weapons, to the soundtrack of an ambient flamenco-style guitar. While this show did not necessarily trigger tears in the way Nirbhaya did, by the time the stench of the onions rose up into the auditorium there was, of course, a forceful bodily reaction, too.

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Testimony and Witnessing

By providing a bearable version of the ‘truth’, theatre returns to the traditionally assumed role of art: to bring about an emotional process of purgation, regeneration and reconciliation inherent to the concept of catharsis. Such an emphasis on its regenerative and restorative powers sees drama as “the pharmakon of social and personal malaise” (Taxidou 113-15); in Jacques Derrida’s sense, both a poison and a cure (see 70). Thus, theatre holds the potential to account for collective trauma, but also to provide a remedy (see Boll 132). Verbatim theatre, that is, theatre built on and around personal testimony and therefore with a strong claim to truth, can be situated in the grey zone between theatre and activism. In Nirbhaya, the audience was not only watching a theatre show, but in fact bearing witness to these women’s testimony. Ending every time during its run in Edinburgh with a stunned silence and then a long, on-going standing ovation, the audience quickly realised they were not only applauding acting, performance, a writer’s craft, but they were showing

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respect for these women’s courage to speak out. They were demonstrating that they had heard their stories, acknowledged their voices – in short, become their witnesses. While courtroom drama or ‘tribunal plays’ highlight the legal origins of the term testimony, testimony is also linked to trauma theory and trauma culture, which equally relies on testimonial evidence and the witnessing of the act of testifying. As analysed in several earlier publications by Dori Laub, a defining experience of the Holocaust has been the repeated denial of the events to the extent that the victims could not rely on any witnesses, and hence the memory of the events was effectively wiped out. Consequently, Laub argues, historical events may take place without a witness, and victims find themselves “being inside the event that made unthinkable the very notion that a witness could exist” (81). As this lack of a witness forms a key part of the constitution of trauma, it is essential for victims of trauma to have the recollection or the revisiting of their trauma witnessed by somebody else, in order to testify to the event having happened, to “recapture the lost truth of that reality” (91) and to allow the victims to face their loss. “What matters is the experience itself: living through testimony, giving testimony” (85), Laub claims. Both the therapeutic and the legal tradition rely on the performative aspect of testimony: to be valid, it needs an audience (see Boll 120). Kelly Oliver discusses witnessing as recognition of the Other in an attempt to overcome the dichotomies between Self and Other, known and strange, and ultimately between those to whom empathy is extended and those to whom it will be denied. She proposes that witnessing the Other, her joy and grief, possibly her oppression, should not only lead to recognition, but to something more active: it should evoke a sense of responsibility for and ‘response-ability’ to the Other. Oliver argues that there is an obligation to witness, to testify and listen to testimony, from which she concludes that this may be regarded as a result of ‘response-ability’ (see 90). She proposes that accepting the Other’s subjectivity, recognising the reality of another’s experience even if it is incomprehensible to us, might allow us to establish “the conditions of address-ability and response-ability that make subjectivity and human experience possible and ultimately ethical”: this means that we must recognize that not everything that is real is recognizable to us. Acknowledging the realness of another’s life is not judging its worth, or conferring respect, or understanding or recognizing it, but responding in a way that affirms response-ability. We are obligated to respond to what is beyond our comprehension, beyond recognition, because ethics is possible only beyond recognition. (106)

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Drawing on Emmanuel Levinas, Oliver argues that to act according to ethical principles is an active choice: one chooses to take on responsibility for the Other, one chooses to respond to the Other. In a continuation of Laub’s earlier notion of recapturing the lost truth of a past reality distorted by trauma, Oliver stresses that subjectivity may only develop by being able to address others and by inviting being addressed by others, because “[o]nly when someone else listens to me can I listen to myself”. She introduces the concept of an external witness as the essential factor in order for a person to “develop or sustain the internal witness necessary for the ability to interpret and represent our experience, which is necessary for subjectivity and more essentially for both individual and social transformation” (88).

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Grief

At the end of the performance of Nirbhaya, there is a re-enactment of funeral rites involving the body of the performer standing in for the Delhi rape victim. The body was cleansed and adorned. This allowed the performers to physically go through the motions of laying the young woman to rest every single afternoon for the whole run of the show, which in turn enabled them to come to terms with her shocking death and possibly with their own violation, in an attempt to reclaim their own bodies. In this way, Nirbhaya is also clearly a piece of public mourning for the deceased young woman in Delhi and for all the women violated and killed, victimised because of their gender. Emotionally draining for both the performers and for the audience, in Edinburgh the show inevitably elicited strong, often tearful reactions. In the same vein, Trash Cuisine closes on a scene that visually solidifies the memory of the two teenagers whose bodies were never returned to their families. While both plays discussed here place an emphasis on subject (re)construction through testimony, they also culminate in an acknowledgement of their dead, a coming to terms with what cannot be recovered and a symbolic laying to rest of the victims. This agrees with Rachel Fensham’s discussion of how spectators may experience tragedy; in particular, when she points at a “sacramental need for funerary rites” (178) in the face of unredeemable events. For Plato, there was a danger “not only in the representation but also in the reality that is being represented, namely, the real behaviour of real women as they lament their dead” (Gregory Nagy qtd. in Loraux ix-x). The danger of such grief is the closeness between grief and anger. The emotions of grief, the source of lament, spill over into emotions of anger and rage. “When mourning cannot end, when it becomes anger that can never be erased from the mind”, Nicole

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Loraux argues, “we see the ultimate justification for revenge, for the spirit of vendetta, for all the horrors of retaliation, against earlier horrors” (xi-xii). It is this “contaminating quality of mimesis”, originating in enactment, which Plato fears will “trigger a social epidemic” (Taxidou 6; see also Boll 139-40). In her essays on war and grief, Judith Butler discusses how the objectification and dehumanisation of the cultural Other allows for the withholding of grief and for the killing of that same Other. She argues that while certain lives are protected, other lives are not subject to this protection and do not qualify as ‘grievable’ either (see 32). The value of life is only ever asserted in the possibility of its loss, in its precariousness, she reasons, when it is determined whether the loss of a certain life would matter or not: “grievability is a presupposition for the life that matters” (14). If a life is deemed as not grievable, it is not counted as a life: “there is no life, or, rather, there is something living that is other than life. […] The apprehension of grievability precedes and makes possible the apprehension of precarious life. Grievability precedes and makes possible the apprehension of the living being as living, exposed to non-life from the start” (15). The division into grievable and ungrievable lives, into lives “perceived as lives” and those which, “though apparently living, fail to assume perceptual form as such” (24), allows for the sorting of populations into groups of those whose lives need to be preserved and those whose loss is acceptable, as is most poignantly explored in Trash Cuisine’s scenes on the Rwandan genocide (1994) and the several instances of state-sanctioned torture portrayed in the play, or as is also raised in Nirbhaya’s suggestion that violence against women is systemic and that not much worth is attributed to a woman’s life. Contemporary political life is brought to a crucial test when “not everyone counts as a subject”, as some communities are disregarded and their subjects are perceived as alive, but not as “a life” (Butler 31-2).

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Portraying Violence

Bettina Schmidt and Ingo Schroeder remark on the performative quality of violence. They state that, without an audience, violence may still leave people gravely injured or dead, but it remains socially meaningless. The efficiency of violence, they propose, derives from the staging of power and legitimacy, probably even more so than from actual physical results. As a performance, violence extends its efficacy over space and time and reaches a large majority of people who might not all be physically affected by it. This performative quality renders violence an everyday experience even if nobody is subjected to actual physical harm on a daily basis. It is amplified by the high visibility of the per-

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formance, which usually would be staged in a public arena (see Schmidt and Schroeder 6). The performance of violence thus only acquires social meaning in the moment of being witnessed, which allows for a reassessment of the much-debated value and necessity of the representation and aestheticisation of violence in various mediums of art (see Boll 50). Emphasising the importance of the bodily nature of violence, Wolfgang Sofsky offers an interesting angle on the performative nature of violence when he argues that, at least in part, it relies on a certain allurement, a desire to watch: it is not an avid desire for sensation that holds mankind spellbound but violence itself, the destruction of another body, the whimpering of a living being, the smell of blood. We feel conflicting reactions at first. Violence is repulsive, it induces nausea, it arouses fear and terror, but at the same time it is seductive and enthralling. […] The shock hits us in the pit of the stomach; we feel a moment of sickness, dizziness, then a brief quivering of the nerves until at last relief soothes the fear. […] Violence has the full force of immediacy. Because it affects the body directly, it breaks all the rules that usually hold humanity in check. Death is vividly, suddenly present. (9-10) For this reason, violence has always been a vital part of the performing arts as well: the element of scopophilia is as important as the fact that the theatre is able to use actual bodies for the representation of violence, thus highlighting the bodily experience of both performer and spectator. Through the physical presence of the bodies on stage, the acts of violence one has been aware of in an abstract way, in the form of statistics and reports, become again connected to actual bodies. Of course, it is not genuine violence that is witnessed on stage – the witnessing is an approximation rather than a replaying, and therefore, ethical questions about representation are raised once more: is the attempt to acknowledge violence by witnessing the representation of violence the only way we can possibly understand the experience of violence without being subjected to it ourselves? (see Boll 51-2). Lucy Nevitt argues that the use of dramatic performances to enable the contemplation of violence is “necessary and desirable” (8), because the mere awareness of violence happening elsewhere, not to oneself or people close to oneself, allows for the occurrence of violence to be accepted as a given, possibly as inevitable, without it being critically reflected upon. She reasons that watching representations of violence encourages the spectator to

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consider the ways in which public passivity enables and implicitly supports acts of political violence in the world beyond. But watching a performance is not the same as being witness to violence in other contexts. A performance or an artwork is conventionally allowed to progress uninterrupted by its spectators, who assume that the creators of the work are in control of its progress, and that the participants have knowingly consented to the actions in which they are involved. The ethics of spectatorship are conventionally different from those of witnessing in nonperformance contexts. (56-7) Returning to the re-enactment of the brutal rape in Nirbhaya, the question arises whether seeing it represented is necessary to ensure the audience understands what happened. Arguably, the audience in Edinburgh experienced just the kind of shock Sofsky describes when he deliberates on the act of witnessing violence. There was a bodily effect rippling through the auditorium, even though the scene on stage was very clearly re-enacted and there was no actual body in pain in our presence. However, knowing that the performers re-enacting the assault on the young woman were also re-enacting scenes from their own past means that the audience witnessed something else, something that was present as these performers displayed to the world what they had locked away, what they had silenced, what society had asked them to be silent about. Ultimately, the audience witnessed them trying to come to terms with their own violation. By watching them, the audience acknowledged the reality of their trauma, and they also chose to be addressable in Oliver’s sense. Nirbhaya thus also constitutes an act of reclaiming subjectivity by the performers who themselves had experienced objectification and dehumanisation. “Rendered an object, the victim of oppression and subordination is also rendered speechless”, Oliver argues, “[o]bjects do not talk. Objects do not act. Objects are not subjects or agents of their own lives” (95). Bearing witness to becoming an object oneself is impossible, as “objects have nothing to say. Becoming an object means becoming inarticulate. Only by testifying, by witnessing objectification, can survivors reinscribe their subjectivity into situations that mutilated it to the point of annihilation” (99). There is a poignant difference between Farber’s play and Belarus Free Theatre’s play. The latter explores processes of oppression and of turning subjects into objects whose lives are framed as dispensable: “When it was announced on the radio that the time to kill cockroaches had come”, a wife narrates in a stomach-turning scene set during the Rwandan genocide, “all Hutu knew what cockroaches were – Tutsi” (Khalezin and Kaliada 25). However, the testimonies in Trash Cuisine are presented and performed by actors who are

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very explicitly not the people whose testimony is being narrated; the testimonies themselves are broken through choreography and commented upon by the instances of live food preparation on stage.

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Forced Tears

Critical suspicion against being compelled to feel empathy at the theatre runs deep.4 Contemporary reservations can be traced back to German theatre maker Bertolt Brecht, who repeatedly struggled with the question of how to achieve critical understanding (and thus, possible transformation) of systemic social and political injustices by producing theatrical experiences for the audience without resorting to emotional manipulation. In his Messingkauf dialogues (1939-1943) on the function and methods of theatrical performances, Brecht has his Philosopher figure expand the principle of participatory observation to watching theatre, specifically with regard to observing sorrow. “If we observe sorrow on the stage and feel it at the same time”, the Philosopher argues, then the fact that we are observing it at the same time also forms part of our observation. We are sorrowful but at the same time we are people observing sorrow – our own – almost as if it were detached from us, in other words like people who know no sorrow – for who else could observe it in such a detached way? This means we are not completely dissolved in sorrow: there is still something solid in us. Sorrow is hostile to thought, it stifles it, and thought is hostile to sorrow. (48-9) The statement stems from an extended discussion about the Philosopher’s attempt to use theatre for a scientific experiment on social behaviour, specifically with the aim “to find out the best way to behave” (“Messingkauf ” 18) by adopting what he declares to be the “scientific approach” of not interfering with the experiment and eliminating all factors that might influence the audience’s capacity for critical thought. However, he later has the same figure discuss the relationship between emotions and criticism, arguing that criticism cannot possibly be confined to intellect only: “Emotions are involved in criticism, and maybe what you actually need to do is organize criticism by way 4 See, for example, David Pattie’s account of watching David Greig’s The Events and of his initial reluctance to accept his emotional response to the play as a valid critical response (2016).

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of emotions. Remember that criticism arises from crises and intensifies them” (“Messingkauf ” 84-5). The issue remains one to which Brecht returns again and again. In the first appendix to Messingkauf, he recognises that “the theatrical experience comes about […] by way of an act of empathy”, which leads him to state that, if this is the case, then the theatrical experience therefore cannot include criticism, “and the better the empathy works, the truer this becomes” (“Messingkauf ” 121). It is this reasoning which prompts Brecht to present the Verfremdungseffect (V-effect) as a “new method of practicing art” that would “cause empathy to forfeit its dominant role” (“Messingkauf ” 121-22). Several years later, in the short piece “Conversation about Coerced Empathy”, when discussing a performance that elicited empathy for the characters from the audience, Brecht argues that such practice was performed with “[t]he intent […] to fob off on us some kind of transportable pain, that is, pain detached from its source, which can be placed intact at the disposal of some other purpose. The actual poetic action disappeared like meat into a cleverly prepared sauce with a specific flavor” (307), his argument being that one should only feel empathy when one understands why somebody is suffering, when a critical assessment of the situation has taken place. As per the above reasoning, this capacity for critical understanding of the situation is hindered by the experience of empathy. In view of the two different modes of presenting testimony, the question arises whether a reaction to the atrocities represented in the two examples discussed here can be anything more than a visceral reaction, as the one described above in Sofsky’s discussion of the observation of violence. Farber’s Nirbhaya largely bypasses analysis and instead directly aims for an affective reaction; it is protest theatre and it invites the audience to join the protest. At the end of the play, one can perhaps detect a manifestation of mênis amongst the audience, the grief that is turned to wrath, traditionally associated with the female mourner and at the root of Plato’s fear of excessive public mourning which may lead to public riots – which sits also at the root of his objection against the theatre as such (see Plato 606a-b and 607a; see also Taxidou 16467). Belarus Free Theatre’s Trash Cuisine, on the other hand, positions our preoccupation with food, in particular with eating meat, alongside the atrocious means by which human bodies are tortured and destroyed in state-sanctioned procedures across the globe. The play has a very clear interest in placing the violence in a larger societal context by resorting to the elements of choreography and a running cooking-show commentary, both of which function as Brechtian alienating devices that enable a critical as well as a visceral reaction. Jennifer Doyle discusses the difficulty of separating ‘real’ tears from “tears of vicarious experience”, and the value we attach to them – and consequently

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also the value and aesthetic experience we attach to the work of art that causes these tears. She uses as an example Marina Abramovic’s 1996 video performance The Onion, in which the artist holds a large onion against her face and eats it slowly, accompanied by her own voice on tape reciting a litany of disappointment, weariness and ennui, as she gags and whimpers and sheds more and more tears. The onion, in this performance as in the one by Belarus Free Theatre, is a prop used to shed artificial tears. Doyle points out the subtle change in perception when spectators shift from questioning the authenticity of Abramovic’s onion-created tears and pondering the necessity of a tool to make the artist cry, to questioning the artificiality of her tears by the end of the performance as her struggle to eat the onion becomes increasingly clear. “What begins as a performance of artificial tears”, Doyle suggests, “seems to morph into real tears”. Trash Cuisine allows for a similar examination of the artificial tears solicited by a prop, but the play adds a moral dimension by suggesting that the general obsession with food is indicative of the reluctance to acknowledge, let alone reflect on, responsibility for widespread atrocities if they do not concern ourselves. The play culminates in a scene of righteous anger in which the cast symbolically attempts to force the audience to shed tears as the only morally acceptable reaction to the outrageous events presented in the play.

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Catharsis and the Importance of Affect

Contemporary scholarship offers a reassessment of the role of empathy, and by extension, of the role of catharsis, in the formation of critical thought.5 In an analysis of instances of her own tearful reactions to recent theatre productions, which she then situates in a wider societal and political context, Catherine Love acknowledges the danger and promise of emotion in critical and political thought. She argues that “[f]eeling in art has a tendency to be equated […] with catharsis, escapism and conservative sentimentality. But there is also another kind of catharsis to be found in art, one in which emotion is politically charged and straightforward sentiment is replaced by radical collective feeling” and goes on to claim that the space of the theatre is able to accommodate that collective feeling: “our emotions meet in the room, however fleetingly. We feel together”. Love coincides in this with Fensham, who

5 See, for example, Ethical Speculations in Contemporary British Theatre edited by Mireia Aragay and Enric Monforte (2014).

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states that watching theatre means actively taking part in a social assembly (see 22) and articulates the specific requirements of the watching situation as an active choice and a commitment: “I can leave the theatre”, Fensham states, “but if I care enough to stay and watch what happens then I am already part of a collective project. This situation requires no more and no less than a commitment to purge myself of judgment in the face of another’s desire to live with me for a while” (165). Fensham suggests understanding the act of watching theatre as an embodied activity decidedly different from other forms of critical interpretation: “To watch theatre implies a responsibility not to the text, not to the institution, but to the observance of what matters in the human subject and their relations with the world. […] Theatre, at its finest, can show us how to observe social relations, or how to witness conflicts between individuals, or how to comment on power games and symbolic structures” (11). Fensham’s insistence that, once one has decided to stay and watch theatre, there is also a responsibility to observing how humanity culturally explores its political and social make-up on a personal as well as on a public level is relevant here in connection to Oliver’s concept of responsibility as “the founding possibility of subjectivity and its most fundamental obligation” (90; see also 143). Fensham makes a strong case for the significance of affect to the performance spectator, arguing that the act of watching “activates other relationships and critical perspectives that may have longer term social and political purposes” (14), as the whole process involves the attempt to understand “the imaginative and psychological investments of individual actors in a complex set of potential relations” (16). Concluding from this, she criticises the concept of catharsis as having been framed mostly as an “emotional purgation” or “intellectual exercise” as a result of which “we should leave the theatre feeling cleansed of the guilt, pity, fear, that we have imaginatively cathected through the experience of watching someone else act out human suffering” (177). Instead, she suggests that understanding spectatorship and catharsis as an embodied relationship, a kind of distinctive kinesthetic that is operating at another level than perception in the sensory apparatus, […] produces its own distinctive poetics. Given Aristotle’s lead but without the obligation to moralise about the outcomes of the theatrical experience, I wonder if one aspect of a reasonable and emotional response to the theatre ought not therefore to include the expulsion of bodily fluids. The Greeks, for instance, considered all emotions to be fluids, whether identified with tears or laughter, and therefore perhaps the phenomenology of the spectator’s body might be urinating by wetting itself with laughter; or menstruating

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by bleeding from the heart; or weeping by pouring it all out. In becoming fluid with emotion, perhaps the catharsis of the spectator can recover from the sealed up, and overcoded, body of a multi-mediated society. Perhaps watching at the theatre provides an occasion to bring forth an otherwise absent, yet fluid, memory of the bodiliness of life. (177) With regard to the two plays discussed in this chapter, Fensham’s suggestion may be read as an invitation to recognise strong emotional reactions to theatre plays not as an impediment to but an enrichment of critical analysis. Even in instances of coerced empathy, pace Brecht, critical thought, the ability to understand what is being watched and how it relates to larger social and political structures, is not necessarily precluded by a powerful emotional response, especially since a play like Nirbhaya makes such strong claims to the recapturing of subjectivity and the witnessing of testimony that it is activism as much as it is a play. And Trash Cuisine, which successfully employs the V-effect throughout, nevertheless assaults the audience’s senses in such a way that emotional reactions are equally inevitable and are openly enforced, precisely to call attention to the lack of empathy and disavowal of responsibility that underpin the widespread state-sanctioned violence criticised in the play.

Works Cited Abramovic, Marina. The Onion. LIMA, 1996. Aragay, Mireia, and Enric Monforte, eds. Ethical Speculations in Contemporary British Theatre. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Boll, Julia. The New War Plays: From Kane to Harris. Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Brecht, Bertolt. “Messingkauf, or Buying Brass.” Brecht on Performance: Messingkauf and Modelbooks. 1963. Edited by Tom Kuhn et al. and translated by John Willett et al., Bloomsbury, 2014, pp. 1-141. Brecht, Bertolt. “Conversation about Coerced Empathy.” 1953. Brecht on Theatre, edited by Tom Kuhn, Steve Giles and Marc Silberman, 1963. Bloomsbury, 2015, pp. 306-307. Butler, Judith. Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? Verso, 2009. Derrida, Jacques. “Plato’s Pharmacy.” 1968 (in Tel Quel). Dissemination. 1972. Translated, with an introduction and additional notes by Barbara Johnson, U of Chicago P, 1981, pp. 61-171. Doyle, Jennifer. “Critical Tears: Franko B’s ‘I Miss You’.” Franko B, 2006, www.franko-b .com/Critical_Tears.html. Accessed 16 Jan. 2017. Fensham, Rachel. To Watch Theatre: Essays on Genre and Corporeality. Peter Lang, 2009. Khalezin, Nicolai, and Natalia Kaliada. Trash Cuisine/Minsk 2011: A Reply to Kathy Acker. Oberon, 2013.

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Laub, Dori. “Bearing Witness or the Vicissitudes of Listening.” Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, History, by Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub, Routledge, 1992, pp. 57-74. Loraux, Nicole. Mothers in Mourning. Translated by Corinne Pache, Cornell UP, 1998. Love, Catherine. “Cracks in our Hearts and Heads.” Catherinelove, 14 Sep. 2014, catherinelove.co.uk/2014/09/14/cracks-in-our-hearts-and-heads/. Accessed 16 Jan. 2017. Nevitt, Lucy. Theatre & Violence. Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Oliver, Kelly. Witnessing: Beyond Recognition. U of Minneapolis P, 2001. Pattie, David. “The Events: Immanence and the Audience.” Theatre and Spectatorship, special issue of Journal of Contemporary Drama in English, vol. 4, no. 1, 2016, pp. 4960. Plato. The Republic of Plato. Translated with notes and an interpretive essay by Allan Bloom, 2nd ed., Basic Books, 1991. Schmidt, Bettina E., and Ingo W. Schroeder. “Introduction: Violent Imaginaries and Violent Practices.” Anthropology of Violence and Conflict, edited by Bettina Schmidt and Ingo W. Schroeder, Routledge, 2001, pp. 1-25. Sofsky, Wolfgang. Violence, Terrorism, Genocide, War. Granta Books, 2003. Taxidou, Olga. Tragedy, Modernity and Mourning. Edinburgh UP, 2004.

Stepping Forward: An Exploration of Devised Theatre’s Democratic Designs in an Actor-Training Setting Evi Stamatiou

Abstract Devised theatre offers an alternative set of practices to those used in standard actortraining. It invites participants to explore different forms of authorship and encourages the emergence of different collaboration dynamics and forms of agency. The assumption is that creative decisions are taken after pitching and voting processes. The prioritising of collective interests over the expression of individual beliefs counters neoliberal logic. However, this becomes particularly complex in actor training: the students cannot opt out from participation when their individual political, religious or moral beliefs are targeted, undermined or ignored by the group. Using methodologies from theatre studies and education, this essay theorises the devised theatre participant as a social and political agent in the light of an analysis of democratic designs in the actor-training space. It illuminates the trainer’s challenge to protect individual rights within devised theatre processes in the context of a neoliberal logic that favours individual and consumer rights over popular sovereignty and voting processes.

Devised theatre offers an alternative set of practices to those used in standard actor-training. It invites participants to explore different forms of authorship and encourages the emergence of varied collaboration dynamics and forms of agency. Using methodologies from theatre studies and education, I investigate how devised theatre techniques shape the trainee actor’s agency inside and outside the theatre space. I write from the perspective of an EU national academic/theatre maker who lives in the UK. My contribution to knowledge is to theorise the devised theatre participant as a social and political agent and to analyse democratic designs in the actor-training space. I understand ‘democratic designs’ as modes of collaboration that have as key principle the equal distribution of responsibilities and creative opportunities among all devised theatre participants with the aim of maximising freedom and participation for each individual. In such devised theatre practices, creative decisions are taken after pitching and voting processes. The process of artists prioritising collective interests

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rather than the expression of individual beliefs produces a complex tension with neoliberal logic. This becomes particularly acute when devising is adopted as a pedagogical tool for actor training, since the students cannot opt out from participation when their individual political, religious or moral beliefs are targeted/undermined or ignored by the group, and the trainer needs to consider how individual rights can be protected in a neoliberal context that favours individual and consumer rights over popular sovereignty and voting processes.1 I have looked at the role of the director/trainer and actor-training practices that prioritise individual rights over popular sovereignty through Chantal Mouffe’s concept of the democratic paradox, where rather than attempt to resolve the conflict between liberty and equality, this tension is embraced as intrinsic to pluralism. This essay is a response to the current interest in the politics of actor-training (see Kapsali). My findings raise awareness of how participants from minority groups can experience ‘symbolic violence’ in group devising practices.2 My socio-political analysis of the democratic designs of devised theatre is, therefore, somewhat pessimistic, yet if it is combined with the optimism of individual action, it may encourage participants to find, explore and potentially expand their agency inside and outside the theatre space. My view of the individual’s agency echoes Amartya Sen’s moral approach to the term (see 169). Sen refers to ‘agency freedom’ as “what the person is free to do and achieve in pursuit of whatever goals or values he or she regards as important” (203). Within the training environment, one realises that the trainee’s agency, or what they are “free to do and achieve”, is tested not in a vacuum but in relation to actor-training practices, actor-training institutions and the acting industry. Even though agency is a general matter for each individual to judge, Sen stresses the importance of a “careful assessment of aims, objectives, allegiances, etc., and of the conception of the good”, implying that such an assessment is generally possible for all adults (204). However, this essay suggests that for a more focused evaluation of specific social fields in which an individual operates, like the actor-training one, the individual needs

1 In the UK, since 2015, the relationship between the trainee and the institution has become that of a consumer to a provider, “together with the existence of a supportive learning and pastoral environment within an academic community” (Competition and Markets Authority 3). 2 Pierre Bourdieu claims that social inequalities are established through the subtle imposition of power relations on individuals’ bodies and dispositions. Bourdieu and Loïc J. D. Wacquant call the process of corporeal inculcation “symbolic violence” and see it as a form of domination “exercised upon a social agent with his or her complicity” (167).

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specific reflexive tools in order to achieve a more holistic assessment of their agency and then act accordingly. Considering the individual agent as part of broader social groups, Sen also invites agents to act responsibly and be morally accountable to others (see 204). This idea of responsible agency works with and against the notion of the individual’s ‘well-being freedom’, which for Sen relates to “judging the opportunities a person has for pursuing his or her own advantage” (205). Therefore, an individual’s agency works with and against the agency of the other individuals who operate within broader social groups.

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Methodology

This study stems from a practical devised theatre project based on Aristophanes’s The Frogs (405 BC) that took place in an actor-training setting in 2013-2014. I used Bourdieu’s theory to enable the trainees to represent their political interests on stage, and consequently to find and explore their agency. Given that individuals have diverse interests, I used a devising method that prioritised the distribution of equal creative opportunities among the trainees. I assumed that, by doing this, each trainee was provided with similar opportunities to use their performance in pursuit of their own conception of the good. At the end of the process, the trainees were interviewed by email about what effect they felt the devising process had on their agency. After the project, I reflected critically on the process, the performance – the resulting piece was presented at Wessex Academy of Performing Arts in Somerset on 20 and 21 May 2014, just before the UK’s component of the European Parliament election on 22 May – and the trainees’ interviews. Drawing from sociology, I used qualitative and quantitative discourse analysis to identify repeated words or words that suggested a democratic design in the participants’ responses. I also used ‘participant objectivation’ – a method in which the researcher becomes both the subject and the object of their research – as an auxiliary methodological tool (see Bourdieu “Participant Objectivation” 282).3 I am not a sociologist or an anthropologist; I am a director and actor trainer who aims to explore the democratic culture within devised theatre. I used the methodological tools that seemed most appropriate for this purpose.

3 Bourdieu suggested this methodology in relation to anthropology. He writes that researchers should take account of their social origins, their position and trajectory in the social space, their social and religious memberships and beliefs, gender, age, nationality and, most importantly, their position in the microcosm of anthropologists (see “Participant Objectivation” 283).

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The Frogs: The Trainee Actor as Social Agent

I chose The Frogs – a play Aristophanes wrote in response to the political issues of his time – because I wanted the trainees to use our adaptation to address the UK’s component of the European election. The piece was considered ideal in order to invite the trainees’ social and political agency. Aristophanes’s The Frogs was performed for the first time at the Lenaea festival, where it competed with two other plays. All three addressed the issues of how to save Athens from war and rescue tragedy from decline, both of which were in crisis (see Sommerstein 1). The main character in The Frogs, Dionysus, thinks the solution to both crises is to bring Aeschylus back from the dead (see Sommerstein 9). In Theatre and Citizenship, David Wiles describes the Aristophanic world of The Frogs as one in which “artist and citizen were one and the same” (35). Wiles suggests that the main theme of The Frogs is Dionysus’s quest to find “a playwright to save the city in its moment of crisis, and political discourses merge with aesthetic discourses” (18). Drawing from Wiles’s analysis of The Frogs, I invited the trainee actors to participate in the performance as both artists and citizens who operate within power relations and power structures in the theatre and beyond. The process of constructing the devised piece created a ‘micro-field’ in which the participants experienced power structures and power relations that worked with and against their agency.4 I invited them to think about their role as social actors in the micro-field, and encouraged them to use their conception of the good about the European election to create the performance. They were urged to use their ‘capital’ (their right to be in the performance, their creative competences and the resources that the university made available).5 They were invited to draw on their habitus (what they have learned and experienced in relation to others) and doxa (the social rules that they have learned to consider legitimate).6 They were also invited to position themselves in the

4 Bourdieu’s concept of ‘field’ relates to the power structures and power relations in the world around us. He describes the social world as a “series of relatively autonomous but structurally homologous fields of production, circulation and consumption of various forms of cultural as well as material resources” (Navarro 14). 5 Capital is a key concept in Bourdieu’s theory and can be described as an irreducible form of power. It can be material (for example, economic capital) or symbolic/immaterial (for example, cultural and social capital). Cultural capital comprises the individual’s cultural goods and cultural consumption, whereas social capital designates their social connections (see “The Forms of Capital” 81). 6 Habitus and doxa are also key concepts in Bourdieu’s theory. Habitus are dispositions inherited from the family and class to which the individual belongs (see The Logic of Practice 53). Doxa “roughly speaking means common sense” (Navarro 21).

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field by thinking about power structures, political decisions and politicians. As a consequence of my use of Bourdieu’s theory, I expected the participants to ‘act’ according to their own ‘interests’ (both material and symbolic). Bourdieu would regard this to be the conscious or unconscious aim of all artistic agents. I wanted to give each of the trainees the same chance to maximise their capital and represent their interests, so they were given equal opportunities for authorship. In the context of devised work that has an output in the form of a script, the author is normally the individual who creates or writes the script. Sarah Sigal offers an overview and analysis of the different modes of collaboration between a writer – who can also be one or more of the performers – and a company during devising. Under UK copyright law, even if a director or other ‘creatives’ contribute ideas, the individual who writes the script is its sole author (see Equity 3). Copyright disputes are very common in devised work and for this reason, “the key to sharing the authorship of a text and production while creating an efficient collaborative process is inherent in the clarity of the initial agreement between collaborators” (Sigal 303-4). In the actor-training setting that I analyse in this essay, the initial oral agreement between participants was that each trainee would lead the rehearsal process for a specific part of the script and they would be the sole author of this part, which they would write in text form. I divided the script into seventeen sections of equal length, and asked each trainee to select a part. I chose a part for anyone who did not have a preference. In the process of creating the performance, each trainee had control over both the text and performance of their part. They were free to choose whether to adhere closely to the original text or write a free adaptation of the original script. The trainees were assigned by and had to liaise with me, the trainer/director, who decided on the main concept and relevant research, led workshops, was present at most of the rehearsals and took on the role of editing the trainees’ scripts and performances into a coherent piece.

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The Problematic Part of the Script: The ‘Step Forward’

A problem arose during the adaptation of Aristophanes’s theatrical device of the parabasis, or the ‘step forward’ (from the Greek verb παραβαίνω). At the end of the first act of The Frogs, the chorus leader steps forward, takes off his mask and speaks directly to the audience, delivering Aristophanes’s political position.7 Although his political opinions are evident throughout the play, in 7 For example, within the parabasis the chorus leader states: “In the first place, accordingly, we think all citizens should be made equal and their fears removed” (Aristophanes 687-88).

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the ‘step forward’ Aristophanes openly expresses his views to the audience. Trainee Nina was assigned the ‘step forward’ part, for which she chose to use the UK Green Party’s video for their European election campaign.8 The expression of her political views in the performance could have created tension between those in the group who supported the Green Party and those who did not. As a way of avoiding tension without undermining Nina’s political voice, everyone was asked to ‘step forward’ at the end of the video and express their own political opinions to the audience. Each trainee’s opinions would represent the individual’s conception of the good about the specific subject at hand. It seems important to highlight that the trainees were invited to think about their agency both inside and outside the theatrical space. On the one hand, the ‘step forward’ has a metaphorical meaning, in the sense that the invitation to authorship in devised work enables individuals to step forward from the group and decide for themselves, lead a process or make a suggestion for the group to consider. On the other hand, proposing the European elections as a topic for devising worked both for and against the trainees’ political participation and agency in the outside world. The trainees were invited to explore authorship in the devised theatre micro-field, which in this particular case involved the expression of their political opinions. And such an invitation to authorship came at the same time as they were invited as citizens to contribute in the political field. Therefore, the project foregrounded the interconnections between the trainee’s authorship and the citizen’s voting behaviour in the UK’s European election. The trainees who were clearer about what they would vote for were more confident stepping forward in the devised theatre setting and making creative decisions. Conversely, trainees who were unsure about what they would vote for were less confident to take on the creative opportunities. This does not necessarily mean that, by definition, trainees who have positioned themselves in the political field are more likely to make decisions and lead in the rehearsal room. It means, though, that in the case being discussed, the choice of the specific subject might have favoured the authorship of trainees who had already taken a stance in the field of European politics.

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Critical Reflection on the Trainees’ Interviews

After the final performance, the trainees completed an email interview. When evaluating their responses, I focused on repeated words that reflected on the

8 I assigned the ‘step forward’ part to Nina. I assume that none of the students chose it because it is a political speech that seems to lack any dramatic action.

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democratic designs in the devising process. The participants’ reflections appeared to be affected by their power relations with the director/trainer and the rest of the trainees. The trainer-trainee relationship seemed to embed symbolic violence, while the relationships among trainees seemed to be challenged by the democratic paradox. These observations lead to two questions. Firstly, what is the role of the director in devised theatre settings and how can the ‘step forward’ enable participants to make theatre that is based on their symbolic interests and choice of representation? Secondly, what challenges to participants’ symbolic interests does devising in a group setting present? I reflect on these two questions separately in the subsections below. 4.1 Trainer-Trainee Power Relations: The Intimate Dialogic Swap Responses to the questionnaire demonstrate that by selecting the 2014 European election as the theme of the adaptation, I removed the trainees’ ability to choose an issue that was meaningful to them. The trainees’ compliance with the limitation of their agency in the educational setting was a form of symbolic violence. Bourdieu has written that such symbolic violence is a major challenge in education. In the actor-training space, it links to the trainees’ disposition to follow the director/trainer’s suggestions. I realised that I had limited the trainees’ agency after reflecting on their answers to the questions that aimed to evaluate their agency. This observation led me to look at myself as another active participant in the project and to reflect on my role. Among other questions, the trainees were asked, “Do you feel that your political views were part of the performance? Why?” (Stamatiou “Reflections”). Ten participants responded “Yes”, and six responded “No”. Those who responded “Yes” said that their participation in the ‘step forward’, in which they expressed their opinions about the election to the audience, enabled them to include their political opinions in the performance. Those who responded “No” said that it was difficult to relate to the theme of the European election. Their address to the audience during the performance included the following lines: “I wish I knew more about politics”, “I should probably get my mum to vote for me”, “I do support UKIP [United Kingdom Independence Party] and I disagree with everyone who calls them racists”, “I don’t give a fuck about politics”, “I don’t know much about politics but I want to learn more about the Green Party” and “Who is UKIP?” (Annie et al. 24).9 This indicates that the theme was 9 UKIP, founded in 1993, played a fundamental role in the June 2016 ‘Brexit’ referendum. UKIP pressurised the Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron in January 2013 to promise the referendum, ran a pro-Brexit campaign that appealed to the anti-immigration sentiment of British voters and, after the Brexit win, has been closely monitoring how Britain’s withdrawal from the EU is being delivered by the Conservative party (see Ray).

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irrelevant to more than one third of the trainees’ conception of the good and therefore their agency was limited. In my attempt to enable trainees to explore their agency in devising, my doxa that all individuals should be active in the field of European politics overpowered the process. At the time, the trainees and I considered my actions to be legitimate. There was a shared assumption that the director/trainer would choose the theme, stimuli and rehearsal process, divide up the tasks and responsibilities and respond to what is created. Our shared doxa undermined my aim of fostering the trainees’ agency. The realisation that my role in the devising process was a prime determinant of the trainees’ experience led me to think about my own position as a researcher in this process. This links up with Bourdieu’s idea of reflexivity. Bourdieu argues that “for a sociologist more than any other thinker, to leave one’s thought in a state of unthought-of is to condemn oneself to be nothing more than the instrument of that which one claims to think” (In Other Words 238). My habitus as an EU national practitioner/researcher who lives in the UK and specialises in political performance led me to believe that the most appropriate field to draw from for a performance whose purpose was to expand the trainees’ agency was European politics. Bourdieu writes that “the sociology of sociology is a necessity, not a luxury” (In Other Words 254). Although the performance was not a sociological project, if I had thought about my own subjective position in the project at the time, the trainees’ (conscious or unconscious) subjection to symbolic violence may have been avoided. I reconfirmed how my reflexivity could be supportive when I evaluated the application of the ‘step forward’ in another actor-training project, the Cabaret Solos, which I devised for a group of twenty-three Level 6 Performing Arts trainees I taught at Wessex Academy of Performing Arts during the academic year 2013-2014. In this case, the trainees seemed better able to represent their own interests: the issues that they explored in their shows included race, gender and sexuality, and it was clear that they were drawing on fields that they chose and that the work was meaningful to them. The training model for the Cabaret Solos was more flexible: I did not direct the devising process; I led a seminar on how the ‘step forward’ inspired me to create my performance Caryatid Unplugged (2013) and I coached trainees individually in a number of tutorials/rehearsals. It might be assumed that, in the Cabaret Solos, the trainees were not subjected to my symbolic interests in the field of European politics. Interestingly, they were, but in a different way. I used myself as an example, and explained to the trainees how I devised Caryatid Unplugged as a response to the symbolic violence that I experienced in the field of European politics and as a means of finding my own agency in both the cultural and the political field (see Stamatiou “Caryatid Unplugged: A Cabaret”). Without realising it, I dis-

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played my social origins, my position and trajectory in the social space, my social and religious memberships and beliefs, my gender, my age, my nationality and, most importantly, what was significant to me as an artist and citizen. When evaluating the Cabaret Solos, I noted that, although the trainees did not use the ‘step forward’ in their performances and avoided speaking directly to the audience about their political opinions, their themes were drawn from their own capital and they represented their political, religious and moral beliefs similarly to how Caryatid Unplugged did mine. I observed that there was a ‘swap pattern’, or an exchange of gifts, in this training relationship. I presented myself and my performance as an object of study and talked openly with the trainees about my capital and habitus. By putting myself in the position of an artist/citizen who uses their capital for their devised work, I created a sense of intimacy in the training space which encouraged participation. The trainees drew on their own capital and offered as a gift their performances, which were based on what they considered to be symbolic violence in their social world and their field of choice. My invitation to a conversation about things that mattered to me and what I considered to be symbolic violence offered them my exploration of agency as a model that they could freely adapt for their own purposes. Charles Taylor writes that “opening a conversation is inaugurating a common action” (200) because the listener sustains the conversation with their reactions and at times the conversation moves from one participant to the other. In the intimate environment that I created, the trainees were able to choose how to participate, act and interact. My sharing of the devising process of Caryatid Unplugged did not aim to direct the trainees into specific designs (‘Do as I do’). Instead, I used it as a paradigm to reveal the embodied artistic and research schemata of my habitus. My coaching method was to share my ‘feel for the game’ (‘This is what I would do’). This is similar to Bourdieu’s method of supervising scientific projects (see Bourdieu and Wacquant 223). My gift was to tell the trainees how I ‘stepped forward’ in Caryatid Unplugged and this functioned as an incentive. 4.2 Trainees-Trainee Power Relations: The Democratic Paradox The trainees in The Frogs project were also invited to reflect on the group dynamics during the process. In the email interview, they were asked: “Did you think that there was a good balance in distributing responsibilities and creative decisions? Why?” (Stamatiou “Reflections”). When assessing the responses, I observed that some of the repeated words implied democratic designs. The word “balance” was used in the question, but only trainee Essie used it in her answer. Nina implied it, and the others used different words that suggested

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power relations and democratic designs, like “fair”, “unfair”, “equal” and “even” (qtd. in Stamatiou “Reflections”). When reflecting on the power relations in the rehearsal room, the trainees did not relate their opportunities for participation to the director/trainer; they only discussed the group’s internal antagonisms. Lynne said that she had been overpowered by another trainee: “she had an attitude during some rehearsals that brought the mood of the group down” (qtd. in Stamatiou “Reflections”). Lynne’s use of the word “she” indicated an antagonism within the group. Harry used the word “clash” to describe the same antagonism: “the idea of distributing responsibilities, had as a result the clash [in] the studio” (qtd. in Stamatiou “Reflections”). The above quotes show how even though the antagonism of the individuals who aimed to pursue their own conception of the good in the group setting probably served their own agency, it also dynamically affected the agency of the rest of the group and vice-versa. Bearing in mind Sen’s above-mentioned definition of agency, some of the trainees’ reflections indicate that they had agency freedom within the group setting. For example, Tina stated: “It was an ideal opportunity to have creative input about how we want something to be explored and created” (qtd. in Stamatiou “Reflections”). Tina’s use of the word “we” suggests that not only did she experience agency freedom in the process, but also that she observed her peers having similar experiences. Charlie used the word “our” in a comparable way: “great to have ideas coming from all angles as it shows our passion” (qtd. in Stamatiou “Reflections”). Charlie’s statement also indicates that she both experienced and witnessed agency freedom within the group setting, because she implies that the trainees pursued goals in devising that they regarded as important. However, the plurality of voices and the different angles of opinion signal the existence of antagonisms too. The fact that every member of the group focused on the internal dynamics of the process, as shown in the above statements as well as in other responses (see Stamatiou “Reflections”), invites a reflective analysis that draws on Mouffe’s idea of the democratic paradox. Mouffe suggests that the aim of democratic politics should be to transform antagonism into agonism. She does not overlook the conflictual nature of democratic politics, but proposes the concept of ‘agonistic pluralism’ as an alternative. She argues that “for agonistic pluralism the prime task of democratic politics is not to eliminate passions from the sphere of the public, in order to render a rational consensus possible, but to mobilize those passions towards democratic designs” (16). Within this framework, I aimed to reflect on the challenges for the individual trainee’s symbolic interests during a devised theatre process in a group setting. This specific question relates to a broader one, namely, that regarding the type of

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democracy that regulates collaboration in different group devised theatre settings. Mouffe’s work concerns the political arena, but her ideas can be applied to the micro-field of the devised theatre project and the training setting. The idea of distributing creative responsibilities in the rehearsal process with the aim of inviting each of the trainees to find and explore their agency resulted in internal conflicts. Some of the trainees celebrated the agonistic expression of passion during the rehearsals, but others saw it as antagonistic and problematic. Maria also noted that disagreements often delayed the rehearsal process (see Stamatiou “Reflections”). Mouffe writes that if passions are to be integrated in democratic practice, rather than eliminated in favour of rational argument, it is necessary to provide “a safety valve for highly controversial standpoints that might otherwise move towards more violent forms of expression: an explosion of antagonisms that can tear up the very basis of civility” (17). An example of a controversial standpoint is participant Tom’s statement that he felt he was being victimised and that his was a minority voice. Tom declared: I feel that my own personal political views were overlooked to a degree, as well as represented in a bad light. I understand this would be the case, given that my political views are currently in the minority, but I also believe this is a reflection on the ensemble’s political views or lack thereof. I feel that the representation given to my political views was that of the bad guy, the villain character so to speak. (qtd. in Stamatiou “Reflections”; emphasis added). After Tom revealed that he was a UKIP supporter, the group decided that he should play the part of Charon – the death deity from ancient Greek mythology who carried in his boat the souls of the newly deceased to the Underworld. The students’ shared habitus caused them to disapprove of Tom’s ideology, and so they felt it legitimate to give him the villain’s part. Tom’s case illustrates the democratic paradox: the democratic ideals of equality and popular sovereignty legitimised the group’s decision to make him play the villain. Tom, however, regarded the ‘villainisation’ of UKIP’s ideology to be an act of symbolic violence. He felt that the group was pushing him to misrepresent himself. Tom’s feeling of victimisation is controversial under the umbrella of the liberal ideology of modern democracy, which prioritises individual liberties and human rights over equality and popular sovereignty (see Mouffe 2). However, the ‘step forward’ device functioned as a safety valve. When the trainees were

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invited to say anything they wanted about the European election to the audience, Tom expressed his agonism: “I vote UKIP and I believe that UKIP are not a racist party and it is too easy to believe the tabloids” (Annie et al. 24). The pluralistic ‘step forward’ undermined the group’s decision to suppress Tom’s voice for supporting UKIP. The ‘step forward’ enabled an agonistic pluralism to emerge, which directly acknowledged the antagonistic nature of politics by emphasising rather than ignoring the role of affect and passion. The agonistic pluralism that emerged in the ‘step forward’ challenges established ideas about the theatre group as a community and about communities outside the theatre space. When asked about what they enjoyed about the process, many of the trainees used the word “ensemble” in their answer and some used the alternative terms “team work” and “working in a group” (qtd. in Stamatiou “Reflections”). This observation led to a fruitful consideration of the political design of the ensemble. John Britton claims that ensembles are characterised by their longevity, organisational structure, prior training and common purpose (“Introduction” 7). However, The Frogs project was different from this description of an ensemble on two main counts. Firstly, the devising democratic design that I established was based in an educational setting, and so its duration was limited and determined by that institution. The intimacy that was established at the start of the process was a means of ‘warming up’ the participants in the context of a project without longevity. Secondly, its particular organisational structure, where each trainee was given an equal opportunity to lead the group regardless of whether the other trainees considered them capable of doing so, qualified the objective of a ‘common purpose’. Instead, the notion of alternating leadership allowed all voices to be heard. The trainees did not negotiate over ideas, make compromises, or aim for unanimous or majority decisions. The clarity of the leadership model made any prior shared training, interests or purposes unnecessary.10 Britton classifies ensembles into those that are more individualistic, such as Strasberg’s or Stanislavski’s, and those that are more collective, like Peter Brook’s or Grotowski’s (see “Afterword” 413). In order to theorise the suggested devising design from a sociological perspective and locate it as a model for the more individual or more collective ensembles, I consider Taylor’s thinking on the liberal-communitarian debate (see 195). Taylor writes that the communitarian and liberal positions in social theory are not necessarily opposed. Rather, they share many aims. He argues that the confusion in the debate is caused by the fact that ontological and advocacy, or moral, issues are blended

10

The trainees had approximately the same amount of prior training.

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together. There is a range of positions between individual rights at one end of the spectrum and community life at the other. Taylor describes this positioning as more or less individualist or collectivist. I consider the ‘step forward’ to be positioned among the practices at the individualist end of the spectrum, as it aims to prioritise individual rights. It invites each individual to express their views and represent their own interests in the performance. At the same time, since the ‘step forward’ invited trainees to relate their own conception of the good in devised theatre and beyond within group collaboration, the specific actor-training framework recognises individual agents only as part of bigger social structures and not as separate units. Therefore, from an ontological perspective, the ‘step forward’ contributed to the social structuring of an ensemble that is, to use Taylor’s analysis (see 196), closer to the holists than the atomists. My proposed scheme, which would enable actors to explore their agency in the devised theatre setting, resonates with a holistic individualist social design, in which the individual is “fully aware of the (ontological) social embedding of human beings, but at the same time prizes liberty and individual differences very highly” (Taylor 196). The trainees should be encouraged to engage with the idea that they are a part of a bigger social structure. At the same time, they should collectively agree to support the individual interests of each member of the group in rotation. The willingness to support each participant’s plans in turn would be the shared doxa of the group members and individual plans would further determine the process.

5

Conclusion: The Holistic Individualist Actor-Training Model

Synthesising my critical reflections on how trainer-trainee and traineestrainee power relations in devised theatre can affect the individual trainee’s agency, the ‘step forward’ can be a means of understanding where the actor’s creative input and decisions originate. It can be used in rehearsal and performance to raise the actors’ awareness that their participation carries specific ideologies. By inviting the individual expression of political, religious and moral beliefs, it can become a relief valve for pedagogical or performance systems that seek to counter the neoliberal logic. Traditionally, relevant agents deny that artistic representations serve self-interests or dominant ideologies (see Bourdieu and Nice 261). The writer and the director may represent selfinterests or the dominant ideologies consciously or unconsciously. Even when this process is unconscious, the representations are embedded in the writer or director’s capital, habitus and doxa. They therefore serve their symbolic or ma-

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terial interests and, consequently, the symbolic and material interests of the social group that they consciously or unconsciously represent. When actors deliver the words of a writer in an acting setting, they become an involuntary agent of someone else’s agenda. Therefore, it might be expected that allowing an actor to speak their own devised words is a way of overcoming such subjection. However, this ignores the unconscious, culturally constructed assumptions that are embedded in the individual’s habitus and capital and the way they reproduce social and power relations. The mechanisms that underlie actor-training and devising do not necessarily reveal the cultural assumptions of the agents in the acting field. This makes them mechanisms of subjection to the shared rules – Bourdieu calls them doxa – that are unconsciously embedded in the habitus of most trainers and trainees. Using a device such as the ‘step forward’ and prioritising individual rights in devised theatre cannot alone protect agents from involuntary subordination. These strategies need to be complemented with specific tools that further encourage participants to explore how their capital and habitus affect the devising process. Participants should be urged to consider their false consciousness during the devising process and to think consciously about what they want to represent on and off the stage. Even though more strategies are required that will further reveal hidden ideologies in devised theatre practices, Aristophanes’s ‘step forward’ can be used in contemporary actor-training as a first step for trainees to find and explore their agency. It can place the trainees’ symbolic interests, capital, habitus and doxa at the centre of the devising process and invite them to explore how the symbolic representation of their own conception of the good in devised theatre affects their agency. The ability to identify and analyse how their biases in social life affect their creative input helps trainees to think about how symbolic interests may be invested in any form of production – not just artistic production. This understanding enables them to act as actors, inside and outside the theatre space, who are not subjected involuntary agents of unconscious symbolic interests but subjective voluntary agents of the symbolic interests that they choose. There are also several findings to take forward from the reflection on the democratic paradox in relation to the 2014 The Frogs project. The neoliberal logic of the student-consumer and the prioritisation of individual rights over popular sovereignty challenge trainers that apply devised theatre pedagogies. It is important to establish early in the devising process where a specific model is positioned among other group training models or ensembles. This positioning establishes the rules of the game or the trainees’ shared doxa. Britton writes that “we cannot train an ensemble, it is an illusion. But we can train individu-

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als to create and sustain that illusion” (“Afterword” 413). This highlights the romanticism that is embedded in the more collectivist ensemble structures, where it is claimed that a trainer can surpass the individual and train something beyond it: the collective. In the suggested holistic individualist training model, what would be expected to sustain the ensemble is a democratic design which itself is framed and underpinned by the driving forces of individuals, who agonistically ‘step forward’ to represent their interests inside and outside the theatre space.

Works Cited Annie et al. The Frogs 2014. Adaptation from Aristophanes, 2014 (unpublished manuscript). Aristophanes. Aristophanes: Frogs. Translated by Alan H. Sommerstein, Aris and Phillips, 1996. Bourdieu, Pierre. In Other Words: Essays Towards a Reflexive Sociology. Stanford UP, 1990. Bourdieu, Pierre. The Logic of Practice. Stanford UP, 1990. Bourdieu, Pierre. “The Practice of Reflexive Sociology (The Paris Workshop).” An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, by Pierre Bourdieu and Loïc J. D. Wacquant, Polity Press, 1992, pp. 216-60. Bourdieu, Pierre. “Participant Objectivation.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, vol. 9, no. 2, 2003, pp. 281-94. Bourdieu, Pierre. “The Forms of Capital.” 1986. Cultural Theory: An Anthology, edited by Imre Szeman and Timothy Kaposi, Wiley-Blackwell, 2011, pp. 81-93. Bourdieu, Pierre, and Richard Nice. “The Production of Belief: Contribution to an Economy of Symbolic Goods.” Media, Culture & Society, vol. 2, no. 3, 1980, pp. 261-93. Bourdieu, Pierre, and Loïc J. D. Wacquant. “The Purpose of Reflexive Sociology (The Chicago Workshop).” An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, by Pierre Bourdieu and Loïc J. D. Wacquant, Polity Press, 1992, pp. 61-215. Britton, John. “Introduction.” Encountering Ensemble, edited by John Britton, Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2013, pp. 3-47. Britton, John. “Afterword: What is it?” Encountering Ensemble, edited by John Britton, Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2013, pp. 411-14. Competition and Markets Authority. “UK Higher Education Providers – Advice on Consumer Protection Law.” Crown, 2015, assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/ government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/428549/HE_providers _-_advice_on_consumer_protection_law.pdf. Accessed 8 Dec. 2019.

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Equity. “Copyright Advice Leaflet for Equity Members.” Apr. 2014, equitydance.files .wordpress.com/2014/04/equity-copyright-guide.pdf. Accessed 2 Dec. 2017. Green Party. “2014 European Election Broadcast: Green Party.” 2 Apr. 14, www.youtube .com/watch?v=BDsV8YumePk. Accessed 27 Apr. 2020. Kapsali, Maria, ed. Training, Politics and Ideology, special issue of Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, vol. 5, no. 2, 2014. Mouffe, Chantal. The Democratic Paradox. Verso, 2000. Navarro, Zander. “In Search of a Cultural Interpretation of Power: The Contribution of Pierre Bourdieu.” IDS Bulletin, vol. 37, no. 6, 2006, pp. 11-22. Ray, Michael. “United Kingdom Independent Party.” Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9 June 2017, www.britannica.com/topic/United-Kingdom-Independence-Party. Accessed 28 Dec. 2017. Sen, Amartya. “Well-being, Agency and Freedom: The Dewey Lectures 1984.” The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 82, no. 4, 1985, pp. 169-221. Sigal, Sarah Caroline. The Role of the Writer and Authorship in New Collaborative Performance-Making in the United Kingdom from 2001-2010. Goldsmiths College, U of London, PhD dissertation, 2013, research.gold.ac.uk/9458/1/TAP_thesis_Sigal _2013.pdf. Accessed 26 Aug. 2017. Sommerstein, Alan H. “Introduction.” Aristophanes: Frogs. Translated by Alan H. Sommerstein, Aris and Phillips, 1996, pp. 1-23. Stamatiou, Evi. Caryatid Unplugged. 2013 (unpublished manuscript). Stamatiou, Evi. “Reflections on The Frogs.” 2014 (unpublished email questionnaire). Stamatiou, Evi. “Caryatid Unplugged: A Cabaret on Performing and Negotiating Belonging and Otherness in Exile.” Performing Exile: Foreign Bodies, edited by Judith Rudakoff, Intellect, 2017, pp. 195-216. Taylor, Charles. “Cross-purposes: The Liberal-Communitarian Debate.” Debates in Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Anthology, edited by Derek Matravers and Jon Pike, Routledge, 2003, pp. 195-212. Wiles, David. Theatre and Citizenship: The History of a Practice, Cambridge UP, 2011.

Part 2 Contemporary (Debates on) Political Theatre

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Contemporary (Debates on) Political Theatre An Introduction Paola Botham

Political theatre today is in a curious position vis-à-vis theatre scholarship. On the one hand, there are strong signs of a renewed interest in this kind of practice, after the many post-Cold War dismissals proved too hasty. On the other, habitual expectations about what a political play or performance is and what it can do have been relentlessly questioned, with revised parameters emerging. All six chapters in this section put forward valuable contributions to the current dialogue using novel frameworks and fresh case studies that – even if the temptation to generalise is duly resisted – offer numerous pixels in a composite picture of political theatre for the twenty-first century. This introduction aims at gathering some of these ideas and placing them alongside other recent interventions in an academic exchange that is still far from reaching settled conclusions. In The Contemporary Political Play: Rethinking Dramaturgical Structure, a book that seeks to redefine political theatre in Britain, Sarah Grochala begins from a comprehensive premise, asserting that stage pieces can “function politically on a number of different levels: their ostensibly political content; their creator’s political intentions; their political function; the political context of their production; the politics of their mode of production; by challenging or confirming their audience’s beliefs; and the politics of the structure that make up their form” (11). Although she eventually focuses on the final element, the “politics of form” (22), which has become contested territory (see below), the attempt to consider all different factors constitutes a productive opening for the debate. The wide-ranging perspective just outlined is precisely where this section starts, with Bérénice Hamidi-Kim’s spirited reassessment of the state of political theatre in France from what she terms a ‘socio-aesthetic’ methodology, that is, one that accounts not only for actual artistic objects but also for the “social environment in which they are produced, circulated and received”. Such an approach, Hamidi-Kim emphasises, also allows for an inspection of “the political ambitions underpinning theatrical works”, where she discovers conspicuous examples of ideological blind spots. This issue of authorial intention – the second item on Grochala’s list – is worth highlighting, as its currency has been restored following a long period when it fell “out of fashion”

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(Grochala 8) in literature and theatre criticism.1 Grochala’s justification for it in the context of political theatre is convincing enough: “if political theatre were defined exclusively in terms of theatre that can be empirically proven to have had a direct political impact, the field of study would be very small indeed” (9). As if taking up the aforementioned challenge, Madli Pesti’s essay in this collection explores the work of the acclaimed Estonian ensemble Theatre NO99 through the lens of the ‘theatrical event’ (see Sauter). This implies extending the scope of analysis from text and performance to both the carefully orchestrated public preambles the Tallinn-based troupe was famous for and the actual influence some of its productions arguably had on Estonia’s political life. Like Grochala, Pesti proposes a broad set of criteria whereby a play can be deemed ‘political’, comprising thematic, ideological, aesthetic and functional principles. The last measure inevitably contains the thorny question of whether theatre is able to trigger progressive change in society, and the verdict on Theatre NO99 is mixed. While the company’s creation of a fictional political party in Ühtne Eesti (Unified Estonia, 2010) has been credited with a snowballing effect that resulted, among other things, in the founding of a real pro-transparency civic movement, the 2015 political musical Savisaar – Pesti’s main case study – might have unwittingly increased the electoral tally of the controversial politician cited in the title. Bridging Hamidi-Kim’s and Pesti’s chapters is Aneta Głowacka’s dissection of political theatre in Poland, a country whose theatrical landscape is akin to that of France according to Hamidi-Kim but which shares its communist past with the Republic of Estonia. After a panoramic overview of Polish political theatre in the twentieth century, Głowacka concentrates on three contemporary practitioners – Monika Strzępka, Paweł Demirski and Jan Klata – who have revitalised the old ‘plebeian’ heritage of comedy as an artistic strategy for subversion, angering the nation’s long-established arbiters of theatrical taste in the process. Common features identified by Głowacka in several waves of post-communist political theatre are “a disregard for […] convention and tradition” and “an appetite for reinterpreting classical texts by placing them in the present”. Both these iconoclastic traits can be located today without much effort in other geographic areas, including those where past political horrors have come from the opposite end of the ideological spectrum. I am referring to Latin America and, more specifically, Chile, which is the setting of the fourth essay in this section (and my own place of birth). 1 More recently, the pervasiveness of Rancièrian thought appears to have exacerbated what Emine Fişek calls the “disavowal of political intention” (358) in theatre theory and practice. Some of Jacques Rancière’s claims are briefly discussed below.

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In consonance with the alliance between theatre and civil society discussed by Pesti in relation to NO99’s Ühtne Eesti, Camila González Ortiz coins the term ‘Citizens’ Turn’ to designate the synergy between the rise of social movements in Chile from 2006 and a new generation of theatre artists, both of which have been mobilised by the shortcomings of the restored democratic system that followed Augusto Pinochet’s right-wing military regime (19731990). Among several companies and playwrights who are highly sceptical of “the neoliberal processes of modernisation effected during the dictatorship, as well as the policies of the post-dictatorship governments and the behaviour of the political class in general”, the author singles out Chilean collective La Resentida. Their “visceral, radical and insolent” tactics, González Ortiz claims, amount to a ‘poetics of the literal’ that rejects metaphor – initially developed under censorship and violence – as the preferred vehicle for political theatre. Similarly, Głowacka and Pesti report that the “allusiveness” of political plays, born of necessity during communism, has been replaced by a more direct and at times uncomfortable theatrical language. Writing about China, where the Communist Party still rules while, paradoxically, global capitalism advances towards ‘hypermodernity’ (see Lipovetsky), Wei Zheyu notes a comparable directness in the ethos of Grass Stage, a nonprofessional company that preserves its independence by surviving without state sponsorship or commercial revenue. Taking its cue from ‘people’s theatre’ models in Asia and Latin America – Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed in particular – this group attributes special importance to the interaction with audiences, both during and after performances. For Wei, Grass Stage’s devised productions, made for touring and often performed in non-theatre spaces, promote a frank and necessary dialogue about the local consequences of globalisation. In the case of World Factory (2014), a Chinese-British collaborative project, spectators are confronted with the precarious situation of migrant workers in contemporary China, the parallels that can be drawn with working conditions in England after the Industrial Revolution, and the environmental perils of large-scale manufacturing today. Inviting audiences to think ‘towards’ change is also key for Andy Smith, whose enquiry into his own ‘dematerialised theatre’ closes this section and the volume as a whole. Although inspired by the less direct, more evocative character of conceptual art, Smith’s practice chimes with the accessibility and portability of Grass Stage’s low-budget performances.2 Accordingly, ‘lightness’ 2 In a different context, Wei describes Grass Stage in contrasting terms as performing a ‘rematerialisation’ of the stage. This is said to occur when intermediality – created by the use of projection and recorded music – is combined with the ‘communal memory’ of a non-theatre space (see Wei).

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is one of five propositions he links to his version of political theatre, the others being ‘theatreness’, ‘togetherness’, ‘presentness’ and ‘hopefulness’. ‘Lightness’ refers not only to the work being “easy to transport and tour”, but also to Smith’s purpose “to entertain and engage an audience rather than be argumentative or aggressive”. ‘Theatreness’ suggests a reflexive quality, pursuing “an experiential heightening of the practice and reception of theatre itself”, whereas ‘togetherness’ acknowledges the spectators’ commitment to the live event as an enabler of agency. As a complement to the above, ‘presentness’ binds the work to the ‘here and now’, even though other scenarios are conjured up through storytelling, and ‘hopefulness’ fosters “a connection between thought and action”. Smith reviews these five guiding principles via two of his monologues, the British-Norwegian commissions all that is solid melts into air (2011) and commonwealth (2012).

1

Beyond Representation?

Reiterating political theatre’s attentiveness to what happens beyond stage and auditorium, Smith is keen for the audience “to see what occurs in the theatre as part of the world rather than as something separate from it”, yet at the same time he avoids “trying to represent aspects of our life and society realistically”. While Smith makes a distinction between his concept of ‘presentness’ and that of ‘presence’, about which he has some reservations, the latter is invoked in relation to other practitioners discussed in this section. González Ortiz explains the ‘literalism’ of La Re-sentida in terms of their desire to present on stage not “a symbol of an aspect of reality but […] a reality in its own right”, Pesti describes NO99’s aesthetics as “an eclectic mix of representational and non-representational styles” and Wei quotes Zhao Chuan – director of Grass Stage – stating that the company’s methodology “is not representation [of social life], but infiltration and interference on a real level”.3 The dichotomy of ‘representation’ versus ‘presence’ has indeed been paramount to new interpretations of the political in the wake of Hans-Thies Lehmann’s influential 1999 treatise Postdramatic Theatre (translated into English in 2006). Florian Malzacher summarises the argument as follows:

3 However, both Pesti and Wei do not fully discard the use of metaphor as part of an array of resources that, on the whole, align NO99 and Grass Stage with the postdramatic paradigm. Wei characterises Grass Stage as “combining physical theatre, postdramatic text, documentary theatre, multimedia installation and spectator-performer interaction”.

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At the centre of the critique of dramatic theatre stood its use of however estranged mimetic representation, which was seen as discredited and was subsequently confronted with the notion of presence. […] Instead of representing a (fake) situation in order to critique it the aim was to create a (real) situation in the co-presence of the audience, focusing on the here and now of the experience. (18-19) This critique of representation is twofold, regarding both the artistic and the political meaning of the word. In the former sense, mimesis ceases to be trusted when the ‘real’ is no longer perceived as stable or, as Karen JürsMunby puts it in her introduction to Lehman’s eponymous book, “postdramatic theatre has […] not given up on relating to the world but crucially no longer represents the world as a surveyable whole” (12). In the latter sense, “the questions that currently haunt all democracies – who is being represented in which way by whom and with what right? – are mirrored in theatre” (Malzacher 24; see also González Ortiz in this volume). The first objection, to representation as mimesis, will be examined in the segment below, so let us probe the second here. Although Malzacher considers pluralism the only way forward, he recognises that strategies of “self-representation”, such as ‘real people’ replacing professional performers or actors playing themselves,4 may end up with “respect for ‘the other’ […] turned into either its fetishisation or into the self-centredness of believing one’s own living room to be the world” (25). In her recent article “A Victory for Real People: Dangers in the Discourse of Democratisation”, Liz Tomlin elaborates on the limitations of this particular practice, most often associated with Berlin-based company Rimini Protokoll and their use of so-called ‘experts of the everyday’,5 but which she also sees as a reflection of the political climate surrounding the UK vote to leave the European Union in 2016. As well as highlighting the risks of “exoticisation” and “voyeurism” involved in treating class difference as an unspoken assumption in the performance of ‘real people’ (“A Victory” 237), Tomlin draws attention to 4 Either of – or both – these strategies feature in the work analysed by all contributors to this section, with the notable exception of Smith, whose (predominantly ‘solo’) practice is based on fictional storytelling. See also Boll in Part 1 for a politically potent example of selftestimony on stage. 5 Tomlin traces this ‘discourse of democratisation’ to Lehman and includes one of Rimini Protokoll’s projects among other examples of participatory and verbatim theatre. Also, drawing on Ulrike Garde and Meg Mumford, Tomlin identifies the two sides of the move away from representation mentioned above – that is, ‘real people’ are both “people that are not fictional characters, and people that are not theatre professionals” (Tomlin, “A Victory” 237).

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the “ideological scripts” concealed behind the apparent authenticity of these voices, scripts that are in fact “written by experts, whether or not the experts care to show their hand” (247). Within Hamidi-Kim’s taxonomy of contemporary definitions of political theatre, this type of documentary work pertains to the realm of the ‘post-political’, which she characterises as a rather nihilistic strand that recycles old radical theatre forms “from which all political potential has been scooped out”. There is another way in which the postdramatic displays its supposed democratic credentials. As Pesti argues in this volume, the non-hierarchical arrangement of different components in postdramatic performance is perceived as giving audiences greater interpretive freedom. A similar observation, however, has been made with regard to contemporary non-realist (but still dramatic?) plays by virtue of what Vicky Angelaki calls “the core dramaturgical device of stories in formation” (3). In other words, “we are in a space of exchange where we are called to think, question, judge and be moved rather than consume a politically gratifying message that might reaffirm any given spectator’s ideological or intellectual superiority” (Angelaki 3). Both these persuasive claims seem to correspond with the anti-mastery Rancièrian approach to art and spectatorship, which is also how Smith frames his effort to facilitate a “humble” relationship between the stage and the audience. Smith follows Rancière in challenging the traditional understanding of viewing as inherently passive, supporting instead the philosopher’s statement that “[t]he spectator also acts” (Rancière 13). In consequence, rather than opting for immersive settings or the aforesaid performance of ‘real people’ in order to, presumably, ‘activate’ the audience, Smith relies on the simplicity of the black box space. A related but more provocative hypothesis by Rancière concerns the alleged ‘efficacy’ of art, where he criticises discourses that cling to what he considers a naïve and outdated pattern: We may no longer believe that the exhibition of virtues and vice on the stage can correct human behaviour. But we are still prone to believe that the reproduction in resin of a commercial idol will make us resist the empire of the ‘spectacle’ or that the photography of some atrocity will mobilize us against injustice. Modern or postmodern as we purport to be, we easily forget that the consistency of this model was called into question as early as the 1750s. (61) This guarded stance, which only acknowledges “a paradoxical kind of efficacy that is produced by the very rupturing of any determinate link between cause and effect” (63), has had a remarkable impact on theatre scholarship. As a case

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in point, Głowacka’s contribution to this section also calls upon Rancière when discussing Strzępka and Demirski’s reluctance to attribute “causal power” to their work. Yet the Rancièrian outlook has not been free from scrutiny. For instance, Malzacher’s assertion that “[c]omplexity can become an excuse for intellectual and political relativism” points to the problematic side of Rancière’s “scepticism towards any clear political statement in art and his valorising of the power of ambiguity and rupture” (20). Moreover, to what extent form itself can be deemed political and whether non-experimental theatrical forms should be excluded from such categorisation are matters of intense debate, as the next segment will demonstrate.

2

The Politics of Form

The postdramatic turn in theatre studies has also promoted an emphasis on form against content as the decisive factor that makes stage material ‘political’. For Lehmann, “It is not through the direct thematization of the political that theatre becomes political but through the implicit substance and critical value of its mode of representation” (178). This indicates, as the introduction to the collection Postdramatic Theatre and the Political: International Perspectives on Contemporary Performance spells out, that the “modes of political engagement” of the postdramatic “are significantly different to what has previously been considered ‘political theatre’” (Carroll et al. 1). Brandon Woolf remarks in the same volume that this analysis has now extended beyond academics “concerned only with the postdramatic”, noting that “[i]n place of the contentbased ‘political theatre’, critics have begun to explore theatre’s (negative) political potential as much more indirect, much more unpredictable” (44). Perceptively, Woolf detects here the influence of Frankfurt School thinker Theodor Adorno. Grochala’s reconceptualisation of the political play serves to illustrate Woolf’s point. Although she is not dealing directly with postdramatic practices and despite proposing the multifaceted description quoted at the beginning of this introduction, her book sanctions the privileging of form above all other aspects. She declares that “a political play is not necessarily a play that addresses a political issue; rather, it is a play that opens the audience’s eyes to how the world could be different” (22) and concludes the paragraph with a citation from Adorno. An alternative view, however, can be found once again in Tomlin, whose 2013 monograph Acts and Apparitions: Discourses of the Real in Performance Practice and Theory (1990-2010) attempts to dismantle the “ideological opposition” between the dramatic and the postdramatic (9). Ten-

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dering a word of caution on the Adornian claim “that aesthetic form can offer radical political transgression, regardless of the specific content or context of the work” (Acts and Apparitions 48), Tomlin expresses reasonable doubts on what may have become a new orthodoxy. She writes, “the conclusive alignment of ideological characteristics on the basis of form alone is ultimately self-defeating, and destructive to the future development of new strategies and contexts in which radical models of performance, and their relationship with ever-changing notions of ‘the real’, can be conceived” (12). According to Woolf, the connection between Adorno and Lehmann sustains the latter’s complex critique of mimetic representation, since “[m]imesis, for Adorno, does not consist of a dutiful copying of reality, a subsumption of the aesthetic by the real” (41). On the contrary – continues Woolf in a formulation close to Grochala’s – “[b]y refusing to imitate the administered world, [art] indicates the possibility, albeit negatively, of another world that is not yet here” (42). However compelling this may sound as a manifesto, the potential exclusionary effects for the theory and practice of political theatre underlined by Tomlin cannot be ignored. Furthermore, as she has pointed out elsewhere with specific reference to political playwriting in Britain, such a position would bring about the unwarranted dismissal of “the broadly realist work of black dramatists such as Roy Williams and Kwame Kwei-Armah whose theatre might be argued to deconstruct and challenge, not primarily the dominant aesthetic form of the dramatic model, but the predominantly white and Eurocentric ownership of all its various [past] manifestations” (Tomlin, “Foreword” x). A similar apprehension about the wholesale discrediting of realism has been articulated from a feminist perspective by Elaine Aston, who advises that in the “increasingly reactionary, neoliberal climate” that has prevailed so far in the twenty-first century, “a more inclusive approach is […] needed to understand how socially progressive interests, feminist or otherwise, are being addressed in theatre and performance”. Drawing on Raymond Williams’s “Lecture on Realism” from 1977, Aston stresses that “the political impulse or dynamic within any dramatic form is conditioned by the socio-political pulse” and, therefore, “[c]ontext and form, not form alone, coordinate the political fabric of the drama” (19). Within this framework, she focuses on three plays by women that premiered at London’s Royal Court between 2007 and 2012, Fiona Evans’s Scarborough, Lucy Kirkwood’s NSFW and Anupama Chandrasekhar’s Free Outgoing. All three, for Aston, provide “‘more fluid’ applications of realism [that] reflect a shift away from those conservatively formed, phallocentric uses of the genre that were previously the object of feminist criticism” (32). While Aston notices a heterogeneous contemporary realism, which she terms ‘viral’ so as to emphasise “its capacity for genetic mutation” (33),

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Grochala queries the ability of the foundational political play – “a play that yokes together the dialectical discussion of a political issue with a realist dramaturgy” (13) – to adapt and retain its progressive character in the present. Grochala builds on Zygmunt Bauman’s diagnosis of a ‘liquid’ phase of modernity to depict our time as one of “insecurity, uncertainty and unsafety” (16) to which only equally ‘liquid dramaturgies’ can do justice.6 In such conditions, she contends, the paradigm of ‘serious drama’, which has served as a blueprint for political theatre in Britain ever since its inception in the late nineteenth century through the work of George Bernard Shaw, becomes reactionary: The structures of serious drama reproduce structures that are associated with solid modernity and as such they are inadequate to capture the complex and ever-shifting social structures of liquid modernity. Serious drama can offer a critique of current political issues in its content and offer imaginary resolutions to these problems through dialectical discussion, but by reproducing rational representations of social structures through its dramaturgy, serious drama misrepresents the complex mechanisms that underlie the process of thinking, planning and taking action in a globalized society. (Grochala 219) Although the contemporary viability of the Shavian model has been disputed many times before (see, for instance, Grimes), the reverse is also the case. In an article published in 2014, Ellen Redling salutes the rise of a new crop of British ‘plays of ideas’ typified by “discussion” over action and the tackling of “larger issues” instead of micro-narratives (160). Redling places this development within the context of a revival of “deliberative democracy” in the West, with deliberation understood as “ordinary people thinking for themselves rather than handing over responsibilities to others unquestioningly” (161). In light of such conflicting arguments, it might be wise to take another look at Aston’s choice of adjective and wonder whether it is possible that more ‘fluid’ versions of previous political theatre forms could be deployed to suit the demands of today. Perhaps this is exactly what González Ortiz’s account of La Re-sentida’s play La imaginación del futuro (Imagination of the Future, 2013) shows: in an analysis inspired by Bauman as well, twenty-first century politicians portrayed in ‘liquid’ mode coexist with a ‘solid’ assessment of Chile’s unreformed social and economic system. Bauman’s theory of late modernity is also cited by Wei regarding China’s rapid transformation and by Smith 6 Summarising rather crudely, Grochala’s ‘liquid dramaturgies’ encompass simultaneous time, virtual and layered spatial arrangements, indeterminate plots and subjectively constructed characters.

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on the damaging effects this ‘liquid’ environment has on individual agency. That Smith’s ‘life-size’ dramaturgy – a very different proposition to the plays examined by Grochala – responds directly to the deficit in social solidarity which concerned Bauman attests to the multifarious nature of current political theatre, where prescriptions are likely to be counterproductive.

3

The Politics of History

As depicted by Hamidi-Kim, the aforesaid notion of the ‘post-political’ is informed by postmodernist philosophy and an accompanying conception of history as “no longer […] moving ahead towards a better future but forever bogged down in an everlasting present that keeps repeating itself”. However, there is evidence to suggest that contemporary culture is stepping beyond this milieu. For Siân Adiseshiah and Louise LePage, “detectable markers” of such a shift include “a revival of belief, a rehabilitation of agency and [as mentioned above] a (re)turn to realism” (4). A fresh engagement with history is also afoot, which at least in Britain has resulted in the proliferation of new plays set in the past that – as Brechtian ‘historicisation’ advocates – concomitantly explore the present. As I have argued, the twenty-first-century history play can be said to “combine ‘metahistorical’ reflexivity with key aspects of the radical/oppositional/revisionist model”, enacting a synthesis between contemporary and earlier traditions of political theatre. Therefore, “[w]hile the suspicion over received historical wisdom remains a core feature, the alternative provided is a set of questions and/or possible directions rather than the certainty offered by modern teleologies” (Botham 89). History is pivotal to the stage work addressed by Głowacka, Pesti, González Ortiz and Wei in this section. Strzępka, Demirski and Klata in Poland, Theatre NO99 in Estonia and La Re-sentida in Chile fuse an acerbic critique of national(ist) narratives – especially those of a mythical heroic past – with innovative dramaturgies that are not afraid of fictionalisation and/or parody, whereas Grass Stage’s World Factory connects globalised China today to industrial Manchester in the nineteenth century. At the same time, the very history of political theatre is revisited in these case studies, with current practitioners injecting new life into old forms. Głowacka travels as far back as ancient Greece to unearth a tradition of popular comedy that, continuing through Polish cabaret into contemporary performance, has not lost any of its bite. In a similar vein, González Ortiz finds in the figure of the fool or bouffon the perfect antecedent to La Re-sentida’s aesthetics of ‘excess’, with clowning also being at the centre of the Grass Stage devised routines described by Wei. Pesti spots

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a tension between the legacy of Bertolt Brecht and the postdramatic turn7 in the aims and style of Theatre NO99 and Smith returns to storytelling for his ‘dematerialised’ practice. Meanwhile, the scheme formulated by HamidiKim in the opening chapter, where four definitions of political theatre compete for our attention, is a healthy reminder that parallel understandings of artistic practice can and do exist simultaneously, even if recognition is always selective. As I conclude this third and final introduction to the volume, I would like to consider yet another angle to the historical dimension by recalling Steve Tillis’s defence of ‘world theatre history’ as “a more or less integrated view of theatre history in multiple regions of the world”, which “encourages […] linkages that derive both from actual contact and from aesthetic similarity” (389-90). In framing the individual chapters brought together in this collection we have attempted such an exercise of integration without imposing a preset editorial agenda. That is to say, the architecture – and geographical scope – of this book responds to the actual conversation of the Political Performances Working Group in its second decade of existence, rendering found synergies as genuine instances of cultural interaction. Another aspect of this conversation has always been a two-way transit between academia and theatre practice, and this is why both parts of the present anthology end with the reflections of a practitioner over what it means to create political theatre and performance today.

Works Cited Adiseshiah, Siân, and Louise LePage. “Introduction: What Happens Now.” Twenty-First Century Drama: What Happens Now, edited by Siân Adiseshiah and Louise LePage, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, pp. 1-13. Angelaki, Vicky. Social and Political Theatre in 21st-Century Britain: Staging Crisis, Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2017. Aston, Elaine. “Room for Realism?” Twenty-First Century Drama: What Happens Now, edited by Siân Adiseshiah and Louise LePage, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, pp. 17-35. Barnett, David. “Performing Dialectics in an Age of Uncertainty, or: Why PostBrechtian 6= Postdramatic.” Postdramatic Theatre and the Political, edited by Karen Jürs-Munby et al., Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2013, pp. 47-66.

7 See Barnett for a meticulous study of the differences between the ‘post-Brechtian’ and the postdramatic.

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Botham, Paola. “The Twenty-First-Century History Play.” Twenty-First Century Drama: What Happens Now, edited by Siân Adiseshiah and Louise LePage, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, pp. 81-103. Carroll, Jerome, et al. “Introduction: Postdramatic Theatre and the Political.” Postdramatic Theatre and the Political, edited by Karen Jürs-Munby et al., Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2013, pp. 1-30. Fişek, Emine. “Palimpsests of Violence: Urban Dispossession and Political Theatre in Contemporary Turkey.” Comparative Drama, vol. 52, nos. 3 and 4, 2018, pp. 349-71. Grimes, Charles. “Bernard Shaw’s Theory of Political Theatre: Difficulties from the Vantages of Postmodern and Modern Types of the Self.” Shaw, vol. 22, 2002, pp. 11730. Grochala, Sarah. The Contemporary Political Play: Rethinking Dramaturgical Structure, Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2017. Jürs-Munby, Karen. “Introduction.” Postdramatic Theatre, by Hans-Thies Lehmann, translated by Karen Jürs-Munby, Routledge, 2006, pp. 1-15. Lehmann, Hans-Thies. Postdramatic Theatre. Translated by Karen Jürs-Munby, Routledge, 2006. Lipovetsky, Gilles. Hypermodern Times. Translated by Andrew Brown, Polity, 2005. Malzacher, Florian. “No Organum to Follow: Possibilities of Political Theatre Today.” Not Just a Mirror: Looking for the Political Theatre of Today, edited by Florian Malzacher, House on Fire, Live Art Development Agency and Alexander Verlag, 2015, pp. 16-30. Rancière, Jacques. The Emancipated Spectator. Translated by Gregory Elliott, Verso, 2009. Redling, Ellen. “New Plays of Ideas and an Aesthetics of Reflection and Debate in Contemporary British Political Drama.” Journal of Contemporary Drama in English, vol. 2, no. 1, 2014, pp. 159-69. Sauter, Willmar. “Introducing the Theatrical Event.” Theatrical Events: Borders, Dynamics, Frames, edited by Vicky Ann Cremona et al., Rodopi, 2004, pp. 3-14. Tillis, Steve. “The Case against World Theatre History.” New Theatre Quarterly, vol. 28, no. 4, 2012, pp. 379-91. Tomlin, Liz. “Foreword: Dramatic Developments.” Contemporary British Theatre: Breaking New Ground, edited by Vicky Angelaki, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, pp. viii-xxvi. Tomlin, Liz. Acts and Apparitions: Discourses of the Real in Performance Practice and Theory (1990-2010), Manchester University Press, 2013. Tomlin, Liz. “A Victory for Real People: Dangers in the Discourse of Democratisation.” Journal of Contemporary Drama in English, vol. 6, no. 1, 2018, pp. 234-48. Wei, Zheyu. “Re-Materialising the Theatrical Public Sphere Through Intermediality in Grass Stage’s World Factory.” Intermedial Performance and Politics in the Public Sphere, edited by Katia Arfara et al., Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, pp. 209-27.

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Woolf, Brandon. “Towards a Paradoxically Parallaxical Postdramatic Politics?” Postdramatic Theatre and the Political, edited by Karen Jürs-Munby et al., Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2013, pp. 31-46.

The Politics of Theatre in France Today Bérénice Hamidi-Kim

Abstract The idea that theatre is a political art par excellence is commonplace, especially in France. It is on this founding myth – an updated version of the ancient Greek agora – that the French ‘public theatre’, financed by central and regional public authorities, is based. This chapter begins by considering the causes of this myth and its effects. It then shows that the expression ‘political theatre’ actually covers a plurality of ways of thinking about the political function of this art, which coexist today in France, and which to a certain extent clash, both ideologically and aesthetically. Consequently, the overall aim of the essay is to present what I have called, borrowing from pragmatic sociology, four ‘cities of political theatre’: the post-political theatre, the oecumenical political theatre, the rebuilding of the theatrical and political community, and the theatre of political struggle.

“The theatre is an essentially political art form”. Who has not heard this catchphrase, proudly proclaimed by all and sundry among the players in the French theatrical world – or to be more precise, in the French ‘public theatre’? The publicly-funded theatre in France is indeed grounded in a specific ideology, co-built and commonly shared by artists and public authorities. In this field, the notion that the theatre is an updated version of the ancient Greek agora, with the audience acting as a miniature model of the civil community as a whole, is so widespread that it is never called into question. Instead, I propose to consider this view and the metaphor of the agora not as self-evident truths but as social constructs whose aesthetic and political causes and effects need to be assessed. In so doing, I will not take up the comfortable stance of the radical researcher observing the scene with a critical eye from a high, distant vantage point. Rather, it is my hope that careful scrutiny of the many different ways of conceiving and putting into effect the political function of the theatre may provide tools for better apprehending the structural as well as cyclical crisis the public theatre is currently going through in France. A preliminary question would be whether or not the remarks I am going to make about the French scene may or may not apply elsewhere. Though I will not draw an international comparison here, it is my understanding, based on discussions with colleagues from different European countries (Germany,

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Poland and Finland mostly), that the French theatrical field has much more in common with foreign ones than we, French researchers, tend to believe. Indeed, we tend to emphasise the specificity of the republican ideology, with its notion of public service, hence of a theatrical public service, but it appears that two very important views are actually widely shared elsewhere. First, the idea that among all the art forms, theatre has a specific, ontological political mission, most often related to a reference to the ancient Greek model. The second commonly held view is that this historical mission has recently been put to the test owing to an ideological upheaval, frequently summed up by the phrase ‘neoliberal era’.

1

Does the French Theatrical World Live in a Neoliberal Era?

This expression, which features in the titles of many recent works drawing – explicitly or not – on Michel Foucault’s analytical framework in Naissance de la biopolitique (The Birth of Biopolitics), refers to a turning point in contemporary capitalism which results from its internal transformations (that is to say, the switch from industrial to financial capitalism) and mostly from the unprecedented hegemony of capitalist principles in this time of globalisation. Not only do they now permeate all the domains of economic and social life (see Audier; Dardot and Laval), but they no longer have to compete with any rival ideology since all the major narratives, in particular the great Marxist one, have been discredited. In view of the sway now held by this framework of analysis, it seems to me that we should carry out three tasks, which I will now expound, focusing entirely on the French scene. Firstly, we obviously need to gauge the actual effects of neoliberalism. As has been the case in all areas of public policy, performing arts professionals have been going through a major upheaval since the new rules of public management started to prevail in France. The change occurred at a later date than in other countries (around 2009), but it was profound and has had considerable effects on the economy of live performing arts. For example, publicly-owned theatres have been increasingly urged, if not quite to turn into profit-making institutions, at least to become less dependent on public funding by augmenting their own financial resources via steeper ticket prices and merchandise, and by selling every ticket available, which means considering that the value of a show depends on its ability to be liked by as many people as possible. This is a dramatic turning point in French artistic public policies, because it was precisely with a view to preserving artists from relying on audience revenue that they were invented in the first place, ‘popular theatre’ meaning in France not publicly acclaimed

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theatre, but a theatre worthy of the people, elevating them as better individuals as well as better citizens (see Hamidi-Kim, “Théâtres populaires”). In the second place, however, we should be careful not to exaggerate the extent of this change, for a close analysis of the institutional landscape of the French theatre reveals that although neoliberalism is spreading within the public administration, it is certainly not the sole driving force behind public policies. They are on the whole still informed by completely different values, mostly derived from the mission assigned to the Ministry of Cultural Affairs when it was created in 1959: the promotion of a universalist culture, clearly focused on the power of creation and, since the 1970s-1980s, officially concerned not only with the established repertoire but with the avantgarde as well. We may wonder whether denying this permanency and focusing all the attention on the recent ideological change might not be a convenient way of leaving aside the embarrassing questions still raised by this model. Hence, a third task needs to be fulfilled in France specifically, as this country is not currently in a situation where neoliberalism has totally changed the face of the welfare state: we must wonder to what end neoliberalism is being criticised and we must acknowledge that it is also currently used to construct a supposedly leftwing political discourse (of considerable added value for whoever wants to be somebody in the French theatrical field), despite the fact that this is actually a conservative attitude in view of its immediate political effects. For the truth of the matter is that by gathering under the same banner all the members of the theatre family supposedly joining forces against an external enemy, it masks deep inequalities within the theatrical field (see Hamidi, “Le théâtre public”). And yet these inequalities have been brought to light by recent socioeconomic studies (see in particular Urrutiaguer and Henry). These studies have also revealed that the performing arts market is – well, a market, and as such is indeed subjected to a capitalist economic logic, but this has been the case since the creation of the theatrical public policies. The specificity of the present time, though, is that because of the economic crisis, there is a growing number of speculative bubbles about such or such an artist (see Urrutiaguer and Henry 128) and a growing prevalence of a winner-takes-all logic when it comes to the allocation of funding as well as the programming of shows. However, the capitalist economic logic cannot be held responsible for all the inequalities observed. I will not even mention here the tremendous gender inequalities revealed by the Reine Prat report in 2006. Some also stem from the conceptions of culture which are in favour because of the norms of public theatre itself. An illustration of this is the fact that although the vast majority of theatre companies rely for their livelihood not on creating performances but on cultural activities such as workshops for non-professional actors, the

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latter keep being disparaged by the public authorities, who set much greater store by the purely creative part of the activity, i.e. the production of shows. Therefore, an intersectional approach to the different types of domination (stemming from race/gender/sexual orientation, social origin and/or religious affiliation; see Crenshaw) and to the way they reinforce one another needs to be developed for the theatrical field. This would underline the importance not only of race, class and sex, a legacy of black feminist theory (see Crenshaw 141), but also of culture as a domination factor – as well as a potential emancipation factor, in a dialectical/performative approach well documented since the works of Pierre Bourdieu and Judith Butler.

2

The Need for a New Framework to Think What ‘Political Theatre’ Can Mean

It is therefore high time we did away once and for all with the romantic idealism which still underlies most of the current discourses about the political significance of the theatre in France, including those which are peppered with Marxist concepts (see, for instance, Neveux). This idealism serves to uphold the doxa of a pure autonomous art utterly sheltered from social life at large, and to ignore the incidence of production and reception conditions upon the ways theatrical activities are carried out and conceived. A new approach is urgently needed, which would combine the contributions of aesthetics with those of historical materialism, Bourdieusian and pragmatist sociology, socioeconomy and cultural studies – an approach which would take into account both the power of the works of art and their receptors, and both power relations and the capabilities of social actors in the theatrical field for resistance and dissent. ‘Grandiloquence’ (as the French sociologist Philippe Urfalino defines cultural policy; see 390) should give way to self-criticism; otherwise, the current inability to provide adequate justifications will persist, at a time when justifications are more than ever needed. This leads me to the presentation of the findings of my book Les Cités du théâtre politique en France depuis 1989 (2013), where I tried to devise an interdisciplinary method I call socio-aesthetic, which combines internalist and externalist approaches, aesthetics and social sciences, in order to examine the political functions of the theatre, conceived both as a set of instituting and instituted social practices and as a set of aesthetic objects (textual works or stage productions) and everyday-life experiences.1 Different types of sources 1 I pay my debt to pragmatist philosophy, mostly to John Dewey and Richard Shusterman.

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and of material thus need to be integrated to reflect on the political powers of theatre – public or private comments on art and politics, the paratext around the works, theoretical writings and ‘grey literature’ (official reports, laws, administrative documents, etc.) – in order to articulate the aesthetic study of theatre works and the socioeconomic study of the theatre field in a way that includes the creative processes, the theatre market, the dispositifs in charge of selecting, financing, programming and distributing works in this publicly funded economy, the behaviour of all the social actors involved (artists, producers, curators, critics, public authorities, audiences) as well as their discourse. Such diversity of material obviously has a bearing on the choice of analytical tools and it is imperative to combine the sociological approaches with the aesthetic ones in order to avoid their respective pitfalls: on the one hand, an analysis of art that stops short of considering actual works of art and, on the other, a conception of art as something ethereal floating above social realities. I wish to take into account the political ambitions underpinning theatrical works and also to take account of the influence exerted upon them by the social environment in which they are produced, circulated and received, within the framework of various infrastructures and institutions which in France are largely dominated by the normative framework of the théâtre public.

3

1989: A New Era?

I started from the observation that in the field of public/political theatre today, all the social players share the view that the theatre is politically significant, but at the same time that this self-evident view is problematic. To put it in a nutshell, “the theatre is politically significant but…”. And all their subsequent remarks qualifying or correcting this assertion appear to derive from the notion that we have now entered a new historical era, the turning point being what I call ‘the 1989 years’, as some historians refer to ‘the 1968 years’. Two major events dominated the year 1989. First, the fall of the Berlin Wall, which symbolised the collapse of the Soviet bloc and also of the revolutionary ideal, an important point for French theatre artists when one remembers that a good many prominent ones in the twentieth century were travel companions of the French Communist Party (such as Jean Vilar or Antoine Vitez). The second event is the celebration of the bicentenary of the French Revolution, in which theatre artists took an active part and which triggered an important debate within the French Left regarding the legacy of this seminal historical juncture. At the time, the theatre world represented a microcosm of the divide between reformists and revolutionaries. More generally, President Mitterrand’s initial

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term of office came to an end in 1988, in a climate of growing disillusionment among his left-wing electorate due to the economic tournant de la rigueur (austerity turn). Although we should certainly consider 1989 to be a historical watershed, we should also bear in mind that several different interpretations of this context coexisted at the time and they still do, or rather that to this day several versions of the same social text continue to hold sway in the social players’ discourses and practices. Depending on the period, but also within the same period, including this day and age, several diverse theoretical and practical conceptions of what “political theatre” means coexist – and not too peacefully at that. So, the first insight underpinning my book is that ‘political theatre’ is no en-soi but a polemical ‘floating signifier’, as Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe put it, each signified of which informs us particularly about the speaker’s political and aesthetic stance (see 134-36).2 The second insight, quite familiar to social science researchers but much less so to French theatre studies scholars, is that the political stakes involved in theatrical works and practices can only be apprehended by scrutinising the conditions in which they are produced and received by the audience. This means that it was out of the question to start from a single, a priori definition, in whose light I would judge whether and to what extent any show, artist or project earned the right to carry a ‘political theatre’ label. Neither could I embark upon a teleological approach, where one definition would be systematically superseded by a subsequent one, so that at the end of the road, a final definition of what constitutes the only true, great political theatre yesterday and today would emerge. My aim was, therefore, twofold: to interrogate the various practical meanings of the phrase ‘political theatre’ (in other words, the different types of politics of the theatre) and, at the same time, try to understand why the theatrical world and the theatre studies world need this label to exist. This is why I turned to the concept of ‘city’ and, more generally, to the comprehensive pragmatic sociology initiated in France by Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot.

4

What Is Pragmatic Sociology… and How Can It Prove Useful to Analyse the Political Stakes of Theatre?

The underlying principle of this sociology consists in paying due attention to the discourses of the parties involved, while maintaining the necessary dis2 Laclau and Mouffe’s ‘floating signifier’ transposes to political discourse the concept elaborated by Claude Lévi-Strauss to describe magical thinking.

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tance by confronting them with each other. This approach differs from that of Bourdieu, who aimed at unveiling the hidden motivations lurking behind proudly proclaimed principles.3 The pluralistic approach permits a comparative criticism of the various practices and discourses. The concept of ‘city’, of great importance in this sociology, is based on the idea that societies, even modern ones, do not contain one single social order. Instead, multiple orders coexist at the same time in the same society, peacefully or otherwise, based on specific ‘orders’ or ‘economies of worth’, that is, systematic and coherent principles of evaluation and justification of actions and discourses. Though it is very seldom used to reflect on art and culture, this theoretical framework has enabled me to identify a plurality of meanings of ‘political theatre’ in theatrical discourses and practices. The expression ‘political theatre’ cannot be grasped by means of a trans-historical, essentialist approach; in other words, its multiple meanings cannot be subsumed within a single concept. My hypothesis is that this plurality results not only from the conflicting interests and positions of the actors in the field, but also from the diversity of the justification modes and (political and aesthetic) values invoked. In particular, the concept of ‘city’ makes it possible to attain a clearer picture of the complexity of the conceptions and practices at stake in the theatrical field in France today by foregrounding different types of justification social actors refer to in order to explain what they do and think and why. Of course, some artists and projects actually fall under a combination of different cities, yet some fit perfectly and I took those as emblems of each city’s values. What is more, mapping the landscape by means of the concept of city dispenses with a priori, rigid, external assessment criteria of what constitutes genuine political theatre and thus makes it possible to evaluate different practices in line with the objectives they announce. It also throws light on the hierarchies existing between the different types of justification. In that regard, the added value of the concept of city, when compared with the Weberian ‘idealtype’, is its attention to historical changes and to the various social positions the different cities can find themselves in. As a matter of fact, the different cities of political theatre do not enjoy equal social recognition in the theatrical field: the third and the fourth cities tend to be looked down on, whereas the first two are in favour with the public authorities, theatre programmers and, also, theatre studies academics. This is why the analysis of political theatre needs to be complemented by that of the relations between the theatrical field

3 Boltanski used to be Bourdieu’s assistant, until he rejected his analytical framework precisely on these grounds.

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and the field of theatre studies. Indeed, the boundaries between the two are so porous that the latter sometimes acts (somewhat confusingly) as a sounding board for the values of the former. For my part, I think our role as researchers is to bring to light these inequalities in terms of recognition, instead of replicating them. And that implies not directly answering the question, “Does this really fall into the category of political theatre?” or “Is this a good political show?”, without referring back to the fundamental question, “What evaluation chart shall I use to answer?” It seems to me that we should keep in mind the point made by critical theorist Nancy Fraser that theoretical misframings are so many political wrongs inflicted on those who are not in a position to lay down the standards (see 69). In Les Cités du théâtre politique, I define each city of the French political theatre as a consistent theatrical discourse, based on a specific vision of the world resulting from a particular conception of the word ‘political’, of history and theatre history, and therefore of the political function of theatre, this in turn determining a specific justification for the legitimacy of the theatre and of the artist within society at large. I have thus identified four different conceptions of ‘political theatre’, that is, four cities: the post-political theatre, the oecumenical political theatre, the rebuilding of the theatrical and political community, and, finally, the theatre of political struggle.4

5

The Post-political Theatre: A Political Art for Postmodern Times?

The founding principle of the post-political theatre is a radical anthropological and political pessimism that leads to a sort of nihilism: basically, society is evil but since human nature is evil too, nothing can ever change, at least for the better. This pessimism is grounded in an interpretation of two historical events, the Holocaust and the fall of the Berlin Wall, which turns them into an axiological barrier. The basic ideology underpinning this city is a form of postmodernism defined as a break with the project and the temporality of modernity. It affects the relation to possible political options as well as the conception of history, which is no longer seen as moving ahead towards a better future but forever bogged down in an everlasting present that keeps repeating itself. In this sense, it corresponds to François Hartog’s description of the rule of presentist historicity. What characterises this city is that it discards a ‘social

4 As its title indicates, my 2008 article “Post-Political Theatre versus the Theatre of Political Struggle” introduced two of these cities to a wide readership for the first time.

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criticism’ (see Boltanski and Chiapello) of capitalism that attacks exploitation and inequalities, on the grounds that it inevitably bears the seeds of totalitarianism. It substitutes this with a new version of ‘artistic criticism’, still focused on the inaunthenticity and the lack of liberties produced by capitalism, but undermining those critiques from within by its refusal to be connected in any way to a global critical project. This city takes an ambiguous view of the very project of a critical art, which it claims to adhere to while at the same time undermining its political foundations. This leads to a recycling of former formes-sens (meaningful forms) of political theatre, from which all political potential has been scooped out. This post-political theatre depicts today’s world as a ‘devastated’ (see Naugrette), de-composed landscape, turning political ruins into picturesque ones. Some artists prophetically represent a post-apocalyptical world: most notably, Edward Bond’s works as directed by Alain Françon. Others depict the chaos of ‘reality’ from within and in a piecemeal manner. For instance, there is a strand of documentary theatre – including some of Rimini Protokoll’s productions with ‘everydaylife experts’5 and many documentary shows based on testimonies as opposed to historical archives (see Hamidi, “Présenter des éclats du réel”) – that no longer claims to develop an all-embracing interpretation of the world, but considers instead that the very concept of ‘world’ has ceased to exist as a meaningful whole and therefore cannot possibly be made sense of, or transformed.

6

The Oecumenical Theatre

The oecumenical theatre city differs from the preceding city in two major ways. To begin with, it does not share its political pessimism; secondly, its prime concern is not to offer a commentary upon social life. What it fundamentally refers to is not political history, but the history of theatre, or rather a mythicised memorial construction of this history, which has thus the power of every myth, i.e. to gather a community around a founding story. Two glorious models, two historical monuments of an ontologically political/democratic theatre serve as its tutelary figureheads: the ancient Greek tragedy of the fifth century BC and the move towards ‘popular theatre’ made by Léon Chancerel,

5 For instance, Airport Kids, conceived by Lola Arias and Stefan Kaegi and created at the Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne in June 2008, and Radio Muezzin, conceived by Stefan Kaegi and created at the Avignon Festival in July 2009.

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Jacques Copeau, Firmin Gémier, Romain Rolland and Jean Vilar, which led to the creation of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs in 1959. This mythical backdrop constitutes the foundation for this city’s two pillars. One of them is the notion that theatre is always politically significant because the space-time of any theatrical performance operates as an agora, making theatre contribute to political debate within the public space and turning any theatrical audience into a civic community, able to elaborate on rational arguments about the common good. Yet, paradoxically, the shows pertaining to this city mostly appeal to effusiveness, to emotional communion within the spectators’ assembly. This is apparent in the productions of Ariane Mnouchkine’s Théâtre du Soleil, the emblematic theatre troupe of this city. The second pillar supporting this city is that it assigns itself two missions considered as inextricably linked and consubstantial to each other: exploring new aesthetic avenues while attracting wider audiences. This dual concern is best summed up by the motto of the SYNDEAC, the biggest union in French public theatre: théâtre d’art-service public (art theatre/public service).6 However, it is no easy task to fulfil these two ambitions simultaneously and this city is riddled with tremendous tensions that can be apprehended via the distinctions between the different cities identified by Boltanski and Thévenot in their essay De la Justification. The oecumenical political theatre is torn between the domestic city, the inspired city (the art theatre side) and the civic city (the public service side). We have the inspired city with the figurehead of the genius misunderstood by the masses and the domestic city with a kind of father figure ruling over a small group of faithful followers, as exemplified by the relations between such directors as Christian Schiaretti or Mnouchkine and their actors. And there is the civic city too, with the vocation of a public service theatre aiming to educate citizens. These tensions deeply affect both the formulation of its political values and its very nature. This theatre, which celebrates republican ideals and even more the basic democratic values enshrined in the Declaration of Human Rights, and which criticises all infringements of these principles, has an axiological rather than political ethos. Moreover, the protagonists of this city tend to dissociate the artistic sphere from political commitment and to consider that the former must take precedence over the latter. The political involvement of these ‘citizen artists’ takes place outside the stage but in the name of and

6 SYNDEAC is the union representing artistic producing and programming institutions recognised by the public authorities (National Theatres, National Centers for Dramatic Art and National Scenes) as well as large-sized, well-subsidised companies.

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within the forms of their artistic identity (hunger strikes, spectacular participation in protests); besides, it is more emotional than intellectual and they tend to champion moral-political causes that fall within a politique de la pitié, as Boltanski (quoting Hannah Arendt) would say: a political commitment grounded in compassion for the disadvantaged conceived as weak, defenceless victims (see Boltanski).7

7

Rebuilding the Political and Theatrical Community

The city that aims at rebuilding the theatrical and political community is the only one that does not seek to develop a critical discourse about the state of the world and opts to nurse rather than interpret it. This city has in common with the post-political theatre city the fact that it bases its analysis on the observation that the sense of social and political belonging of individuals and social groups alike has all but fallen apart. Yet it differs from post-political theatre in that it has retained a faith in the ability of the theatre to re-stitch the political and social bonds uniting society members. In this respect, it descends from the oecumenical political theatre city but it has drawn a lesson from the crisis that the latter has been going through from the 1980s, ever since the legitimacy conferred on public theatre by its supposed accessibility to a wider public was shattered by statistical studies revealing the sociological composition of theatre audiences. Indeed, the periodical surveys on the cultural habits of the French people have relentlessly shown that only 16% to 18% go to the theatre at least once a year (see Donnat).8 Subsequently, the civic mission of the theatre has not been reasserted so much as it has been reoriented to a social mission: a desire to promote both a better social inclusion of socially marginalised people by means of the theatre, and a better social inclusion of theatre by an actual widening of its audience. Consequently, the necessity for the principles and mechanisms of this city to conform to the discourse of the public authorities is as compelling as it is in the oecumenical political theatre city; the only difference lies in the nature of some of the public actors involved (public authorities responsible for cultural as well as social affairs, mostly within the framework of urban development policy) and in the nature of their discourse regarding the theatre.

7 For instance, Mnouchkine has on several occasions spoken up for undocumented migrants. 8 The study referenced here dates from 2007. According to a 2013 Special Eurobarometer, the percentage in France is 21% (“Cultural Access and Participation” T3).

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The main principle at work in this city can be defined by a desire to combine the universalist-legitimist conception of culture permeating the oecumenical political theatre city with an anthropological conception embracing cultural diversity and real-life practices, as in the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights. In this latter conception, what is central is ‘cultural life’, no longer the notion of masterpiece or even of theatre performance. Therefore, this city aims at refounding theatre as an active public space accessible to non-theatregoers, thus furthering political inclusion even in deprived neighbourhoods. The choice is very often to make them participate not only as spectators but as actors and creators of the shows. This is, for instance, what the Théâtre du Grabuge in Lyon does with its Passerelles, “artistic co-creations with the inhabitants”, as director Géraldine Bénichou describes them, that could fit within the Anglophone concept of ‘applied theatre’ (see Hamidi-Kim, “Théâtre du Grabuge” and “Les Passerelles”).9 The works and hybrid practices produced can achieve recognition only if they are gauged on the basis of new criteria, in keeping with their status as non-identified theatrical objects. Neither the standard of artistic quality alone nor that of social usefulness alone, regardless of theatrical considerations, is relevant to assess them properly. The reason why it is currently so hard for these projects to gain recognition is that evaluators themselves find it extremely difficult to combine these two heterogeneous sets of criteria. Some recent events might change the status of this city, with the appearance of a new external standard that is likely to have far-reaching effects. Cultural rights and cultural diversity, which have been made into human rights by virtue of UNESCO’s Declaration on Cultural Diversity in 2001 and later by the Fribourg Declaration on Cultural Rights in 2007, refer to values and conceptions of culture and art that are poles apart from those that underpinned cultural democratisation in France and that are still embraced by the players in the theatrical field: universalist values (great art available to everyone) and autonomous values (art meaning works of intrinsic artistic worth). We must wait and see the way French standards will open up to that change.

8

The Theatre of Political Struggle

For its part, the theatre of political struggle offers a unique interpretation of 1989 not as a break with the revolutionary ideal, but as an opportunity to revive 9 Bénichou, personal interview, Lyon, 27 October 2006 (qtd. in Hamidi-Kim Les Cités du théâtre politique 332). The French phrase is “créations partagées avec les habitants” (my translation).

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this paradigm and that of social criticism, to spread the idea that the world can be changed and that the theatre can contribute to this change. Unlike the third city, it refuses to admit that the ambition of constructing a critical discourse about the world has failed, and unlike the first city, it denies that revolutionary attempts in the course of history have all foundered. It therefore proposes to defend a set of values and to criticise society in the name of these values, like oecumenical theatre, although their respective values are not the same. In the May 1968 spirit, this city strives to combine the impetus generated by moral outrage and the political causes specific to social criticism with those of ‘artistic criticism’, in order to describe and expose the changes that have taken place in France during the early twenty-first century. It too is riddled with internal ideological divisions that reflect those within the radical Left today, mostly regarding views on the welfare state. The modalities and sources of mobilisation are not the same as for oecumenical theatre artists: for instance, unlike Mnouchkine, they do not rule out unionised action as a legitimate way to defend the rights of artistic workers in the cultural and entertainment industries (more precisely those covered by the French unemployment insurance system called intermittence). This city attempts to transpose to the theatrical field organisational modes borrowed from the social solidarity economy, especially from horizontal organisations where responsibilities are widely dispersed, such as the SCOP companies (workers’ cooperatives). Another fundamental way in which this city differs from that of oecumenical political theatre is that it does not conceive theatre as an ontologically democratic practice, nor does it consider it as an autonomous art form. In this city, theatre is perceived as a heteronomous undertaking whose ultimate purpose is not to produce a work of art, beautiful in itself and for its own sake; rather, artistic beauty is seen as a means to an end. From an aesthetic point of view, far from considering the old dramatic and theatrical models of the revolutionary struggle as outdated, this city makes use of them, with a few changes to adapt them to the new circumstances. True to their original intention, Brechtian epic theatre and above all documentary forms inherited from Erwin Piscator and Peter Weiss are conceived as providers of counter media information, taking a stand in the political debate (about colonisation, the limits of representative democracy, the need to restore the legitimacy of the revolutionary ideal). Following the principle of adjacency between the political scene and the theatrical stage, the latter is understood as the forum where the former’s trial should be held. Two Belgian shows that toured abundantly in France, Le Groupov’s Rwanda 94 (1999) and Bloody Niggers (2007), and Nicolas Lambert’s trilogy of documentary one-man shows (Elf, la Pompe Afrique, 2004; Avenir radieux, une fis-

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sion française, 2014; and Le Maniement des Larmes, 2016) are some of the most impressive examples of this conception of theatre. It presupposes a belief in the ability of the theatre to represent the world so as to transform it in line with Brecht’s project, inspired by Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach (see 1033), whose motto could be: “All that playwrights have ever done is offer an interpretation of the world; it is now time the theatre aimed at changing the world”. Marxist theories and their upgrades for the twenty-first century are explicitly discussed in some shows, such as Benoît Lambert’s Que Faire? (2011) or Olivier CoulonJablonka’s Chez les nôtres (2010).

9

The Public Theatre: A Giant with Feet of Clay

I hope I have made it clear that the phrase ‘political theatre’, which is what gives theatre its political and aesthetic value and justifies its receiving public funding in France, masks a much more complex reality, a reality that may be less spotlessly glorious than the image public theatre delights in painting of itself when it sets itself up as a bulwark against external enemies, whether totalitarian barbarity or neoliberalism. In actual fact, there exist several different ways of conceiving and implementing the political function of theatre and whereas some are highly regarded by public theatre professionals (artists, programmers and public authorities) and also by academics, others receive little respect, in accordance with a scale of values that urgently needs revising, for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is monolithic and it is applied rigidly. Secondly, it works exactly like the scale of values in favour with the public authorities and, consequently, replicates its effects instead of putting them in perspective and correcting them. Lastly, this scale of values rests upon a romantic conception of theatre as a liberating art form no matter what, in that, like all the arts, it is the place where new possibilities can be invented, but also in that it is the only art form that gathers the entire civic community and provides it with a unique opportunity to reflect collectively on the great political issues of the day. Now, these ideas, which have constituted the bedrock of what legitimises the public funding of theatre, are highly problematic in themselves and even more so in the present circumstances. The sociological composition of theatre audiences raises doubts as to the vocation of theatre to offer a political forum for all citizens. Further, this is an elitist conception that champions art as a ‘pure’ activity and sets it apart from the impure, prosaic rest of social life. These criticisms are in fact nothing new, and it is actually quite astonishing to realise how oblivious to them the French theatrical world can be. The cri-

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ticism regarding audiences dates back to the 1970s and the one concerning the elitist conception of political art dates back to a debate within Marxism in the 1930s, with on the one hand the virulent critique of the cultural industries by the Frankfurt School (in particular Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer) and, on the other, Antonio Gramsci’s theses. Indeed, anticipating both the ideas of Bourdieusian sociology and those of cultural studies, Gramsci developed a more dialectical approach to the way culture (be it high culture or the cultural industries) can be a device of ideological oppression – but also a tool allowing emancipation. Does this mean there is nothing new under the sun in the debates on political theatre? Not quite. What is new is that, given the current serious calling into question of public financial support for all non-profitmaking sectors, this weakness of justification now has potentially devastating effects. Whereas in the 1980s and 1990s it did not really pose a serious risk because it was still taken for granted that cultural activities ought to be publicly funded, things have changed since then. Without solid, incontrovertible arguments in its favour, it is to be feared that public theatre will soon become a thing of the past.

Works Cited Audier, Serge. Néolibéralisme(s). Une archéologie intellectuelle. Grasset, 2012. Boltanski, Luc. La Souffrance à distance. Métailié, 1993. Boltanski, Luc, and Eve Chiapello. Le Nouvel Esprit du capitalisme. NRF Gallimard, 1999. Boltanski, Luc, and Laurent Thévenot. De la justification. Les économies de la grandeur. NRF Gallimard, 1991. Crenshaw, Kimberley. “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics.” University of Chicago Legal Forum, no. 1, 1989, pp. 139-67. “Cultural Access and Participation.” Special Eurobarometer, no. 399, Nov. 2013, ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/archives/ebs/ebs_399_en.pdf. Accessed 12 Sept. 2017. Dardot, Pierre, and Christian Laval. La Nouvelle Raison du monde. La Découverte, 2009. Donnat, Olivier, ed. Les Pratiques culturelles des Français. La Documentation Française, 1973, 1981, 1988, 1997, 2008. Foucault, Michel. Naissance de la biopolitique. Cours au Collège de France 1978-1979. Seuil-Gallimard, 2004. Fraser, Nancy. “Reframing Justice in a Globalizing World.” New Left Review, no. 36, 2005, pp. 69-88. Gramsci, Antonio. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Edited and translated by Quentin Hoare and Geoffrey N. Smith, International Publishers, 1971.

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Hamidi-Kim, Bérénice. “Post-Political Theatre versus the Theatre of Political Struggle.” New Theatre Quarterly, vol. 24, no. 1, 2008, pp. 41-50. Hamidi-Kim, Bérénice. “Les Passerelles du Théâtre du Grabuge ou l’heureux malentendu entre artistes et pouvoirs publics locaux.” Dossier “Service public sous tension,” edited by Daniel Urrutiaguer, Registres, no. 15, 2011, pp. 35-43. Hamidi-Kim, Bérénice. “Théâtre du Grabuge: Ethics, Politics and Community.” Contemporary French Theatre and Performance, edited by Clare Finburgh and Carl Lavery, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, pp. 111-21. Hamidi-Kim, Bérénice. Les Cités du théâtre politique en France depuis 1989. Foreword by Luc Boltanski, l’Entretemps, 2013. Hamidi-Kim, Bérénice. “Présenter des éclats du réel, dénoncer la réalité: de l’opposition entre deux théâtres documentaires aujourd’hui (Rwanda 94 et Rimini Protokoll).” Le Théâtre documentaire. Résurgence ou réinvention?, edited by Lucie Kempf and Tania Moguilevskaia, Presses Universitaires de Nancy, 2013, pp. 45-59. Hamidi-Kim, Bérénice. “Le théâtre public, scène de l’émancipation… coulisse de dominations.” Rue du Conservatoire, 22 Jan. 2014, www.rueduconservatoire.fr/article/ 3763/cartes_blanches/berenice_hamidi-kim. Hamidi-Kim, Bérénice. “Théâtres populaires (républicain+socialiste+paternaliste) = théâtre public?” Les Théâtres populaires avant le théâtre national populaire, edited by Olivier Bara, Champion, forthcoming. Hartog, François. Régimes d’historicité. Présentisme et expériences du temps. Seuil, 2003. Laclau, Ernesto, and Chantal Mouffe. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. Verso, 1985. Lévi-Strauss, Claude. “Introduction à l’œuvre de Marcel Mauss.” Sociologie et anthropologie, by Marcel Mauss. 1950. PUF, 1973, pp. ix-lii. Marx, Karl. Œuvres complètes: Philosophie. Translated by Louis Évrard et al., edited by Maximilien Rubel, Gallimard Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1982. Naugrette, Catherine. Paysages dévastés. Belfort, 2004. Neveux, Olivier. Politiques du spectateur. La Découverte, 2013. Prat, Reine. “Rapport de la mission Égalités. Pour une plus grande et une meilleure visibilité des diverses composantes de la population française dans le secteur du spectacle vivant. Pour l’égal accès des femmes et des hommes aux postes de responsabilité, aux lieux de décision, à la maîtrise de la représentation.” French Ministry of Culture, 2006, www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/actualites/rapports/prat/egalites.pdf. Accessed 30 Mar. 2017. Urfalino, Philippe. L’Invention de la politique culturelle. Hachette, 2004. Urrutiaguer, Daniel, and Philippe Henry, eds. Territoires et ressources des compagnies en France, report for the Département des Études, de la Prospective et des Statistiques of the French Ministry of Culture, 2011.

Returning to the ‘Plebeian’ Roots of Comedy: Contemporary Political Theatre in Poland Aneta Głowacka

Abstract After offering an overview of political theatre in Poland, the author discusses several works by three contemporary practitioners – collaborators Monika Strzępka and Paweł Demirski, and Jan Klata – discovering connections to the ‘plebeian’ roots of comedy in the poetics of their productions. Strzępka, Demirski and Klata have pushed the boundaries of ‘good taste’ in Poland through provocative aesthetic choices; they have also introduced hitherto rejected elements of popular culture to the stage, reinterpreted the classics and undermined dominant interpretations of Polish history. Tracing the plebeian comedic tradition from its ancient origins through to current cabaret forms, the essay argues that the carnivalesque ‘world upside down’ created on stage and the laughter prompted by this type of performance have a subversive potential that can lead to social change.

This chapter explores a trend of contemporary political theatre in Poland which draws on the ‘plebeian’ comedic tradition. Artists who engage purposefully with the comedic roots of theatre take advantage of genres and forms thus far identified with entertainment, that is, those which had not been recognised by Polish institutional theatre as having artistic ambition. Looking at the most significant contemporary theatre-makers representing this trend – Monika Strzępka, Paweł Demirski and Jan Klata – I also aim to examine how the aesthetics of political theatre in Poland have changed in relation to the communist past.1 What I identify as the plebeian tradition of comedy begins with Greek mimes who performed in the main squares of the cities. Through their gestures, voice and facial expressions, they mimicked the behaviour of humans and animals, often referring to their surrounding reality in a critical way. Plebeian theatre includes carnival culture as well as commedia dell’arte, with contemporary cabaret stemming from it (see Ratajczakowa; Fox and Wężowicz-Ziółkowska). According to Mikhail Bakhtin, carnival is the main

1 My analysis here covers productions by Strzępka, Demirski and Klata up to 2016.

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manifestation of the folk culture of laughter. Creative features derived from carnival are: a combination of different styles and multiple voices, a tendency to parody, and an oscillation between seriousness and comedy and between highness and vulgarity (see Bakhtin Problems). In the Bakhtinian ‘world upside down’, the cause-and-effect logic of a sequence of events is disturbed by the world of dreams and by “joyful relativity” (125), emphasising the affective dimension. As he puts it, “carnivalization made possible the transfer of ultimate questions from the abstractly philosophical sphere […] to the concretely sensuous plane of images and events – which are, in keeping with the spirit of carnival, dynamic, diverse and vivid” (134). Political theatre in Poland has a long history, dating back to Renaissance times. In the twentieth century it attracted prominent practitioners and dramatists, such as Leon Schiller (1887-1954), leftist theatre director and theoretician; playwrights Tadeusz Różewicz (1921-2014) and Sławomir Mrożek (19302013); and celebrated directors Jerzy Grotowski (1933-1999) and Jerzy Jarocki (1929-2012). What these different artists shared was an interest in the relationship between the state and the individual, as well as a concern with national questions, including class conflict. Furthermore, in a country whose past involved long periods without independence, theatre has been seen as “the principal defender of the nation’s tradition, values and language” (Braun 5).2 During the communist era (1945-1989), art was political primarily due to it being allusive. The Main Office for Control of the Press, Publications and Performances was in operation from 1946, guarding the compliance of published or staged content with the official message and state policy. The existence of institutionalised censorship caused a specific code of communication between artists and audiences to emerge. Using metaphor and allegory, theatre touched upon the topics which were inconvenient for the communist regime. The audience, accustomed to searching for a hidden agenda in official content, appropriately read the signals coming from the stage as comments on the contemporary socio-political situation, even if a play was set in historical times. The classics were the most political, especially the Romantic drama from the first half of the nineteenth century, for example, plays by Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki and Zygmunt Krasiński. Owing to the historical context of these works, it was relatively easy to sneak a reference to the current political situation in the country over the heads of the censors. Spectators,

2 Braun’s account is important as one of the first modern histories of Polish theatre in English. However, it has been criticised for its “moralistic tone” (Trojanowska 248) and “pro-Catholic” bias (Krajewska-Wieczorek 557), among other issues.

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however, could read even the subtlest political allusions. Mickiewicz’s Dziady (Forefathers’ Eve),3 directed by Kazimierz Dejmek at the National Theatre in Warsaw, was removed from the playbill in 1968, having only been staged eleven times. Communist authorities perceived an anti-Soviet attitude in this piece, which celebrates Poland’s nationalist struggle for liberation from the Russian empire in the 1800s. Removing the performance from the repertoire provoked outrage among the intelligentsia and marked the beginning of a wave of student protests that reached its peak in March 1968. There were demonstrations and rallies in the most prominent academic centres in Poland, which often ended up in riots against the security forces. The movement triggered the expulsion of many university students because of either their subversive activity or their Jewish background (the authorities were notorious for taking advantage of anti-Semitic sentiments). Theatre censorship and the reaction against it resulted in a severe crisis of the state. An equally significant cultural response was to be expected after 1989, the year in which the first partly free parliamentary elections were held. The consequences of profound political, social and economic changes made their presence felt in the theatre a few years later. Directors who made their debuts in the late 1990s – including, among others, Krzysztof Warlikowski (b. 1962), Grzegorz Jarzyna (b. 1968) and Anna Augustynowicz (b. 1959) – engaged in a dialogue with their changing reality, tracking it primarily from a sociological perspective. They were more interested in revealing excluded areas and unmasking mechanisms of marginalisation in the moral realm than in politics as a form of governance, rooted in a specific historical and social context. There was also a return to everyday life in playwriting, a distinct example of which was a group of dramatists known as the ‘Porn Generation’. The name derives from the title of a 2003 collection of plays edited by theatre critic Roman Pawłowski, Pokolenie porno i inne niesmaczne utwory teatralne (The Porn Generation and Other Disgusting Theatrical Works).4 Pawłowski’s introduction to the anthology states: “The modern drama confirms the observations of soci-

3 All translations from Polish are by Zuzanna Cieplińska-Zwonik unless otherwise indicated. 4 The title translation quoted is from Bryce Lease, who claims that this anthology “has been as influential in Poland […] as ‘in-yer-face’ theatre was in the UK” (119). This is a rather controversial thesis: although the anthology drew attention to the young playwrights and their new dramatic language, not many of them were appreciated and staged. Much more influential in Poland were the British and German so-called ‘new brutalists’, such as Sarah Kane, Mark Ravenhill and Werner Schwab. In Ratajczakowa et al., the title translation chosen is ‘The Porno Generation and Other Tasteless Plays’, and the pieces are sceptically described as “realist […], though using the realism of reality TV rather than the theatre” (26).

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ologists and in a merciless way diagnoses the situation of the new generation of Poles. On the one hand, it shows degenerated consumption by those who have won the rat race and, on the other, hopeless and aggressive protests by those who have failed” (10).5 The critic also highlights the new language used by these playwrights, which in some cases imitates that of social media (for example, online chats): “Their theatrical form bears the traits of the reality which it attempts to describe: it is ragged, frantic, often incoherent and illogical” (5).6 Although considered by some to have little aesthetic value, this collection catalogued new topics connected with the transition to capitalism, such as unemployment, identity issues, the damaging effects of money and the power of big corporations. The characters portrayed are not only those excluded on account of their sexuality or their physical or economic inadequacies, but also representatives of new professions and big-city dwellers – employees of advertising agencies, journalists and students – trying to find a place in the new society. For some time, the name coined by Pawłowski was also applied to the work of directors Jan Klata (b. 1973), Grzegorz Wiśniewski (b. 1968) and Maja Kleczewska (b. 1973), as well as younger practitioners who were addressing the sensibilities of audiences shaped by the nonlinear narratives of MTV clips, Tarantino films and the Internet. However, the ‘Porn Generation’ label was soon replaced by another denomination: the ‘New Dissatisfied’, formulated by critic Piotr Gruszczyński. Here he included diverse theatre-makers such as Klata (again), Michał Zadara (b. 1976) and Michał Borczuch (b. 1979). The ‘New Dissatisfied’ did not belong to a common generation or movement, but Gruszczyński justified his tag by suggesting that these practitioners understood the role of theatre and their own involvement in the reality beyond theatre in a similar manner. This meant unambiguous, usually leftist, political views and the need to create socially and politically engaged pieces. More labels followed as critics tried to categorise new playwrights and directors. What they all seemed to have in common was a disregard for theatre convention and tradition, an appetite for reinterpreting classical texts by placing them in the present and the use of the most recent sociological research to inform the worlds portrayed on stage. Also, these artists were not bound to a single

5 “Najnowszy dramat potwierdza obserwacje socjologów i w bezlitosny sposób diagnozuje sytuację nowego pokolenia Polaków. Z jednej strony pokazuje wynaturzoną konsumpcję tych, którzy wygrali wyścig szczurów, z drugiej – beznadziejny, agresywny protest tych, którym się nie udało”. 6 “Ich forma teatralna nosi cechy rzeczywistości, którą próbuje opisać: jest poszarpana, gorączkowa, często niespójna i nielogiczna”.

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theatrical centre, as they often collaborated with various venues across the country. In fact, only Warlikowski and Jarzyna worked in Warsaw, the capital city. As the above discussion makes clear, most directors who emerged after 1989 consciously rejected the prevalent Romantic and symbolic tradition in favour of an encounter with the new realities. This drastic discontinuity was reflected both in their aesthetic preferences and the topics selected. Theatre embarked on an interrogation of the founding myths of Polishness, presented so far in martyr narratives. Performances now exposed Polish complexes, social conformity and the hypocrisy of the authorities. They also unmasked the utopia of civic democracy by exploring the social inequalities engendered by the political and economic transformation. Breaking with tradition, however, did not occur without objection from part of the theatre elite, i.e. conservative critics and audiences. Before 1989, theatre was generally regarded as a temple of art, where humanistic values were cherished. Even its political resistance to communism had been a source of social respect and appreciation. Theatre was valued for its intellectual, sometimes downright philosophical and moral commitment, and for strengthening a heroic image of existence. Therefore, in the opinion of many critics, plays which depicted the beauty of a poetic world should have been rated more highly than those consisting of a series of images inspired, for instance, by computer games and commercials. Trimming dramatic texts (particularly the classics), linking them with other literary material and translating them into everyday language was met with hostility. Kleczewska’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2006), at the National Stary Theatre in Kraków, is a case in point. William Shakespeare’s Athenian forest was relocated to a contemporary night club run by Oberon, where Puck served drugged drinks. The change of historical and social context (according to Kleczewska, it was a story of impossible love in times of consumerism), coupled with the use of colloquial language, attracted great controversy. Jerzy Stuhr, renowned Polish actor and director, then Rector of PWST National Academy of Theatre Arts in Kraków, criticised the production for being unfaithful to Shakespeare and called upon supportive reviewers to come to their senses (see Stuhr). Such a disapproving reception was not only caused by the break with convention and the turn to mundane reality, but also by an alliance with a comedic tradition of theatre that had previously been overlooked. This is particularly evident in the work of the artists considered the backbone of contemporary political theatre in Poland, namely, the duo of Monika Strzępka (b. 1976) and Paweł Demirski (b. 1979), as well as Jan Klata.

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Monika Strzępka and Paweł Demirski: Lovers of Bad Taste

Director Strzępka and playwright Demirski have collaborated since 2007, that is, since their joint premiere of Dziady. Ekshumacja (Forefathers’ Eve. The Exhumation) at the Polski Theatre, Wrocław. Adapting Mickiewicz’s iconic play, full of Romantic ideals about the martyrdom of the Polish nation, meant entering into a direct dialogue with Poland’s theatre tradition. Dziady was written in four parts, bound together by a pre-Christian folk ritual in which the ghosts of ancestors (forefathers) return temporarily to their former homes. Strzępka and Demirski moved the action to the present. In a sense, their version begins where Mickiewicz’s drama ends: the people regain their freedom after 1989 and Konrad, the main character (who was in the tsar’s prison in Mickiewicz’s play), becomes a prominent politician. Instead of the ritual of forefathers, All Souls’ Day – a Christian holiday commemorating the dead – is observed, with three veterans arriving to remember their wartime accomplishments. The story disclosed, however, is one not everybody would like to remember. Here the Poles appear not as victims of neighbouring powers or heroic freedom warriors, but as perpetrators of anti-Jewish pogroms in the Second World War, persecutors of communism’s opponents and accomplices in the suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968 (Polish troops were part of the Warsaw Pact force that invaded Czechoslovakia). In this ‘exhumation’, the legend of a glorious past is replaced with an inventory of crimes uttered by victims through the veterans’ mouths. Given the status of Mickiewicz’s text within Polish culture, Strzępka and Demirski’s reinterpretation stirred much controversy, anticipating their general artistic direction. On the one hand, this production undermined national myths, articulating narratives that had been absent from public discourse up to that point and giving voice to the excluded. On the other hand, it was a critique of neoliberalism. The temple where the ritual takes place has long ceased to function as a site for transcendence, since its participants are no longer interested in it. At some point, the temple becomes a wedding venue and then a depot, and the meeting turns into a party. The show involves a critique of the Poles who have abandoned spirituality in pursuit of the opportunities offered by the free market. The ultimate manifestation of such a change is the tabernacle, where there is no Host and kebabs are grilled instead. Working together for more than a decade, Strzępka and Demirski are among the most important practitioners in Poland and have successfully redefined the course of political theatre. Their anti-system stance – defending the rights of ordinary citizens, criticising the political and artistic establishment, and dismantling dominant versions of history – have earned them media labels such

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as “the furious tandem”, the “Bonnie and Clyde of Polish theatre” (Drewniak)7 or even “terrorist-communists” (Węgrzyniak).8 The artists, known for their crude language and provocative behaviour, have never hidden their leftist, anti-liberal political views (see Strzępka, Demirski and Korchowiec). Also, they have manifestly distanced themselves from the tradition of high and elitist theatre, expressing an admiration for genres and forms despised by the “Aspiring Audience” (Strzępka).9 They are interested in farce, burlesque and musicals, all of which, to varying degrees, have inspired formal elements of their performances. This, together with a preference for current topics (from the news) which may be regarded as trivial and their loose construction of narrative and characters, has been repeatedly linked by critics – particularly those hostile to their work – to cabaret. Although cabaret in Poland has a rich tradition, dating back to the early twentieth century, and is both literary and politically engaged (see Fox), the duo’s detractors have used this association to question the artistic quality and professionalism of their productions.10 Strzępka and Demirski have offended reviewers on the grounds of obscenity and journalistic temporariness (see Wyszkowski), as well as their alleged radicalism and lack of nuance (see Kowalczyk). However, such critical reception can be explained in part as a reaction to the artists’ eagerness to tackle issues thus far avoided in Polish theatre, with protagonists who are victims of the post-communist transformation. For instance, in Diamenty to węgiel, który wziął się do roboty (Diamonds are Coal that Got Down to Work; Dramatyczny Theatre, Wałbrzych, 2008), based on Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, the neoliberal elite stands accused of ignoring people who, having been unsuccessful after 1989, remained in the provinces. In Opera gospodarcza dla pięknych pań i zamożnych panów (Economic Opera for Pretty Women and Wealthy Men; Jan Kochanowski Theatre, Opole, 2008), based on Bertolt Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera, the targets are contemporary consumerism and the lack of a social conscience. W imię Jakuba S. (In the Name of Jakub S.; Dramatyczny

7 8 9 10

“wściekły tandem”; “Bonnie i Clyde polskiego teatru”. “terroryści – komuniści”. “Aspirująca Publiczność”. There is a relationship between cabaret and amateur theatre. According to Cioffi, cabaretstyle revues were important in the development of one strand of alternative theatre in Poland: the “amateur student theatre movement” (69). However, she continues, “by 1989, these categories [professional, amateur and alternative/student] had already begun to break down” (73). In the case of Strzępka and Demirski, to call their style cabaret was a way of undermining the value of their work and excluding it from artistic spaces (see Głowacka). In Poland, contemporary cabaret is not considered art, but entertainment.

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Theatre, Warsaw, 2011) addresses the taboo subject of Polish society’s predominantly peasant origins and depicts the involvement of Poles in the credit system as a contemporary form of feudal service. Courtney Love (Polski Theatre, Wrocław, 2012) focuses on the commercialisation of rebellion, showing how artistic ideals die when colliding with the music market and the law of supply and demand. In terms of form, as mentioned above, an openness to different conventions has become Strzępka and Demirski’s trademark. As a director, Strzępka abandons narrative coherence for loosely connected fragments resembling cabaret sketches. She also mixes different devices, combining lyrical scenes with ripe jokes and crude means of expression. For the performance of Bierzcie i jedzcie (Take It and Eat It; Rozrywki Theatre, Chorzów, 2013), which was set in the digestive system, the audience was welcomed by a giant bottom which was stretched on scaffolding across the entire stage. Turning pathos into amusement and alluding to the current socio-political reality are characteristics that can be traced back to the spirit of Old Comedy, typified by a distanced approach to the world and its people. Although the artists do not cite Aristophanes’s Attic comedy as an influence, it can be argued that their satirical intent, formal strategies such as overt theatricality and direct address, and an aesthetics on the borderline of kitsch and vulgarity, place their work within this longstanding tradition. Strzępka operates with popular registers of culture and intentionally blurs the boundaries between what is high and low, tragic and grotesque, metaphysical and carnal. She builds her characters and situations from stereotypes and clichés, aiming for an immediate communication with the audience. Visually, Strzępka breaches the standards acceptable to conservative audiences, going beyond the limits of so-called good taste. The stage design for her productions resembles a scrap heap. Clutter creates a sort of cultural landfill and characters break social norms by vomiting kefir or cheap pâté, bleeding fake blood, farting, belching and masturbating. Their presence and behaviour recall Julia Kristeva’s reflection upon the ‘abject’, that is, what is disgusting, what crosses the threshold between the interior and the surface, subject and object, “what disturbs identity, system, order. What does not respect borders, positions, rules” (4). Abjection is close to the subversive idea of carnival, which, in Mikhail Bakhtin’s seminal formulation, means going beyond the framework of the official order of life (see Rabelais 6). In turn, Norbert Schindler remarks that during carnival the compass of social perception stops functioning and so the world stands on its head (see 211). Carnival undermines the existing social order and violates hierarchies. However, it is debatable whether its revolutionary potential can encourage permanent change.

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Alongside their provocative stage work, Strzępka and Demirski have engaged in direct action. In 2012, a newly formed movement of theatre-makers and other people associated with cultural institutions, called ‘Theatre is not a Product / The Spectator is not a Client’,11 protested against the commercialisation of art. This influenced Demirski’s play O dobru (On Goodness; Dramatyczny Theatre, Wałbrzych, 2012). In the final performance, writer and director expressed their faith in society’s ability to unite in defence of common interests. However, this turned out to be a utopian gesture. Despite the involvement of many people and the reading of the declaration before performances in various theatres in Poland, the initiative did not develop into a significant social movement able to put pressure on politicians and officials deciding on state cultural policy. Another example of the pair’s political involvement beyond the stage is connected to Tęczowa Trybuna 2012 (Rainbow Stand 2012; Polski Theatre, Wrocław, 2011), a play that questioned the progress of gay rights in Poland. One of the ideas proposed in the performance was the creation of a separate stand for homosexual football fans, where they could support the national team without hiding their sexual orientation or suffering abuse. In parallel with the production, the artists organised a social campaign that involved setting up a gay football fan website to demand that such spaces were provided at the 2012 UEFA European Championship, which was held in Poland. The page was run by Strzępka and Demirski’s collaborators, but this was kept secret and so the mythology of a new movement grew in the national media and on internet portals. This social experiment caused a negative reaction, as it was subverted by homophobic members of the public. For instance, fans of Legia Warszawa football club faked their backing of Rainbow Stand while pretending to be supporters of Polonia, their rival team. Also, incidents of homophobic and anti-Semitic behaviour were reported and the website’s inbox was filled with offensive messages. Although the scheme managed to create some upheaval, LGBT activists were not persuaded to continue with it.12 The Rainbow Stand project was seen as politically ineffective: a successful production without any progressive impact on social reality (see

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“Teatr nie jest produktem / widz nie jest klientem”. Their campaign summary and list of members are available on the Polish Theatre Portal (e-teatr.pl), managed by the Zbigniew Raszewski Theatre Institute (see “List ludzi teatru”). In his account of Tęczowa Trybuna 2012, Lease highlights the ethical issues involved: “Creating a separate stand for gay supporters not only establishes a ghetto within the stadium, it also poses a potential threat to their safety in its obvious demarcation of their sexuality” (131).

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Stokfiszewski). Mateusz Borowski attributes this paradox to the “working principles of a certain model of relations between theatre and its audience” in Poland (9). In other words, the “project appeared as a marginal initiative during the theatre season which was not officially sanctioned by Teatr Polski in Wrocław […]. Clearly this initiative, although conceived within the theatre, impinged in no way on the theatre’s primary function, the production of plays to be utilised in its permanent repertoire and exported to festivals” (11). It is debatable whether the original intention of the artists was to prompt real change. During a panel at Gazeta Wyborcza’s culture cafe in Warsaw in 2011, they openly admitted not believing in the causal power of the social project they had invented (see Strzępka, Demirski and Nowak). However, this did serve to probe the pretensions of Polish democracy in terms of the status of minority groups. Art shows its political face here in the sense, as Jacques Rancière suggests, of making what is excluded visible, uncovering the mechanisms of social oppression and indifference, and supporting the struggle for subjectivity (see 23-26). Regardless of the political effectiveness of Strzępka and Demirski’s undertakings, it must be acknowledged that they have changed Polish theatre, opening the stage to contentious areas reluctantly addressed before, such as the social and economic consequences of Poland’s political transformation, the deconstruction of Romantic myths, and the undermining of official versions of history and national identity. Also, their aesthetic choices, associated with fairground culture and entertainment, have shown a significant subversive potential. Their work presents serious themes in a light form, provoking a ‘laughter through tears’ effect and exposing tensions that had been difficult to articulate for the traditional theatre with its universal aspirations. Breaking taboos, they have uncovered a Polish reality which is full of contradictions.

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Jan Klata: Bittersweet Romance with Pop Culture

From the beginning of his career as a director, Klata has positioned himself as a committed artist. Such a stance is not only evident in the productions he has created, but also through his presence in the media, where he has never avoided making ideological declarations. His public image, however, has evolved in the course of his artistic trajectory. In the early period, Klata fashioned himself as a rebel, waging war against conservative, middleclass audiences. With time, he has become known as a specialist in staging difficult subjects relating to history and national identity. Although from the outset Klata has professed an attachment to Catholicism and right-wing val-

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ues, such as traditional patriotism and a commitment to the national community (see Klata “A, wysadzamy się”; “Wojna trwa”), he has also been a vocal opponent of conservative theatre and, paradoxically, his audiences are mainly from leftist circles. This was clearly demonstrated by the disturbance caused by his production of Do Damaszku (To Damascus), based on the play by August Strindberg, shortly after he took charge of the National Stary Theatre in Kraków (he was artistic director there between 2013 and 2017). In protest against Klata’s changes to the venue’s programme towards a more experimental direction, one of the initial performances of Do Damaszku was disrupted by a group of spectators led by a right-wing activist. The incident revealed the gap between Klata’s media image and the actual content of his work, where traditional Polish values are viewed with distrust, national myths are profaned and common beliefs are mocked. Moreover, his critical view of the populist government of the Law and Justice party, elected in 2015, was a factor in his departure from the Stary Theatre (see Klata “Krępulcowi nie ulec”). The founding myths of Polishness have been eagerly challenged by Klata since his debut in 2003, when he directed Rewizor (The Government Inspector), adapted from Nikolai Gogol’s play, at the Dramatyczny Theatre in Wałbrzych. In his version, the nineteenth-century story about a false official who arrives at a small Russian town and takes advantage of its residents’ subservience to the authorities was relocated to Poland in the 1970s. The performance exposed the absurdities of the past regime, the world of cronyism and provincial deals, while also accusing the then current authorities of incompetence and corruption. Klata does not hesitate to subvert the original material used in his adaptations. In H. (Wybrzeże Theatre, Gdańsk, 2004), based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the late king appears on horseback as a Polish hussar, reminding the audience of the past glory of the Polish army. More crucially, this production took place in the halls of the Gdańsk Shipyard, where the workers went on strike in 1980 leading to the creation of Solidarność (the Independent SelfGoverning Labour Union Solidarity). Due to financial problems in 1996 and without government support, the shipyard was declared bankrupt and a great number of jobs were lost. The place where Solidarity was born has, therefore, become a symbol of the destruction of shared property by the ruling elites and the breaking of the covenant with the workers, who were instrumental in overthrowing the communist regime. Setting his Hamlet there, the director was calling the post-Solidarity elites to account for squandering the workers’ 1980s revolution and abandoning the community-building ideals of the movement. In …córka Fizdejki (…The Daughter of Fizdejko), based on the 1923 avantgarde play by Polish artist Witkacy (Dramatyczny Theatre, Wałbrzych, 2004), Klata addressed popular fears regarding Poland’s accession to the European

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Union. The imagery included a crowd of unemployed people in striped uniforms, as if from the Auschwitz camp, and Neo-Teutonic Knights as technocrats dressed in suits by the iconic German brand Hugo Boss. Klata appealed to primitive national stereotypes, treating the concerns of part of the Polish population both seriously and ironically. The impoverished Poles were played by unemployed residents of the host city of Wałbrzych (a place near the German border which is synonymous with the post-transformation poverty of Polish provinces), while nationalist megalomania was represented by Jan Matejko’s painting Bitwa pod Grunwaldem (Battle of Grunwald), which commemorates the victory of the Polish King Władysław Jagiełło over the Teutonic Knights in the fifteenth century. The painting, which was hung as backdrop to the set, served also as a commentary on the present, when both nations appear to be prisoners of history and the stereotypes they have created about themselves. History is a recurring element in Klata’s productions, always appearing cruelly parodied and twisted. Transfer! (Wrocław Współczesny Theatre, 2005) takes up the controversial topics of the resettlement of Poles and the displacement of Germans after World War II, using memories of people who experienced the war as children. Klata invited both Poles and Germans to participate in the project and narrate their own recollections on stage. Memory returning in the words of non-professional actors also acquired the character of ‘post-memory’, the trauma of war passed on to the next generation (see Hirsh). As a counterpoint to these personal stories, the Big Three at Yalta (Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin) were played by performers acting like puppets. The official history, often treated instrumentally by politicians, was constantly undermined by the private stories of genuine war victims. As a result, a moving account of the expulsions was created, with which the Wrocław theatre successfully toured several festivals in Poland and Europe, including Wiesbaden, Moscow, Paris, Lyon, Lille, Reims, Novi Sad and Maribor. Klata revisited the Second World War in Trylogia (The Trilogy; National Stary Theatre, Kraków, 2009), based on the series of historical novels by Henryk Sienkiewicz. Here, the Polish narratives of heroism and martyrdom were interrogated not only in their original seventeenth-century setting, but also in relation to the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. Although this operation is considered a symbol of Polish heroism, many historians believe that the decision of the Polish Government in exile and the leaders of the Home Army (undercover armed forces) to trigger it was erroneous. Without support from the outside, the uprising had no chance of success, leading to the unnecessary deaths of thousands of people and the complete destruction of the capital. The director has also tackled issues concerning capitalism and consumer culture. Oresteia by Aeschylus (National Stary Theater, Kraków, 2007) was used

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to reflect on the ubiquitous presence of popular culture in contemporary life. The characters of this Greek trilogy were portrayed as pop culture idols. For example, Apollo was stylised as Robbie Williams, the ‘god’ of pop music, and Athena was a television star hosting a show: the trial of Orestes, a scene that in the original had been interpreted as a harbinger of democracy. Instead of heroes with real power, puppet-like figures appeared on stage (as in Transfer!) to perform in front of an audience. Klata seemed to suggest that those who stage authority do not always have it, while those who consume such performances do not always expect that authority to have a tangible impact on reality. Similarly, Klata pondered upon the connections between authority and capital in Ziemia obiecana (The Promised Land; Polski Theatre, Wrocław, 2009), based on Władysław Reymont’s panoramic novel about the origins of capitalism in Poland in the late nineteenth century. Although Klata declares himself a Catholic, his work has criticised the Catholic Church as an institution. In Lochy Watykanu (The Dungeons of the Vatican; Wrocław Współczesny Theatre, 2004), based on André Gide’s novel, he dissected the mentality and spirituality of Polish people at a time of political transformation. He also exposed instances of religiousness as a façade and ridiculed conspiracy theories about the Vatican. The imprisonment of the Pope in Gide’s novel was realised in performance through the convention of a computer game. Using the aesthetics of pop culture – for example, tacky Virgin Marys appearing on stage and actors performing songs from the evangelical Oasis Movement – the director mocked the superficial religiousness of the Poles, most of whom declare their devotion to the Church without knowledge or observance. Then, eleven years later, Klata set his adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear (National Stary Theatre, Kraków, 2015) in the Vatican. In his version, Lear becomes an elderly pope distributing authority among his daughters/cardinals. As the old ‘father’ passes away, the clergy conduct endless rituals while scheming for power. The spectacular nature of this production can be taken as a comment on the media spectacle surrounding the death of John Paul II in 2005, when the Polish press followed the Pope’s deterioration closely and published countless images of his struggle with illness. Many aspects of Klata’s productions can also be associated with political cabaret: the energy and farcical pace of the performances, the journalistic nature of the issues discussed,13 the use of slogans in text and images, and the anti-literary quality of the language, which is dominated by colloquialisms, slang and vulgar expressions. One of the most topical of his recent shows

13

This connects with the German tradition of Zeittheater or ‘theatre of engagement’ formulated by Erwin Piscator (see Szydłowski; Innes 395-97).

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was Wróg ludu (An Enemy of the People; National Stary Theatre, Kraków, 2015), based on Henrik Ibsen’s text. Klata’s adaptation not only scrutinised the nature of modern capitalist democracy and how it leads to populism, but also emphasised the responsibility of governing elites for policies that are harmful to people, this being a pressing issue in contemporary Poland. In Klata’s interpretation, the ambivalent figure of small-town physician Dr. Stockmann is sympathetic and, when losing his fight against the ‘moderate majority’ who is unwilling to bear the costs of clean water, leaves in a refugee boat. The performance included an improvised passage by actor Juliusz Chrząstowski as Stockmann, breaking character and provoking the audience with questions about their political views. His monologue referred directly to the problem of air pollution in Kraków as well as to the controversial topic of the refugee crisis. The actor’s words were dismissed with laughter by part of the audience, as if the case was being put to the already convinced. Yet, simultaneously, a powerful sense of a like-minded community emerged. As he observes reality from the position of a critical commentator, questioning accepted narratives, Klata also willingly violates the aesthetic rules of bourgeois theatre and good taste. Like Strzępka and Demirski, he combines canonical texts from high culture with elements belonging to the so-called low culture. His productions contain choreographic interludes and musical collages, cabaret gags and improvised passages, thereby fitting with the eclectic and politically charged tradition of Attic Old Comedy. Klata’s actors play their roles with the ease of entertainers, occasionally interacting with the audience. At the same time, however, the acting is formal and stylised, based on calculated movements, ostentatious looks, caricature and exaggeration. There are many references to popular music, as well as to the aesthetics of advertisements and video clips. Klata emphasises that he is not interested in theatre as a temple of art, where certain things are appropriate while others are forbidden (see “Wojna trwa”). He strives to bring to the stage elements from everyday life, colloquial ways of communication and the iconography of pop culture. At the onset of his career, the director repeatedly claimed that his perfect audience was made of spectators who do not normally go to the theatre, those who regard it as an ‘embarrassing’ place but would instead eagerly attend a rock concert (see “W oku salonu”). His aim has been to use that direct language on stage and attract audiences who are unmoved by traditional plays.

3

Conclusion

After 1989, classical theatre in Poland, in its dominant conservative form, lost its political power. Artists directed their attention to contemporary drama and

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more eclectic forms of performance, some of them inspired by German practitioners. While during the communist period theatre-makers were interested in metaphorising reality and seeking their own autonomy in art, directors who debuted after 1989 began to treat theatre as a training ground for social criticism, breaking accepted patterns, undermining existing historical interpretations and making a critical commentary on the present. In this way, Polish theatre enacted a ‘performative turn’ (see Domańska), understood as the transition from the contemplation of reality to action. Introducing elements previously unwelcome in Polish theatre, such as the conventions of fairground art, comedic genres, contemporary forms of mass entertainment, characters from low culture and popular iconography, post-1989 practitioners have opened up the stage to what was formerly repressed, thus questioning the legitimacy of high culture. Reaching towards the tradition of plebeian theatre, pioneering figures like Strzępka, Demirski and Klata have revitalised comedic genres such as burlesque and farce, giving artistic status to forms hitherto considered as mere entertainment. In pushing the boundaries of ‘good taste’, the use of comedy has also weakened the censorious cultural habits of the theatre elite in Poland. In her analysis of comedy through Lacanian theory, Alenka Zupančič notices its great emancipatory power, since it shows cracks in our most familiar realities: “our finitude is always a failed finitude – one could say a finitude with a leak in it. […] It is precisely this ‘failed finitude’, especially in its object form, that comedy thrives on” (52). Comedy enables the coexistence of two conflicting realities and, as Małgorzata Sugiera claims commenting on Zupancić’s book, “its task is to confront on the stage what is not to be found in life and thought” (Mikurda et al. 36). In its different forms, comedy in performance activates an emotional potential for communication with the audience and relaxes, temporarily, the fixed order of things. Creating an opportunity to cross boundaries and divisions, comedy channels latent conflicts and fuels political involvement. Of course, the question remains whether that which is harsh and dangerous is not rendered safe when disarmed through humour, merely becoming a source of amusement. Still, laughter retains its subversive potential by releasing energy that can be used for social change. Translated by Zuzanna Cieplińska-Zwonik

Works Cited Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World. Translated by Hélène Iswolsky, MIT Press, 1968.

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Bakhtin, Mikhail. Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics. Edited and translated by Caryl Emerson. U of Minnesota P, 1984. Borowski, Mateusz. “Theatre Takes a Stand: Polish Participatory Theatre at the Turn of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries.” Translated by Aleksandra Sakowska, Polish Theater Journal, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1-12, www.polishtheatrejournal.com/index .php/ptj/article/view/38/59. Accessed 22 Oct. 2017. Braun, Kazimierz. A History of Polish Theater, 1939-1989: Spheres of Captivity and Freedom. Greenwood Press, 1996. Cioffi, Kathleen. “New (and Not-So-New) Alternatives.” Contemporary Theatre Review, vol. 15, no. 1, 2005, pp. 69-83. Domańska, Ewa. “Zwrot performatywny we współczesnej humanistyce.” Teksty Drugie, no. 5, 2007, pp. 48-61. Drewniak, Łukasz. “Bonnie i Clyde, czyli teatralny blitzkrieg Strzępki i Demirskiego.” Przekrój, no. 51, 2010, pp. 46-7. Fox, Dorota. “Polski kabaret – tradycja i współczesność.” Postscriptum Polonistyczne, vol. 2, no. 8, 2011, pp. 123-41. Fox, Dorota, and Dobrosława Wężowicz-Ziółkowska. “Triumf estrady. W poszukiwaniu źródeł poetyki współczesnego społeczeństwa spektaklu.” Intymne – prywatne – publiczne, edited by Ewa Wąchocka, U of Silesia P, 2015, pp. 153-74. Głowacka, Aneta. “Transpozycje kabaretowe w teatrze Moniki Strzępki i Pawła Demirskiego.” Kabaret – poważna sprawa?, edited by Dorota Fox and Jacek Mikołajczyk, U of Silesia P, 2015, pp. 177-94. Hirsh, Marianne. “Family Pictures: Maus, Mourning and Post-Memory.” The Emotions, Gender, and the Politics of Subjectivity, special issue of Discourse, vol. 15, no. 2, 19921993, pp. 3-29. Innes, Christopher. “Theatre after Two World Wars.” The Oxford Illustrated History of Theatre, edited by John Russell Brown, Oxford UP, 1995, pp. 380-444. Klata, Jan. “W oku salonu.” Interview by Łukasz Drewniak. Przekrój, no. 8, 2005, pp. 4851. Klata, Jan. “Wojna trwa.” Interview by Aneta Kyzioł. Polityka, no. 5, 2006, www.polityka .pl/archiwumpolityki/1865582,1,wojna-trwa.read. Accessed 24 Apr. 2020. Klata, Jan. “A, wysadzamy się.” Interview by Joanna Lichocka. Newsweek Polska, no. 14, 2009, pp. 88-92. Klata, Jan. “Krępulcowi nie ulec.” Interview by Dorota Wodecka. Gazeta Wyborcza, no. 116, 2017, stary.pl/pl/krepulcowi-ulec-janem-klata-rozmawia-dorota-wodecka/. Accessed 24 Apr. 2020. Kowalczyk, Janusz R. “Od buntu i drwiny do arogancji.” Rzeczpospolita, 10 Apr. 2010, www.rp.pl/artykul/119044-Od-buntu-i-drwiny-do-arogancji.html. Accessed 22 Oct. 2017. Krajewska-Wieczorek, Anna. Review of A History of Polish Theater, 1939-1989, by Kazimierz Braun. Theatre Journal, vol. 50, no. 4, 1998, pp. 557-58.

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Kristeva, Julia. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. Translated by Leon S. Roudiez, Columbia UP, 1982. Lease, Bryce. After ’89: Polish Theatre and the Political. Manchester UP, 2016. “List ludzi teatru ‘Teatr nie jest produktem/ widz nie jest klientem’.” Polish Theatre Portal, 27 Mar. 2012, www.e-teatr.pl/pl/artykuly/136030.html. Accessed 22 Oct. 2017. Mikurda, Kuba, et al. “Absolutna komedia.” Panel on The Odd One In, by Alenka Zupančič. Didaskalia, no. 97-8, 2010, pp. 34-41. Pawłowski, Roman. Introduction. Pokolenie porno i inne niesmaczne utwory teatralne: Antologia najnowszego dramatu polskiego, edited by Roman Pawłowski, Zielona Sowa, 2003, pp. 5-20. Rancière, Jacques. Aesthetics and its Discontents. Translated by Steven Corcoran, Wiley, 2009. Ratajczakowa, Dobrochna. Galeria gatunków widowiskowych, teatralnych i dramatycznych. Adam Mickiewicz UP, 2015. Ratajczakowa, Dobrochna, et al. “In Transition: 1989–2004.” Contemporary Theatre Review, vol. 15, no. 1, 2005, pp. 17-27. Schindler, Norbert. Ludzie prości, ludzie niepokorni… Kultura ludowa w początkach dziejów nowożytnych. Translated from German by Barbara Ostrowska, Wiedza Powszechna, 2002. Stokfiszewski, Igor. “W stronę akcji bezpośredniej.” Notatnik Teatralny, no. 64-5, 2011, pp. 100-10. Strzępka, Monika. “Profanacja jest konieczna!” Interview by Henryka Wach-Malicka. Dziennik Zachodni, 26 July 2010, www.dziennikzachodni.pl/teatr-profanacja-jest -konieczna/ar/286282. Accessed 24 Apr. 2020. Strzępka, Monika, Paweł Demirski and Michał Korchowiec. “Establishment i walonki.” Interview by Joanna Wichowska. Dwutygodnik. Strona Kultury, no. 45, 2010, www.dwutygodnik.com/artykul/1693-establishment-i-walonki.html. Accessed 17 Oct. 2017. Strzępka, Monika, Paweł Demirski and Maciek Nowak. “Spotkania czas zaczynać!” Interview by s. Gazeta Wyborcza. Kultura, 1 Apr. 2011, warszawa.wyborcza.pl/ warszawa/1,34861,9362609,Spotkania_czas_zaczynac_.html?as=2&startsz=x. Accessed 22 Oct. 2017. Stuhr, Jerzy. “Krytycy, opamiętajcie się!” Gazeta Wyborcza. Kultura, no. 72, 2006, p. 11. Szdłowski, Roman. “Droga Piscatora.” Teatr polityczny, by Erwin Piscator, translated from German and introduced by Roman Szydłowski, Wydawnictwa Artystyczne i Filmowe, 1983, pp. 5-18. Trojanowska, Tamara. Review of A History of Polish Theater, 1939-1989, by Kazimierz Braun. The Polish Review, vol. 42, no. 2, 1997, pp. 248-50. Węgrzyniak, Rafał. “Teatr niezbyt angażujący.” Odra, no. 6, 2008, pp. 106-8.

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Wyszkowski, Michał. “Sztachety zostały rzucone.” Wiadomości Wałbrzyskie, 10 Apr. 2007. Polish Theatre Portal, www.e-teatr.pl/pl/artykuly/37621.html. Accessed 17 Oct. 2017. Zupančič, Alenka. The Odd One In: On Comedy. MIT P, 2008.

Theatre NO99’s Savisaar: An Estonian Political Musical for the Twenty-First Century Madli Pesti

Abstract This chapter discusses the play Savisaar (2015) by renowned Estonian contemporary political theatre company NO99, directed by Ene-Liis Semper and Tiit Ojasoo. As a political musical, Savisaar followed NO99’s main focus on power relations and democratic systems within Estonian society. With the name of a real politician as title and protagonist, Savisaar adopts the style of Greek tragedy, tracing the rise and fall of a powerful king and exploring the struggle of relinquishing power. The essay presents this case study within the framework of the ‘theatrical event’ and it also examines different strategies of political performance at play (thematic, ideological, aesthetic and functional). The production, as was characteristic for NO99, combined a Brechtian form – with a certain didactic quality – with postdramatic elements such as the integration of contemporary multimedia. In addition, this time the politicality of the performance was especially evident in the preliminary process, which made the show metapolitical.

Estonia, a tiny country in Northern Europe, has a population of 1.3 million and an almost equal number of annual visits to the theatre.1 According to a 2016 survey, 87% of the population considers theatre as one of the most important expressions of Estonian culture and 57% goes to the theatre at least once a year (Kivirähk 4).2 In comparison, a 2013 Special Eurobarometer concludes that the average theatre attendance in the European Union is 28% (“Cultural Access and Participation” 7).3 There are approximately fifty theatre companies in Estonia, ten of which are funded by the state or municipal governments,

1 Statistics from the Estonian Theatre Agency show that theatre attendance has been over one million per year since 2007 (see Statistika). 2 The survey “Teatri positsioon ja roll ühiskonnas” (The Position and Role of Theatre in Society) was set up in 2016 by the Estonian Association of Performing Arts Institutions, together with the Estonian Theatre Union. (All translations from Estonian are by the author of this chapter unless otherwise indicated). 3 According to this same study, Estonia’s figure is 45% (“Cultural Access and Participation” T3).

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and around two hundred new productions premiere annually (see Statistika). In this fertile environment, the performing arts scene in Estonia has recently opened itself up to new influences and witnessed considerable international exchange. Debates that are relevant in Europe – about civil society, capitalism, sustainable energy and ethical politics, among other matters – have also entered Estonian stages. This chapter aims at exploring both the aesthetics and the political impact of one of the companies at the forefront of these developments: Theatre NO99. After providing an overview of their work, I will focus on their production Savisaar (2015), a political musical about the eponymous former leader of the opposition and ex-mayor of Tallinn, Estonia’s capital. The importance and popularity of theatre within Estonian society has changed in recent history. As Jaak Rähesoo puts it, after the end of the Soviet occupation in 1991 “[t]heatre as a public art […] had to re-think its role: for years a channel for expressing, however allusively, opposition to Soviet rule, it now had to obtain a new function. This became even more urgent once independence had been won and a period of economic transition from a centralized system to market forces set in” (Estonian Theater 81). During that transition, many theatres closed in other Eastern European countries due to economic difficulties, but this did not happen in Estonia, where the number of subsidised theatres stayed intact (see Saro 96). However, from the second half of the 1980s, with the weakening of Soviet power that culminated in the Singing Revolution,4 ‘performances’ happening on the streets (e.g. choir events and demonstrations) became much more significant than whatever the traditional theatre houses could offer. Venues reacted to their loss of audience with an almost fully commercial repertory,5 playing predominantly AngloAmerican comedies. Eva-Liisa Linder notes that “the long-time impact of totalitarianism on social and cultural life has engendered a certain social passivity in the Estonian people” (85). After regaining independence, it took fifteen to twenty years for civil society to develop, for citizens to form groups or associations and fight for their rights with democratic means. Political theatre has, therefore, grown rather slowly too. As Rähesoo points out,

4 The Singing Revolution, a term coined by Estonian artist and activist Heinz Valk, refers to the pro-independence singing events that took place between 1987 and 1991, against the backdrop of a 150-year old tradition of Song Festivals in Estonia. Featuring mostly patriotic songs, these events became a catalyst for political change. The biggest saw 100,000 people singing together at the Tallinn Song Festival Grounds (see Tammela). 5 “By the year 1992 the annual number of spectators had fallen to around 700,000 – a catastrophic loss of nearly a million in only five years” (Rähesoo Estonian Theater 82).

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the end of the dragging Soviet stagnation and the emergence of a radically new situation have given fresh impetus to dynamic impulses, especially among the youth. As in the beginning of the 20th century, they are most pronounced in visual arts and poetry. The theatre, as usual, lags behind. At first, in the 1990s, a large proportion of the theatre community’s energy was absorbed by a purely stabilizing effort, namely keeping the system of repertory companies functioning amid the economic chaos and sudden fall in attendance figures. (“Building in the Daytime” 91) After having to adapt to the rules of the new market economy during the 1990s, the theatre needed to redefine itself in a changed society. By the second half of the 2000s it had again become a significant agent to promote dialogue on societal processes, or at least to mirror them (see Pesti Poliitiline teater Eestis ja Saksamaal 64). The first theatre to take on this challenge was the Von Krahl, founded in 1992. Despite it also being the first privately funded theatre in the country, its work has been bold in attacking the passivity of Estonian society, as well as addressing the power of corporations – for example, in Connecting People (2001), about the Finnish company Nokia – and the hypocrisy of capitalism. In its preference for postdramatic forms and politically relevant issues, this company certainly paved the way for the emergence of the groundbreaking Theatre NO99.

1

Theatre NO99: Entertainment and Information

Founded in 2005 in Tallinn and financed by the Ministry of Culture, Theatre NO99 was created by director Tiit Ojasoo (b. 1977) and renowned video artist and scenographer Ene-Liis Semper (b. 1969). In just over ten years, their joint venture became the calling card of Estonian theatre, presenting work at some of the most important venues and festivals in Europe. While especially popular in German-speaking countries (performing, for instance, at Konzerthaus Berlin in 2017), NO99 also featured in the main programme of the Avignon Festival (2015), at the Royal Flemish Theatre, KVS, in Brussels (2016) and at the Biennale Teatro in Venice (2017). In 2015, the company won the Grand Prix at the Prague Quadrennial and, in 2017, the Europe Theatre Prize for New Theatrical Realities. Theatre NO99’s approach was unconventional on several counts, from the fact that actors were regarded as co-creators to the very name of their collective endeavour:

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Theatre NO99 is a serial work of contemporary art. At the beginning of it was an idea that considering the inherently finite nature of time and its finality, time should instead be measured backwards. This served as the impetus for Tiit Ojasoo and Ene-Liis Semper’s idea for a theatre where only 99 stage productions will open and which thus moves along sequential numbers to zero, towards oblivion. […] Every stage production at Theatre NO99 is prepared with the feeling that it is the final production. (Kaunissaare) The company was also particularly skilled in attracting publicity. Their political theatre projects captured much attention in both printed and social media, occasionally moving from the newspapers’ culture section to the front page. As Semper and NO99’s dramaturg Eero Epner state in their joint article “Ära söö kiles saia ehk kas poliitilist kunsti on võimalik mõista?” (Don’t Eat Wrapped Bread or Is It Possible to Understand Political Art?), right from the start their objective was to bring the theatre closer to society using popular means. Early internationally successful productions in this vein are Nafta! (Oil!, 2006) and Garjatšije estonskije parni (Hot Estonian Guys, 2007).6 Nafta! discusses peak oil through cabaret aesthetics and is considered Brechtian in its combination of a didactic impulse (highlighting the message that the Earth is running out of energy) and entertainment (e.g. actors performing ABBA songs), as well as the evident use of V-effects (see Eppelt 86-7; Pesti Poliitiline teater Eestis ja Saksamaal 105-6). Another distinctive characteristic of NO99 was borrowing elements from audiovisual media: apart from the extensive incorporation of pop music, Nafta! features a parody of a television show. Garjatšije estonskije parni, in turn, deals with the fear that ethnic Estonians will soon become extinct, a real concern that has been raised by scientists. The performance revolves around a group of men who form a club with the aim of reproduction, fathering as many children as possible. The tone of the piece is satirical, mixing documentary and revue styles. Its form can be characterised as postdramatic, as it comprises an assortment of monologues, songs, dances and études. The production raised intense discussion about demographic issues, both in the Estonian media (see Maiste) and in Europe. The show toured extensively between 2007 and 2009, giving guest performances in Holland, Finland, Russia and Poland, as well as in German-speaking countries. In the

6 The title translations have been taken from the English version of the company’s website (see NO99). In some cases, the original title is in English.

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German-language media there was widespread coverage, labelling the piece as political theatre (see, for example, Haider-Pregler). Another notable work that employs postdramatic and even performance art aesthetics is Kuidas seletada pilte surnud jänesele (How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare, 2009). The core theme here is cultural politics. The performance, focusing on the position of the contemporary artist, caused scandal by mocking the then Culture Minister.7 At the end of the show, an actor playing the role of an artist ‘urinates’ on an actress playing the minister. The piece is humorous, but also touches upon serious questions about artistic freedom in a democratic society. Significantly, this production also demonstrated that a publicly funded institution like the theatre can criticise the state that finances it. The most remarkable political performance by NO99 was Ühtne Eesti (Unified Estonia, 2010), a theatrical simulation of the birth of a new political party (the name of which echoes Putin’s party, United Russia). Since Estonia, at the time, needed a new political force to resolve societal problems that the government was neglecting – such as growing income inequality, cases of corruption and lack of transparency in the funding of politics – the fictional party gained instant popularity in the media. Although Theatre NO99 initially declared that the whole exercise was a performance, they played along with the press when sensing that a substantial portion of the public hoped that it would become a real political project. Ühtne Eesti was a wake-up call for politically passive Estonians and probably the most debated cultural event in the country. It started with a press conference at the Radisson Hotel in Tallinn declaring that the new party’s general assembly would be held within forty-four days. It was also announced then that Unified Estonia would reflect the traits of all the larger parties in its behaviour, rhetoric, programme, campaign and so on. For instance, populist rhetoric was driven to an extreme with slogans promising money to mothers, free land to those who would move to the countryside and for banks to cancel people’s real estate loans. At some point, somebody scribbled over the party posters with graffiti; it later transpired that the company itself was behind this. The purpose was to draw even more attention to the campaign. During the seven weeks leading up to the general assembly, 103 articles about Ühtne Eesti were printed, counting only those in the main newspapers. The campaign was exemplary: huge populist posters on the streets and free publicity on the internet, including social media. According to the official figures, the assembly was attended by 6,540 people (“Yearbook of Esto-

7 The name of the minister was Laine Jänes. The word “jänes” means “hare” in English.

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nian Theatre Statistics 2010” 62).8 The hall where it took place, the biggest in Estonia, had held the Eurovision Song Contest in 2002. The topics discussed were politically contentious: the economic crisis and demographic and environmental issues, among others. The event concluded with the election of a new leader, who turned out to be director Ojasoo. His speech was quoted and discussed for a long time afterwards; his final message was: “You are free!” (the last words of the event).9 The piece raised questions about power, democracy, freedom, the will of the people, the role of the media, truth and lies (see Pesti Poliitiline teater ja selle strateegiad 113-15). NO99 continued to produce work engaging with politics, both nationally and internationally. In 2011 they staged The Rise and Fall of Estonia (the title alluding to Bertolt Brecht’s 1930 libretto Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny), a production that recreated important landmarks in the country’s history over the last one hundred years. The story, comprising loosely connected scenes, was conveyed via a live stream to an audience of 2,000 people sitting in a concert hall nearby. Once again NO99 managed to provoke debate, this time about the interpretation of history. In the same year, the theatre collaborated with British playwright Simon Stephens and German director Sebastian Nübling in Three Kingdoms, a trilingual thriller about prostitution and human traficking that also explored prejudices between Eastern and Western Europe. Nübling, from Munich’s Kammerspiele, returned to direct Ilona. Rosetta. Sue in 2013. Further international success was achieved by Mu naine vihastas (My Wife Got Angry, 2014), the first Estonian production to be chosen for the main programme of the Avignon Festival. Atypically for NO99, this humorous and uplifting show deals with personal rather than political themes: after the main character’s wife deletes all travel family photos from his computer, he decides to restage them with the help of a bunch of people he meets in a hotel room. A special position in the repertory of NO99 is held by Kodumaa karjed (Screams of Fatherland, 2015), a documentary solo performance with which Jaak Prints won the Annual Theatre Award for best actor (the show was also nominated for best play).10 The piece uses documents from Estonian media in the past twenty-five years, assembled in a compelling montage.

8 9 10

The webpage of NO99 exaggerates the number to “more than 7500” (see “NO75 Unified Estonia Assembly”). “Te olete vabad!” The Annual Theatre Awards are organised by the Estonian Theatre Union. There are 27 categories covering the whole field of the Estonian performing arts. The event is broadcast live by Estonian Television and takes place on International Theatre Day, 27 March. The awards are financed by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

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The documents include printed advertisements, commercial announcements, wanted ads, speeches of presidents and other politicians, campaign promises, song lyrics, sport reportages, internet commentaries, television and radio broadcasts, court documents, a necrology and a poem. Although it is a performance about the Estonian community, it also resonates at an individual level, as every member of the audience would have their own memories of the period. Through a combination of reflection and emotion, the play both scrutinises and reassures Estonian society. At the other end of the spectrum, Kõnts (Filth, 2015) – which would turn out to be NO99’s last international guest performance in 2018 – featured nine actors standing, jumping, running and wallowing in thick mud for about two hours. In its depiction of relationships full of tension, emptiness, frustration and rage, the show can be interpreted as a portrayal of the downfall of humankind. As the descriptions above make clear, the goals of Theatre NO99’s political performances were, on the one hand, to spread information and, on the other, to ask challenging questions. Their work interrogates our everyday life and the society to which we belong. Their productions covered themes such as the environment, Estonia’s history, national identity and demographic problems, the position of art in contemporary society, cultural politics and the ethics of the political party system, among many others. They usually took a didactic standpoint, presenting the audience with what they considered to be the truth about the current state of affairs. Their formal approaches, however, were diverse, blending elements from cabaret, revue, reality shows, video and performance art, to name but a few. Although their practice could be described, generally, as postdramatic (as will be discussed below), they often devised their shows from documentary material such as the news, interviews and pre-recorded footage, offering an eclectic mix of representational and non-representational styles.

2

Savisaar, the Politician, and Savisaar, the Theatrical Event

NO99’s Savisaar combines the aesthetics of ancient Greek tragedy and musical theatre, within a story about political power. The title refers to Edgar Savisaar (b. 1950), who until 2016 was the leader of the biggest political party in Estonia, the centre-left Centre Party. Savisaar is considered as a living dinosaur in Estonian politics. He gained prominence during the process of restoration of independence from the end of the 1980s and became the first Prime Minister of the re-established Republic in 1991. As years passed, he and his party became known for their populist approach, attracting support from elderly and lower

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income voters, as well as the Russian-speaking minority (see Poliitika Guru).11 Savisaar has been elected mayor of Tallinn several times, serving from 2001 to 2004, and 2007 to 2015. As leader of the opposition, however, his reputation was that of a dictatorial figure, which made it unlikely for other political forces to collaborate with the Centre Party in the state parliament or at government level. Savisaar continued NO99’s critical focus on power relations and the functioning of the democratic system. The plot charts the fall of a once important politician, yet the real Savisaar is not the main concern. The piece is about gaining and keeping power, about the struggle to give it up, about what power does to a human being. In a similar process to the one preceding Ühtne Eesti, everything that happened before the actual premiere of Savisaar was as important as the production itself, strongly influencing its reception. As mentioned above, the ability of NO99 to manipulate the media and public opinion was outstanding. All this suggests that Savisaar can be analysed most productively through the framework of the ‘theatrical event’. Willmar Sauter draws attention to the “eventness” of theatre as its “unique quality” (13), that which separates it from everyday life. At the same time, however, a theatrical production can be part of public life to a very high degree. The theatrical event is not only constituted by the interaction between the performer and the spectator during the period of the performance. The theatrical event must be understood as a process as much as it is a specific occurrence. […] The ‘length’ of an event is eventually determined by the purpose of the investigation and therefore depending on the decisions of the observer, i.e. the researcher. (7) In the case of Savisaar, the interaction Sauter describes between the theatrical event and its societal context began with a witty and effective marketing process. The production was perfectly timed: its premiere was scheduled for two weeks before the general parliamentary elections in Estonia, with the last performance taking place on election day. Savisaar was the leader of the biggest and most popular political party, so the interaction with the election campaign was deliberately written into the project from the start. Months before the premiere, a giant poster of the production suddenly appeared on a big building overlooking the Tallinn city government headquar11

One third of Estonia’s population is Russian-speaking. The Estonian- and Russianspeaking communities live in separate media and cultural worlds, which makes interactions between them rather scarce.

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ters. Savisaar, then mayor of Tallinn, could see the poster from his office window. The publicity immediately attracted the attention of the media and many important politicians were questioned: What did they think of NO99 making a show about the opposition leader? What did they think about the title? Everybody speculated about the production, knowing nothing about it. The only information that the theatre provided, apart from the show’s title, was its genre: Savisaar would be a musical (according to NO99, at that point they had not yet decided on the use of elements of Greek tragedy, nor did they have a script). The production was planned for the biggest concert hall in Tallinn’s city centre, with almost 2,000 seats (for a city of 400,000 inhabitants). Tickets were sold out in a few days, months in advance of the opening. The company then caused controversy with another poster. A few weeks before the premiere, the city was flooded with black-and-white playbills (the typography and colour scheme typical of NO99) showing the slogan: “Elect Savisaar. This advertisement is paid by the state”.12 The playbills were calling for the public to buy tickets for the remaining extra performances of Savisaar, while the funding claim accurately reflected the subsidised status of the theatre. Unsurprisingly, however, the signs were seen as part of the parliamentary campaign. As the law prohibits campaigning in public spaces from one month before the election date (to avoid excessive expenditure), the police ordered NO99 to take down the posters. Of course, vigorous discussion in the media was again guaranteed. Another pre-premiere event consisted in a political blog posted on the theatre website that also appeared in Postimees, Estonia’s biggest daily newspaper. The blog discussed all four political parties represented in the Estonian parliament at the time. One blog entry commented on the visionary speech of the then Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas on 10 January 2015. Rõivas, from the liberal Reform Party, was the youngest prime minister in Europe at the time. NO99 asked where had all the brave old politicians gone who had made reforms in the 1990s and why young politicians today did not have the courage to push forward real change. The question of ethics was also key to the blog, anticipating the production’s emphasis on the ethical implications of clinging on to power. A final preamble to the production was “First Reading: Savisaar’s Great Speech”.13 This ‘action’ was scheduled to coincide with the real Savisaar’s political address at the concert hall of the Estonian National Opera. NO99 housed

12 13

“Vali Savisaar. Reklaam on kinni makstud riigi poolt”. “Esimene lugemine: Savisaare kõne rahvale”.

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its own ‘speech’ in the adjacent Estonian Drama Theatre. Both venues have a comparable capacity – 500 to 600 people – and are about a hundred years old. Therefore, they function as important cultural landmarks in a society where theatre has historically played (and still plays) a crucial role. Both speeches attracted full audiences, even though the spectators were markedly different: in one venue there were those genuinely interested in hearing the politician; next door were those taking part in the artistic event conducted by Theatre NO99. During this ‘first reading’, spectators had a first glimpse of the character Savisaar, played by the powerful female actor Marika Vaarik. The play’s songs were also rehearsed at the venue. In the production, a choir of around fifty young people, called Vox Populi,14 played an essential part (that of the Centre Party, loyal to Savisaar), emulating the Greek chorus.

3

Musical, Tragedy or Epic Theatre?

The play depicts Savisaar as King Edgar, a once powerful monarch who is becoming increasingly isolated. Elements of Greek tragedy – for example, dialogue written in poetic prose and lyrics in verse – are combined with a modern plot: in this parallel universe, kings are elected, and the action occurs on Edgar’s election day. As the play progresses, King Edgar is abandoned by his friends and enemies. Firstly, the foreign ambassadors withdraw their support. The ambassadors wear fur coats, making them appear Russian (the real Savisaar has flirted with Estonia’s neighbour for political support and his party has an agreement with United Russia). It then transpires that Crown Princess Kadri wants to take over (the real politician Kadri Simson ran against Savisaar in the 2015 party leadership election and was only narrowly beaten). Yet King Edgar refuses to resign and turns to his old friends. These characters also represent real politicians whom the audience would have been able to recognise. They are former allies of Savisaar who left the Centre Party due to his dictatorial style of leadership. The leader ultimately betrays his supporters, (literally) stabbing them to death when they are no longer useful. At the end of the play, a Messenger from the East announces King Edgar’s election victory by a small margin, but the character of Furia, who functions as an oracle, had earlier predicted the protagonist’s demise. According to Christian Römer, instead of the expected “ironic parody”, Savisaar offers some empathy for the protagonist:

14

Youth mixed choir Vox Populi was founded in 2006 and has 60 active members (see Vox Populi).

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“the king is victorious and alone: he knows only too well that voluntary resignation will mean his death, or worse, total insignificance” (173). The concert hall stage where the play premiered was left bare, with the machinery of the venue in sight, confirming NO99’s aforementioned association with epic theatre. Occasionally a huge screen was lowered behind the actors, covering the full length of the space. In a humorous touch, there were young female assistants on stage helping to hold an umbrella above King Edgar’s head (Savisaar had often been photographed with young girls). The show was billed as “an antique tragedy about the contemporary world with a touch of rock musical” (“NO46 Savisaar”) and, fittingly, the music was composed by young rock and indie star Vaiko Eplik (with Jakob Juhkam). The songs – including solo and chorus numbers – also operated as a Brechtian device, commenting on the action and characters ironically, as in the case of the duet of Savisaar and Laar. Mart Laar was the leader of the party Fatherland and is another important politician who, during the re-independence movement, set himself against Savisaar. The humorous lyrics, sung by both characters simultaneously, say: “you can’t deny / it’s crystal clear / that the republic got its independence / only thanks to me” (Epner et al. 28).15 Vilja Savisaar (the leader’s ex-wife, also a politician) becomes a singing character as well. Her song laments, “who would pay for the years / that I slaved for the man / who is empty inside / only a shell is left / not a man / what would you pay for his name? / you never get back / the wasted years / the times gone by” (45).16 As a strong dramatic story about a fallen hero, with symbolic characters and a chorus, the play does resemble a Greek tragedy, yet it can be assumed that catharsis is not the aim. Rather, as in Brecht’s non-Aristotelian model, the story is meant to be performed with some ‘distance’ and a satirical edge, encouraging critical reflection on matters of power. Another significant V-effect was the cross-casting of the protagonist. Surprisingly, however, it was only the quality of Vaarik’s performance as Savisaar that was commented upon by reviewers, not the actor’s gender. This might be because, despite obvious references to a living public figure, King Edgar was presented by NO99 almost as an abstraction. It can be argued that Vaarik, who won the Annual Theatre Award for best actress with this performance, personified the essence of power more than a character in the conventional sense. The show was also praised for its compelling visual elements, such as the gigantic video screen where a simultaneous black-and-white projection of the characters could be seen. As Römer 15 16

“ei sinagi saa salata / ka siilil selge see / et vabariik sai alata / vaid tänu minule”. “kuid kes maksaks aastate eest/ mil orjasid meest/ kes tühi on seest/ vaid kest/ mitte mees/ mis maksate ta nime eest?/ raisatud aastaid/ kadunud aegu/ tagasi sa ei saa”.

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indicates, this may be interpreted as a symbol of the continuous exposure of public life: “Being a politician today means being under the gaze of an aggressive glare that penetrates deep beneath the makeup mercilessly assessing the value of the candidate. If the political product is no longer fresh, a fellow party member lurks around the corner with the dagger in disguise” (172). The epic elements in Savisaar suggest an interesting tension between the Brechtian and postdramatic paradigms in the work of NO99 in general (see also Linder 87). The postdramatic, as understood by Hans-Thies Lehmann, means the de-hierarchisation of performative elements on stage, where the spoken/written text no longer dominates. This kind of theatre combines heterogeneous styles (see Lehmann 26) and focuses on the materiality of the performance. The approach then results in a “multi-perspectival” form of perception (16). In Savisaar, the postdramatic aesthetics can be recognised in the non-hierarchical use of different components. The spoken text, the songs, the music, the live projection and even the costumes are equally important. Epner, who created most of the company’s texts, including Savisaar – cowritten with Tarmo Jüristo, Aare Pilv and Vaiko Eplik (lyrics) –, claimed that producing work about politics was in NO99’s nature due to it being a statefunded theatre. As part of the public sector, he argued, NO99 was supported by society and therefore had an obligation to relate to it (see Epner). Savisaar sits very squarely within NO99’s political practice, from its highly choreographed pre-production process to its final performance on election day. Yet the didactic impulse present in previous shows by NO99 is not so evident here. As stated above, the character of Savisaar becomes less a representation of a controversial politician than a metaphor for power and a vehicle to examine the ethics of party politics, without any preconceived answers. In what follows, I will conclude the analysis of Savisaar applying my own taxonomy for a definition of contemporary political theatre (see Pesti Poliitiline teater Eestis ja Saksamaal 54-8).

4

Political Performance: From Theme to Function

A political theatre performance can be considered as such according to four criteria, corresponding to the four core aspects of any artistic phenomenon: thematic, ideological, aesthetic and functional. The most widespread definition of political art (including theatre) derives from the thematic criterion: a work that deals with political and/or social themes or topics. What is considered as a topic of a text (or, in this context, a theatre performance) depends first and foremost on the interpreter of that text (in this context, the spec-

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tator) and so it is open to what s/he wants to find. A theme or topic can then be understood as a conceptual construction that the interpreter arrives at by associating different parts of the text. When identifying a theme within a text, the interpreter also widens it to other texts (or performances), establishing links. As Brinker explains, “The theme is understood as potentially uniting different texts” (21). The thematic aspect in Savisaar is unequivocal and has already been labelled by the theatre makers. By choosing the title Savisaar, NO99 makes a clear reference to the actual political landscape of Estonia, even if the ultimate objective is to question power relations in society in general. In terms of the ideological viewpoint, the ideology of an art work is, of course, dependent on the society where that work is created as well as the position of its creator. As Andrew Edgar and Peter Sedgwick assert, “the exact meaning of the term is often elusive and confused”, but “[i]ts most common use may be simply to refer to a more or less coherent set of beliefs” (170). Ideology is, in this general usage (as opposed to the specific, Marxist one), a comprehensive vision, a way of looking at the world. It can be argued that the aim of contemporary political theatre is often to oppose the consensus and conformism that is rife in western societies, provoking dissent. That was clearly one of the objectives of Savisaar as a theatrical event. The aesthetic criterion is perhaps the most disputed, as political theatre can adopt different guises (and has done so throughout its history). I would suggest, in this regard, that contemporary politics is most effectively addressed in the theatre by a postdramatic aesthetics. Central to postdramatic theatre, as discussed above, is a non-hierarchical approach where the different signsystems of a performance have the same importance, that is, the (written and oral) text does not dominate over the other (physical, visual) elements. Although Savisaar still conveys a story through dramatic means, the incorporation of various forms (Greek tragedy, musical theatre, video documentary) relates to the postdramatic paradigm. Moreover, the visual aspects of the performance – the enormous screen, the large chorus in red gowns and white wigs, the King’s golden toga – are as striking as the text cogently uttered by Vaarik as Savisaar. Crucially for political theatre, the non-hierarchical stance of the postdramatic extends to the relationship with the audience. The postdramatic spectator has more power, as the openness of the work forces him/her to make their own decisions. In the case of Savisaar, it is up to audience members to establish whether the show amounts to election propaganda, the mocking of a notorious public figure, a reflection both of and on society or something else altogether. Finally, considering the functional criterion, one must ask: What is the aim of political art/theatre? Can it provoke changes in society? Although a causal

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link is almost impossible to determine, a convincing argument can be made about NO99 in this respect. Beyond the lasting media impact of the Unified Estonia project (which is still mentioned in discussions about the relationship between civil society and political parties), an actual political act was triggered by it in May 2012. In a newspaper article called “Erakondade rahastamisest: Ausalt” (About the Financing of Political Parties: Honestly), Reform Party member Silver Meikar confessed that he had transferred money from unidentified sources to the party’s account and that this kind of scheme was known to the party’s Secretary (at the time, the Minister of Finance, Kristen Michal, who eventually resigned). Meikar’s confession, which he claimed was inspired by Ühtne Eesti, caused intense arguments on the functioning and funding of politics. In addition, for the first time after 1991 Estonians came onto the streets to protest demanding political transparency and a new civil society movement, Aitab Valelikust Poliitikast (Enough of Unfair Politics), was born. The scandal also prompted another ‘action’ by NO99, “First Reading: The Board Meeting of the Reform Party”,17 a semi-documentary piece by Epner, Ojasoo and Semper. The reading was a one-time event inspired by media coverage on the secretive financing practices of political parties. While most of the dialogue was fictional, the events and characters depicted were real (for further analysis see Linder 92-4; Pesti Poliitiline teater Eestis ja Saksamaal 114-15). In the case of Savisaar, it has been claimed that the timing of the show, right before the parliamentary elections, “contributed to the highest voter turnout since 1995” (Römer 174). However, given that the real Savisaar obtained the largest majority in the country,18 the question can also be asked whether the play inadvertently mobilised support for him. Although any influence would be impossible to measure without the necessary data, it is a question that was debated by audiences and in the media. At the same time, NO99’s tragic tale became almost prophetic for the politician. A few weeks after the ballot, he was hospitalised with a bacterial infection and his foot was amputated. Later in the same year, Estonian police charged Savisaar with corruption and he was divested of office as Mayor of Tallinn. Although he had planned to run for President, he lost the nomination within his party to a young female candidate, who failed to win the presidential election in any case.

17 18

“Esimene lugemine: reformierakonna juhatuse koosolek”. At the 2015 parliamentary elections, Savisaar received 25,057 votes, the biggest individual count. The second position was held by the then Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas, with 15,881 votes (see Riigikogu Valimised 2015). After his parlamentary victory, Savisaar decided to continue holding the post of Mayor of Tallinn.

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Moreover, when the next election for party leader came about in 2016, Savisaar played hide and seek with the media, refusing to say whether he would stand again to lead the party he had founded 25 years earlier. Two candidates were running: Jüri Ratas, a young, more liberal politician and long-time rival of Savisaar, and Yana Toom, a member of the European Parliament, loyal to Savisaar and favoured by the Russian-speaking electorate. One day prior to the election, Savisaar finally announced that he was stepping down in favour of Toom. However, Ratas won, causing commotion in Estonian politics. The next day, as if fulfilling an oracle’s prediction, the government of Estonia fell. The Reform Party, in power for the last seventeen years, lost the support of its coalition partners and the Centre Party was invited to form a new government under Prime Minister Ratas. The situation echoed the words of the play: FRIEND: You are only moving downwards, old man. Your sword is blunt, rusty long ago. What has become of you, dear friend? Nothing special. You became what becomes of us all. Your downfall has been so quick that justice cannot catch up with you, and history will not remember you as a king but as a bad dream.19 (Epner et al. 31) In 2017 Savisaar was taken to court charged with corruption, yet he also ran for the local municipality elections as the candidate of a new coalition, The List of Savisaar. He was eventually exempted from trial on grounds of ill health. Savisaar, the musical, continues to be frequently discussed in the media, but Theatre NO99 ceased operations after declaring in October 2018: “it is no longer in our might to continue working to the full merit of the ideals we once set ourselves” (NO99). Instead of counting down to zero, they stopped at production NO30, although with the one-time ‘actions’ they completed exactly one hundred premieres.

Works Cited Brinker, Menachem. “Theme and Interpretation.” The Return of Thematic Criticism, edited by Werner Sollors, Harvard UP, 1993, pp. 21-37.

19

“SÕBER: Veel ainult allapoole liigud, vana mees. Mõõk sul nüri, roostes ammu. Mis saanud sinust, sõber hea? Ei miskit erilist. Saanud see, mis saab meist kõigist. Nii kiire allakäik on sul, et õiglus sulle järele ei jõua enam, ja ajalukku ei lähe sa enam kuninga, vaid halva unenäona”.

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“Cultural Access and Participation.” Special Eurobarometer, no. 399, Nov. 2013, ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/archives/ebs/ebs_399_en.pdf. Accessed 12 Sept. 2017. Edgar, Andrew, and Peter R. Sedgwick. Cultural Theory: The Key Concepts. Routledge, 2008. Epner, Eero. “Meie poliitmaastikul on julgust vaid ühel mehel ja temal on juba ammu kõigest kõrini.” Interview with Holger Roonemaa. Eesti Päevaleht, 13 Jan. 2015, epl.delfi.ee/news/eesti/no99-dramaturg-eero-epner-meie-poliitmaastikul-on -julgust-ainult-uhel-mehel-ja-temal-on-juba-ammu-koigest-ukskoik?id=70545755. Accessed 1 Dec. 2016. Epner, Eero, et al. Savisaar. 2015 (unpublished manuscript), Estonian Theatre Agency, Tallinn. Eppelt, Monika. Das zeitgenössische Theater in Estland: Das politische Theater des NO99. Leipzig U, MA dissertation, 2007. Haider-Pregler, Hilde. “Männerrezepte für den Kindersegen.” Wiener Zeitung, 9 June 2008, vana.no99.ee/eng/tekstid.php?event_id=33&nid=41. Accessed 21 Aug. 2017. Kaunissaare, Laur. “About Us.” NO99, www.no99.ee/about-us. Accessed 15 Jan. 2020. Kivirähk, Juhan. “Teatri positsioon ja roll ühiskonnas.” Eesti Teatriliit, 2016, www .teatriliit.ee/publiku-uuring-2016. Accessed 1 Dec. 2016. Lehmann, Hans-Thies. Postdramatic Theatre. Translated by Karen Jürs-Munby, Routledge, 2006. Linder, Eva-Liisa. “How Theatre Can Develop Democracy: The Case of Theatre NO99.” Nordic Theatre Studies, vol. 25, 2013, pp. 85-96. Maiste, Valle-Sten. “Mõtlema panev natsionalism.” Teater. Muusika. Kino, no. 2, 2008, pp. 39-49. Meikar, Silver. “Erakondade rahastamisest: Ausalt.” Postimees, 22 May 2012, arvamus .postimees.ee/849254/silver-meikar-erakondade-rahastamisest-ausalt. Accessed 12 Sept. 2017. “NO46 Savisaar.” NO99, 2015, www.no99.ee/productions/no46-savisaar. Accessed 21 Aug. 2017. “NO75 Unified Estonia Assembly.” NO99, 2010, www.no99.ee/productions/no75 -unified-estonia-assembly. Accessed 12 Sept. 2017. NO99. “We Finish.” NO99, www.no99.ee. Accessed 15 Jan. 2020. Pesti, Madli. Poliitiline teater Eestis ja Saksamaal 20. ja 21. sajandil. Tartu U, MA dissertation, 2009. Pesti, Madli. Poliitiline teater ja selle strateegiad Eesti ja lääne kultuuris. Tartu U, PhD dissertation, 2016. Poliitika Guru. “Keskerakond – venelaste partei!? Ei!” Poliitika Guru, 12 Mar. 2015, www .poliitika.guru/keskerakond-venelaste-partei-ei/. Accessed 15 Sept. 2017. Rähesoo, Jaak. Estonian Theater. Estonian Theatre Union, 2008.

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Rähesoo, Jaak. “Building in the Daytime, Demolishing at Night.” Methis, no. 3, 2009, pp. 87-92. Riigikogu Valimised 2015, rk2015.vvk.ee/acquired-mandates.html. Accessed 12 Sept. 2017. Römer, Christian. “Teater NO99: Crossing the Line.” Not Just a Mirror: Looking for the Political Theatre of Today, edited by Florian Malzacher, Alexander Verlag, 2015, pp. 171-75. Saro, Anneli. “The Dynamics of the Estonian Theatre System: In Defence of Repertoire Theatre.” Methis, no. 3, 2009, pp. 93-107. Sauter, Willmar. “Introducing the Theatrical Event.” Theatrical Events: Borders, Dynamics, Frames, edited by Vicky Ann Cremona et al., Rodopi, 2004, pp. 3-14. Semper, Ene-Liis, and Eero Epner. “Ära söö kiles saia ehk kas poliitilist kunsti on võimalik mõista?” Moraalsed valikud. Lisandusi eesti kultuuriloole, edited by Johannes Saar, Kaasaegse Kunsti Eesti Keskus, 2006, pp. 107-12. Statistika. Eesti Teatri Agentuur, statistika.teater.ee/stat/main. Accessed 12 Sept. 2017. Tammela, Hiljar. “The Singing Revolution.” Estonica, 1 Oct. 2012, www.estonica.org/en/ The_Singing_Revolution/. Accessed 12 Sept. 2017. Vox Populi. www.voxpopuli.ee/en/. Accessed 12 Sept. 2017. “Yearbook of Estonian Theatre Statistics 2010.” Statistika, 2010, statistika.teater.ee/ images/upload/statistika_aastaraamat_2.pdf. Accessed 4 Oct. 2017.

Theatre and Democracy in Chile: La Re-sentida’s La imaginación del futuro, or the Failure of Utopias Camila González Ortiz

Abstract This chapter examines the play La imaginación del futuro by Chilean company La Resentida, which premiered in the capital, Santiago, in 2013 during the commemorations of the fortieth anniversary of the coup d’état. In this production the company made the bold decision to mix past and present by showing President Allende during his last hours on 11 September 1973 working alongside ministers from twenty-first-century Chile, who are trying to save him from the fatal destiny that would befall the country. The plot presents a juxtaposition of periods, but also of ideologies. It confronts Allende’s vision of socialism via democratic means with the post-dictatorship leftwing governments, which appear as representative of Zygmunt Bauman’s ‘liquid modernity’. The essay argues that the work of La Re-sentida epitomises a new generation of Chilean theatre practitioners, whose dramatic language and ideological approaches attempt a clear separation from the previous tradition of political theatre in Chile.

In less than a decade, La Re-sentida became one of the most successful Chilean theatre collectives.1 Formed in 2008 and with four plays premiered to date, the group has presented its work at highly influential international venues, such as Théâtre de la Ville in Paris and the Schaubühne in Berlin, as well as renowned festivals, such as Avignon, Cádiz and the Holland Festival. Although a critical attitude towards Chile’s current political and social scenarios is a key common factor among local contemporary theatre artists, the extent to which this critique turns visceral, radical and insolent in La Re-sentida’s work makes the company unique. All of La Re-sentida’s plays, Simulacro (Simulacrum, 2008), Tratando de hacer una obra que cambie el mundo (Trying to Make a Play that Will Change 1 The company’s name has a double meaning. On the one hand, “resentida” is the feminine form of the Spanish adjective for “resentful”. On the other, the word “sentido/a” can be translated as “felt”, and when the prefix “re” is added it translates as “overly felt”. The first meaning can be associated with La Re-sentida’s interest in exposing Chile’s social and economic contradictions in a bitter, cynical manner. (All translations from Spanish are by the author of this chapter unless otherwise indicated).

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the World, 2010), La imaginación del futuro (Imagination of the Future, 2013) and La dictadura de lo cool (The Dictatorship of Coolness, 2016),2 exhibit a sense of provocation, yet this is not gratuitous. It can be argued that the company employs provocation as both an aesthetic and political instrument to question what Alan Read calls the “immunisatory logic of theatre”, or “the contract we make as an audience member at each stage of the dissembling of the stage to reassert the very protocols of distance from involvement we thought we were paying to see dispelled” (13). By demystifying hegemonic discourses around historical national icons, among other provocative strategies, La Resentida raises questions about the role and real value of theatre as a vehicle for social change. This chapter will provide a general description of the socio-political context of La Re-sentida’s work and discuss its place within the contemporary theatre repertoire in Chile. The essay will then offer an exploration of the company’s distinctive and iconoclastic dramaturgy through the analysis of La imaginación del futuro. The play presents a cynical position regarding the viability of President Salvador Allende’s early 1970s socialist project in a country historically ruled by a social and economic elite. At the same time, this cynicism applies to the current political Left in Chile, which seems to have traded its failed utopia of a fairer society for the pragmatism and ideological fluidity of the neoliberal model.

1

The Citizens’ Turn

Chile endured almost seventeen years of dictatorship under General Augusto Pinochet, who in 1973 led a US-backed coup d’état to overthrow socialist President Salvador Allende, democratically elected in 1970. The Military Junta, with the help of right-wing economists and the political elite, conducted a neoliberal revolution, undertaking several processes of privatisation in areas such as the pension system, education and healthcare. Moreover, this neoliberal model performed a systematic process of depoliticisation in all social spheres, particularly among workers. To achieve its purpose, the regime carried out both violent repressive actions, in the form of detentions, disappearances and torture, and several civil, non-violent procedures, such as dismantling trade unions and implementing neoliberal labour legislation that prioritised employees’ productivity over cohesion and solidarity. As Carlos Huneeus puts it, 2 The title translations have been taken from the English version of the company’s website (see Teatro La Re-sentida).

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“the new authoritarian regime gave birth to a dual state with two opposing but ultimately linked faces: one characterised by political coercion, and the other by the promotion of economic freedom” (The Pinochet Regime xxi). A determining factor that kept the government in power was the strong political and economic bond between the military and the right-wing conservative elite, which was represented in the mass media,3 the cabinet and the industrial sector.4 These different segments worked together to consolidate a “protected and authoritarian democracy” (xxii) that could remain in place after the military had returned to barracks. With the restoration of democratic rule in 1990, following the referendum that ended Pinochet’s dictatorship in 1988, La Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia (Coalition of Parties for Democracy) became the dominant political block.5 Instead of promoting radical reforms to Pinochet’s neoliberal model, however, La Concertación opted for a política de consensos (a consensus policy) through which this model was perpetuated and perfected. Furthermore, the coalition chose a moderate approach to the prosecution of human rights violators. This was epitomised by their defence of General Pinochet when he was arrested in London in 1998, indicted by Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón for crimes against humanity. During the first government of La Concertación, several critics emerged drawing attention to the inconsistencies in Chile’s recovered democratic system. Among them was sociologist Manuel Antonio Garretón, who stated: “Given the characteristics of the transition process in our country, its result was that when the first democratic government began, it was an incomplete democratic regime, that is, there were authoritarian legacies, which I

3 The newspaper El Mercurio played a key role in the opposition to President Allende’s government. Newspaper owner Agustín Edwards Eastman met with Henry Kissinger to request financial support to overthrow Allende (see Hersh 273). In the years following the coup, El Mercurio helped to cover up the human rights violations committed by the military regime. 4 The military worked closely with civilians as either members of the cabinet or technical advisors who strongly believed in the neoliberal model as the best way to transform Chile into a developed country. The economists within this group, known as ‘The Chicago Boys’ for their association with Milton Friedman, were the main architects in the configuration and implementation of this model. 5 La Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia was a political and electoral alliance comprising the Christian Democrat Party (DC), the Socialist Party (PS), the Party for Democracy (PPD) and the Radical Party (PR), among others. It was founded on 2 January 1988 (at that time it was called ‘Concertación de Partidos por el NO’) with the initial objective of defeating Pinochet in the 1988 national referendum. It stayed in power for four consecutive presidential periods between 1990 and 2010.

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[have] labelled […] authoritarian enclaves” (22).6 According to this analysis, such enclaves comprise three areas of Chile’s democracy: the electoral, the constitutional and the civic (see Garretón and Garretón). The symbiotic relationship between the government and the elite continued during the administrations of socialist presidents Ricardo Lagos (2000-2006) and Michelle Bachelet (2006-2010),7 as a consequence of which both state education and the pension scheme remained unreformed. Meanwhile, Chile was projecting a positive image internationally, as a country with a strong economy and a stable democratic system. Yet critics emerged again, this time highlighting still unresolved issues of inequality (see Garretón and Garretón; Salazar; Huneeus La Democracia). From the second half of the 2000s, a series of factors converged to prompt a shift in the relationship between Chilean citizens and the elite. National commemorations, such as the bicentennial anniversary of independence in 2010 and the fortieth anniversary of the military coup in 2013; and social movements led by the young, such as ‘The Penguin Revolution’ in 2006 and the 2011 Student Movement,8 channelled discourses of change from a citizenry that wanted the benefits from Chile’s modernisation course to be extended more widely. Additionally, this new and more empowered generation sought effective political participation and a democratisation of the decision-making processes, which would enable them to bring about these changes. The challenge to the status quo reached its peak on 18 October 2019, during Sebastián Piñera’s second term in office, when secondary school students leading a revolt stormed several tube stations in Santiago, dodging ticket barriers as a way to protest against a 3% increase in fares. This action triggered the biggest

6 “El resultado del proceso de transición, dadas las características que éste tuvo en nuestro país, fue que al inaugurarse el primer gobierno democrático, éste era un régimen democrático incompleto, es decir, que había herencias autoritarias, lo que denominé […] enclaves autoritarios”. 7 In March 2010, the right-wing coalition ‘Chile Vamos’ (Let’s Go Chile) won the presidential election, with businessman Sebastián Piñera becoming the first conservative president since 1990. Bachelet was elected again for the period 2014-2018 with a renamed coalition, ‘Nueva Mayoría’ (New Majority), that also included the Communist Party and other left-wing groups. In the subsequent election, Piñera regained power for the period 2018-2022. 8 These were two social movements, led by secondary and university students respectively, that emerged as a reaction to the market-driven nature of Chile’s education system. Their demands included an increase in the state subsidy for public universities, an improvement in the access mechanisms to higher education for students from poorer backgrounds and stronger regulation against for-profit universities and schools. Both movements’ demands were backed by public opinion, with the 2011 Student Movement reaching 70% of support during its peak in August 2011 (see Weinstein 1).

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social uprising since the return to democracy, demanding structural reforms to the neoliberal model through massive demonstrations, local assemblies, street performances and other civil-led forms of activism taking place all over the country.9 Politics has always been at the core of Chilean theatre. Throughout the country’s history, playwrights and directors have explored – using various dramatic forms – the modernisation processes, the power relations involved and the effects of these processes on the public and private spheres. Moreover, as Luis Pradenas points out, in Latin American literature and theatre as a whole, “the creative imagination and the social struggles merge into one another” (19).10 This long-term relationship between Chilean drama and the nation’s current affairs has gained strength in the last decade through what I would call the Citizens’ Turn. The Citizens’ Turn describes a shift in the relationship between Chilean theatre and its political dimension. It frames the position of theatre practitioners (most of them born in the 1980s) whose work presents a highly critical attitude towards the neoliberal processes of modernisation effected during the dictatorship, as well as the policies of the post-dictatorship governments and the behaviour of the political class in general. The outstanding problems of inequality in wealth distribution and democratic participation are of particular concern. My use of the term ‘citizen’ is associated with how the repertoire of these theatre practitioners has been unfolding and evolving in tune with the rise of social movements, such as the 2011 Student Movement, citizen-driven regional groups and the current demands from social organisations for constitutional reform.11 In addition, events such as the bicentennial commemoration and the fortieth anniversary of the coup encouraged these artists to dig into Chile’s republican history so as to understand the current context by exploring ideas of memory, identity and nationhood. Alongside La Re-sentida, the most representative companies of the Citizens’ Turn are Colectivo Zoológico, La María, Bonobo, Geografía Teatral and Colectivo Obras Públicas, plus individual playwrights such as Guillermo Calderón, Nona Fernández, Carla Zúñiga, Juan Pablo Troncoso, Bosco Cayo, 9

10 11

At the time of editing (December 2019), the social uprising still continues, with demonstrations occurring every Friday at Plaza Baquedano in Santiago – re-named Plaza de la Dignidad (Dignity Square) by the citizenry – but there have also been several instances of violence and police repression. “la imaginación creadora y las luchas sociales se confunden”. Chile is still governed by the 1980 Constitution established by Pinochet, although amendments have been introduced. A referendum on whether to create a new constitution has now been called.

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Luis Barrales, Gerardo Oettinger and Camila Le-Bert, among others. Although these artists and companies might embrace a varied set of poetics, they share an interest in exploring the figure of the elite: its influence and responsibility in modelling the country and the different spheres (political, economic, religious and cultural) where it operates. Therefore, in the plays of the Citizens’ Turn, one of the main characteristics is that the dramatic core moves from the portrayal of victims and socially marginalised environments – a common feature in theatre productions of the late 1980s and 1990s – to the world of perpetrators and members of the top layers of Chilean society. For example, Los millonarios (The Millionaires, 2015), written and directed by Alexis Moreno with his company La María, deals with the conflict in the Araucanía in the South of Chile, which is a topic that has been widely explored in Chilean drama. However, instead of placing the story within the conflict zone or portraying its main actors (Mapuche communities and nonMapuche property owners),12 the play is set in the office of an elite law practice in Santiago, where unscrupulous wealthy lawyers decide to defend a Mapuche accused of murder even though they know he is guilty. Throughout the piece, quotes from newspapers and historians from different periods of Chilean history are projected on a screen, exploring the influence that social and cultural elites have had in the construction of the Mapuche as a socially and culturally inferior being. This change of direction towards the elite can also be observed in No tenemos que sacrificarnos por los que vendrán (We Don’t Have to Sacrifice Ourselves for Those Who Will Come After, 2015), by the company Colectivo Zoológico. The play is set during the dictatorship and features as main characters the generals of the Military Junta and their Minister of Labour, who are creating the new labour legislation that reduced employment rights. The company used archived minutes of the real meetings for the script. Here again, the focus is not on the dictatorship’s victims (as it used to be), but on the military and civilians who implemented the regime’s neoliberal policies and the undemocratic context in which these measures were discussed and approved. It is within this theatre repertoire that the work of La Re-sentida can be better understood, especially in relation to its appetite for underlining the inconsistencies of Chile’s democracy and uncovering the potential responsibilities of the Left in the perpetuation of these inconsistencies.

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The Mapuche are the main indigenous group in Chile, who in the last decades have been demanding improved rights and the recovery of their ancestral land.

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187

La Re-sentida: Demystification and Literalism

When examining the productions of La Re-sentida, it is possible to identify a clear interest in dealing with a series of contradictions that the company members, as part of the post-dictatorship generation, have inherited. This interest is translated onto the stage through two main operations: an iconoclastic approach towards national symbols and a questioning of the value of art. La Re-sentida’s work is characterised by a constant demythologising of national iconography. Their first production, Simulacro, used the celebrations of Chile’s bicentennial anniversary as an excuse to deliver a funny, virulent and aggressive portrait of a nation immersed in ignorance, classism, and economic and cultural poverty.13 This was achieved through “a calculated disrespect towards our country’s iconic representations” (Morel et al. 125),14 including national heroes and martyrs, the cueca (Chile’s national dance) and the national football team. This corrosive and pessimistic stance, as director Marco Layera explains, “responded to the pulse and feelings shared by all members of the company” (37).15 The second strategy concerns their relentless interrogation of the real social and political value of art, specifically theatre practice, and its ideological connection with the cultural elite of the Left. In Simulacro, actor Benjamín Westfall, who performs as himself and at the same time takes up the role of a poor aspiring actor with no connections, says: “ART does not do ANYTHING useful for me!” (Layera and La Re-sentida 19).16 This line is part of a scene where the character is auditioning for the role of ‘a poor person’. Ironically, the actor’s physical features include blond hair and blue eyes, which in the Chilean context are associated with the upper class. Therefore, the casting agents reject him. The scene evolves into a long monologue where the actor/character expresses his anger against the Chilean cultural elite: I am not Hamlet and behind me are not the ruins of DENMARK; there is Valparaíso, with all its diminished and humiliated poverty on the hills. […] Well, forgive me darling, you see, I’M NOT AN ARTIST. […] I don’t have the time, I don’t have the money, I can’t afford the luxury of dedicating myself to ‘art’. Yes, I said luxury, because for some time now ART and

13 14 15 16

The full title of the play in Spanish is Simulacro: 200 años y nada que celebrar (Simulacrum: 200 Years and Nothing to Celebrate). “una calculada falta de respeto hacia representaciones icónicas de nuestro país”. “[Esta premisa] obedecía al pulso y sentir de los integrantes de la compañía”. “¡A mí, el ARTE no me sirve de NADA!”

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THEATRE have just been ‘shit for the rich’.17 (Layera and La Re-sentida 18-19) Their next production, Tratando de hacer una obra que cambie el mundo (subtitled El delirio final de los últimos románticos or The Final Delirium of the Last Romantics), tells the story of six actors who for the last six years have been living underground. Alienated from the outside world, the characters try to devise the definitive political play to trigger the social revolution that will finally change the country and the world (hence the name of the play). While the actors let themselves be carried away in indulgent, self-absorbing and utterly funny discussions about the search for ‘artistic truth’ on stage and the importance of an actor’s political commitment, the plot takes an ironic twist. A letter from the outside world falls from the roof telling them that, since the right-wing regained power in the last elections, Chile has become a utopian society, environmentally friendly and socially equal, without poverty or crime. Like Simulacro, Tratando deals with the disconnection between an artistic elite and the reality La Re-sentida tries to represent and ultimately transform. The Chilean bourgeois elite of the Left is a constant target for criticism, particularly regarding its moral and political inconsistency and its double standards towards genuine social change. One of the characters, Pedro, complains: “They got comfortable in their seats / Made peace with the system / Repudiated what they had taught us / They sold us fairy tales / Imposed on us a way of being that we do not recognise” (La Re-sentida Tratando 21).18 This topic is also present in La imaginación del futuro and in their latest play, La dictadura de lo cool, similarly addressed on stage through direct, confrontational and literal scenic language. The use of what I would call a ‘poetics of the literal’, instead of a poetics of symbols, responds to a generational and political choice. On this matter, Layera wonders, “What is the role of metaphor nowadays? Why is it still stuck on stage? What are we being afraid of? Why not say things as they are? Why not say things as we believe they are?” (39).19 The 17

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“Yo no soy nada Hamlet y detrás de mí no está nada DINAMARCA en ruinas, está Valparaíso, con toda su pobreza disminuida, humillada en los cerros. […] Discúlpeme po chora, lo que pasa es que yo, NO SOY ARTISTA. […] no tengo el tiempo, no tengo el dinero, no tengo el lujo para dedicarme al ‘arte’. Sí pues lujo, porque hace ratito ya que el ARTE y el TEATRO es una ‘guea de cuicos’”. “Se acomodaron en sus asientos / Hicieron las paces con el sistema / Repudiaron lo que nos enseñaron / Nos vendieron el cuento / Nos impusieron un deber ser que no nos pertenece”. “¿Qué rol cumple hoy la metáfora? ¿Por qué sigue incrustada en escena? ¿A qué le tememos? ¿Por qué no decir las cosas como son? ¿Por qué no decir las cosas como creemos que son?”

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use of metaphors and allegories was a major aesthetic tool for theatre companies in Chile during the dictatorship, as it allowed them to express their political discontent amid censorship and violent repression. With the return of democracy, many of the dissident theatre directors, actors and playwrights from that period became part of the establishment, and their artistic language and poetics were taught in drama schools during the 1990s and early 2000s, inevitably becoming an aesthetic canon. However, the new post-dictatorship generation of theatre makers finds little artistic and political connection with this language. In a similar context, Argentine actor and director Rafael Spregelburd claims that the symbolic language used during the dictatorship in his country has now “turned into closed allegories, cancelled metaphors” (8).20 By problematising the efficacy of metaphors in today’s theatre, La Resentida moves away from and rebukes the officially validated politics of representation (who is represented on stage and how?), especially when it comes to the depiction of socially marginalised settings and characters. The extract from Simulacro mentioned previously, about an actor auditioning for the role of a working-class man, is a case in point, as this scene amounts to a critique of the Chilean theatre establishment and their stylised and mediatised portrayals of poverty and marginality. La Re-sentida counters the aesthetic and performative canons with productions where what is presented on stage does not constitute a symbol of an aspect of reality but becomes a reality in its own right, a world that is as real as that outside the theatre. In this sense, it is a poetics “where the simulation of a reality is more important than the aspiration to represent this reality” (Morel et al. 125).21

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La imaginación del futuro: Blending History

The production and premiere of La imaginación coincided with the fortieth anniversary of the 1973 coup. Although the dictatorship, Pinochet and the human rights violations committed by the regime have been regularly addressed by Chilean cultural outputs, 2013 saw “a veritable explosion of mass media coverage, commemorative events, exhibits, book launches, documentaries, and public debates” (Ripp 108). Other plays created specifically for this event were Allende, noche de septiembre (Allende, Night of September) by Luis Barrales, El

20 21

“se han convertido en alegorías cerradas, metáforas canceladas”. “donde es más importante la simulación de una realidad que la aspiración a representar esta realidad”.

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año en que nací (The Year I Was Born), directed by Lola Arias, and Allende, un nuevo acontecimiento (Allende, A New Event) by Teatro Kapital. La imaginación shows Allende barricaded inside his office at the presidential palace, La Moneda, on 11 September 1973. Outside, the military have succeeded in carrying out the coup and demand Allende to surrender. The play opens with the President rehearsing his famous farewell speech, broadcast live by Radio Magallanes and given just before his death and the ensuing capture of La Moneda.22 The real speech was defiant against Allende’s detractors and the military, stating his unwillingness to capitulate. In this fictional version, Allende is surrounded by members of his cabinet, who belong to Chile’s contemporary (post-dictatorship) political class. As Alexandra Ripp commented after attending the play in Santiago, “the company fused past and present to spur reflection on the current generation’s demand for the defeated ideals originally represented by Allende” (96). The contextual resonances mentioned by Ripp can be identified easily within the play, particularly when compared with the company’s previous productions. It is as if the rise of social movements in 2010-2011 and its effects channelled the raw, visceral energy expressed in Simulacro and gave it a clearer direction. In La imaginación, the company’s instinctive rebelliousness mutates into a more depurated critique of the economic model, placing the crisis in education (represented by the child characters discussed below) as both the cause and effect of the country’s inequality. Along with the incorporation of twenty-first-century ministers, set design elements and dramaturgical techniques help create the play’s bi-temporal dimension. For example, the original speech was broadcast on the radio, whereas in the play Allende delivers it in front of television cameras. In fact, the audience can watch the speech either on stage or on two screens located at each corner. The set looks both like a presidential office and a studio with a live audience. The Ministers address President Allende, coaching him on how to deliver the speech, and simultaneously address the audience, as if they were producers of a television show before going live. Can La imaginación be labelled as a historical play? Thematically, it can. The play takes place during a specific historical event, perhaps the most important in Chile’s twentiethcentury history, and its main character is a real-life historical figure. Yet these elements serve more as a dramatic foundation from which the play builds its own fiction, where the limits of time (past/present) and space (stage/audience) are indistinct. The play starts from the assumption that the audience is familiar with Allende as a historical figure and then proceeds to deconstruct

22

The official report stated that Salvador Allende committed suicide with an AK-47 assault rifle.

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and problematise his iconic status. Within this context, La imaginación invites the audience to immerse itself into a universe where time and space blend in a sort of alternative reality, in which Allende is questioned by a future generation. The clues that this will not be a ‘traditional’ account of the events of 11 September 1973 are given to the audience in the first scene, when the Actors/ Ministers run hectically around the presidential office getting everything ready for the broadcast of the speech. Actor Carolina Palacios’s opening monologue to the audience states: “Hello, good evening. Welcome. I ask all the Ministers to please come to the stage immediately. […] let me remind you that we still have time to revert this situation. […] I ask everybody here to turn off their mobile phones; as you know, the President hates it when these ring during the show” (La Re-sentida La imaginación 1).23 The boundaries between actor and character, La Moneda and the stage, and between 1973 and 2013 are blurred throughout the entire play. Sometimes it is clear that the actor is speaking as character, but at other moments the characters address the light and sound technicians, or the audience, as actors. In fact, when the Ministers talk to one another they use the actors’ real names, as they also do in Simulacro and Tratando. The creation of a new historical time/space line in La imaginación, where the action occurs simultaneously in 1973 and 2013, resonates with Paola Botham’s remarks on the twenty-first-century history play, which “is situated as a dialectical synthesis of two conflicting approaches to historicity: the teleological confidence of traditional political dramaturgies, informed by Marxist historical materialism, and the political exhaustion of postmodernism’s perpetual present” (83). The portrayal of a historically inaccurate President Allende responds to La Re-sentida’s ongoing desire to provoke the post-dictatorship Chilean Left. Allende is for many a hero and a martyr, who gave his life defending the vision of a democratically elected socialist government. In the play, however, he is presented as a cocaine user and a rather sluggish, lazy man.24 Yet his political ideals still clash with the cabinet’s ruthless pragmatism. The Ministers, who think that the content and delivery of the speech is outdated, systematically interrupt it. The first interruption describes Allende’s tone as too dramatic but boring nonetheless. They ask him instead to deliver something “friendlier,

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“Hola, buenas noches. Bienvenidos, por favor solicito a todos los Ministros presentarse inmediatamente a escena. […] les recuerdo que aún nos queda tiempo para revertir la situación […] le pido a todos los presentes que apaguen sus teléfonos celulares, les recuerdo que al Presidente le molesta muchísimo cuando estos suenan durante la función”. The first part of the play ends with a tired President Allende leaving the office for his regular twenty-minute nap.

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fresher, lighter, something closer to the people. Something more cool” (La Resentida La imaginación 2).25 In subsequent interruptions, the Ministers advise him to deliver the speech with television-friendly gestures and to avoid the use of red, which connotes a communist imaginary. Finally, they dress him in a sports outfit and place him against a background referencing a golf resort, flanked by two mannequins of blonde upper-class children.

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Liquid Bouffons

Who are these Ministers? What do they represent? Do they even have a political identity? To answer these questions, I would make use of Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of ‘liquid society’. Bauman describes the liquid phase of modernity as “a condition in which social forms (structures that limit individual choices, institutions that guard repetitions of routines, patterns of acceptable behaviour) can no longer (and are not expected) to [sic] keep their shape for long, because they decompose and melt faster than the time it takes to cast them, and once they are cast for them to set” (1). I would argue that the Ministers’ political profiles and behaviours are shaped and informed by Bauman’s description of liquidity, in that they represent “a readiness to change tactics and style at short notice, to abandon commitments and loyalties without regret – and to pursue opportunities according to their current flexibility, rather than following one’s own established preferences” (4). The flexible and uncommitted political ethos of the Ministers contrasts with Allende’s political solidity, reflected in his refusal to give up his legitimate power, ultimately costing him his life. Moreover, this liquid behaviour echoes specifically that of the post-dictatorship Chilean Left, made up of two equally compromised groups. The first one includes the political actors who played an important role in Allende’s government, fought for a return to democracy (some of them from exile) and since the 1990s have been part of the political elite. Former President Lagos is the most representative example. The second group consists of the next generation of politicians, also known as G90, who were born during the dictatorship, began their political career in the 1990s and have occupied important governmental posts in the last decade. La imaginación portrays this New Chilean Left as a mutable political class whose members would flirt with both socialist and neoliberal ideologies. At the beginning of the play, the cabinet professes an absolute commitment to saving Allende’s government and policies, although their eagerness seems 25

“más amable, más fresco, más liviano, algo más cercano a la gente. Algo más cool”.

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to respond more to self-interest than a genuine ideological connection with Allende’s socialist dream. As the piece unfolds, the Ministers’ political loyalty declines. At the end of the play, the cabinet begs the President to resign in order to avoid all the violence and murder that will follow with Pinochet. Bauman’s ‘liquid’ properties – in particular, flexibility, uncertainty and mutability – can also be seen in other aspects of the play, such as the unclear treatment of time/space mentioned above (does the action take place in 1973 or 2013, in La Moneda or a television studio?) and the inaccurate use of historical facts. One of the most common adjectives used to describe the work of La Resentida has been “excessive”:26 an excessive use of cursing in the text, an excessive and virulent approach towards Chile’s elite and an excessive and overthe-top acting style. The impression given to audiences is that the company’s only rule on stage is that there are no rules, either creatively or morally speaking. La Re-sentida’s use of a poetics of excess in order to provoke society can be linked to the role and archetype of ‘the fool’ or bouffon. Described by William Willeford as a “moral agent” (115), the fool “breaks down the boundary between chaos and order, but he also violates our assumption that that boundary was where we thought it was and that it had the character we thought it had: that of affirming whatever we have taken for granted and in that way protecting us from the dark unknown” (108). For Jacques Lecoq, the bouffon’s function “was not to make fun of a particular individual, but more generally of everyone, of society as a whole. […] Bouffons deal essentially with the social dimension of human relations, showing up its absurdities” (126). Another important aspect of the bouffonesque dimension is its relationship with the action of deformation. Indeed, “The word bouffon comes from a Latin verb: buffare, to puff, to fill the cheeks with air. […] To deform oneself, to swell in order to provoke laughter” (Fusetti). Moreover, jesters, fools and bouffons have been traditionally associated with body deformation, such as lumps, which for Willeford “suggests chaos registered by consciousness as a mere, crude fact: the audience is confronted with something relatively shapeless, yet material – there, with a human presence” (16). Similarly, Lecoq states that “with any situation, bouffons will deform it, twist it, play it out in an unusual way” (134). In La imaginación, one of the actors becomes the character of a Stray Bullet. He wears a golden 1980s-style Lycra jumpsuit that makes him look extremely skinny, while his voice adopts a clown-like high pitch. His 26

For example, Simulacro has been depicted as a “play [that], from its first image, positions itself at a level of excess, of waste” (“la obra se pone, desde la primera imagen, en un plano de exceso, de despilfarro”; Morel et al. 131).

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performance incorporates a variety of jokes and physical gags, such as using a special device that throws fake tears from his body to the audience. He is accompanied by Roberto, played by a real child actor. Roberto is a boy from a shanty town in Santiago who would like to go to medical school. However, the Stray Bullet, through a delirious and funny monologue, reveals that he is the bullet that will kill Roberto in the future, during a clash between the police and a gang in the streets of his neighbourhood. The scene is humorous but very uncomfortable at the same time. At other moments in the play, this bouffonesque aesthetic is mediated and filtered by a realistic acting style. The Ministers are dressed in realist outfits (work suits), but in terms of personality they do not possess any psychological depth or complexity. On the contrary and paradoxically, they are driven, throughout the entire play, by basic raw emotions (just like the fool or bouffoon): fear, anxiety, hunger and tiredness. The combination of a realistic appearance with non-realistic attitudes reaches its peak in a scene where the Ministers, under the effect of cocaine, begin to vent all their resentment against high-profile personalities and institutions from today’s current affairs, such as Pope Francis, Angela Merkel and Chilean politicians. It is an aggressive, graphic and politically incorrect discourse. As in the tradition of court jesters and fools, the company’s artistic and political role is precisely to reveal what everyone else is thinking but will not dare to say out loud. From the exaggerated and deformed aspect of the actors’ bodies (due to the simulated effect of the drug) to their provocative speech, everything in this scene is bouffonesque. By adopting a “bouffonesque body” (Lecoq 125), La Re-sentida portrays grotesque versions of Allende and his contemporary ministers, making fun of Chile’s political class to uncover the hidden inconsistencies of its liberal discourse. Moreover, the bouffonesque body embraces and reflects bouffonesque ideologies, which deform and ‘liquify’ – in the sense coined by Bauman – any political commitment. The bouffonesque dimension can also be seen in how the play offers a distorted version of Chilean history and, particularly, of the figure of President Allende. The plot contains numerous historical inconsistencies and provocative creative licences, such as the aforementioned portrayal of Allende as a drug user, something that was not well received by some spectators and critics during the performances in France.27 However, the staging 27

For instance, newspaper Libération criticised the play’s revisionism sarcastically: “Marco Layera should go further: if there had been no Allende, there would not only have been no Pinochet, but no 9/11, no war in Iraq nor a hole in the ozone layer” (“Marco Layera devrait aller plus loin: s’il n’y avait pas eu Allende, il n’y aurait non seulement pas eu Pinochet, mais pas non plus de 11 Septembre, ni de guerre en Irak ou de trou dans la couche d’ozone”) (Solis; my translation).

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of a distorted and multi-temporal history, as opposed to the ‘official history’, serves a higher purpose than just to provoke laughter or controversy. Instead, as the fool does, La Re-sentida makes use of deformity to illuminate the reality outside the theatre. Distorting reality allows the audience to see its true face. Towards the end of the play, and as the military are about to break in and enter the presidential palace, the Actors/Ministers transform themselves into what Lecoq calls the Mystery Bouffons. For Lecoq, these bouffons “are soothsayers. They know the future. They know the end of the world and can foretell it. […] The bouffons mime images of the Apocalypse and have fun parodying them” (127-29). In a desperate attempt to force Allende to resign, the Ministers bring him a puppet in the form of a female child who narrates (voiced by one the Ministers) what will happen in the future if he does not surrender. She describes the arrests, the violence, the disappearances, tortures and murders that will follow during the dictatorship, imploring him to leave. In La imaginación, the action of imagining the future is performed through child characters: Roberto and the puppet. Roberto, the poor kid who wants to study medicine, will die by a stray bullet, while the girl-puppet will be kidnapped, tortured and killed by the military. In the last part of the play, the Ministers and, therefore, the company as well, ask Allende: “Was it worth it, or was it just a bourgeois whim?” (La Re-sentida La imaginación 26).28 The play finishes with Roberto and the puppet alone on stage. From the perspective of 1973, they represent the future and the neoliberal model that will ultimately prevail. From today’s perspective, they represent current neoliberal Chile. It is a successful Chile, but one whose success has come at a price. The girl and Roberto are dead. The former is a victim of the dictatorship’s repressive violence; the latter, a victim of Chile’s current social and economic inequalities, still unresolved by the same political class that celebrates Allende’s socialist vision. In this sense, the title, La imaginación del futuro, carries with it an incomplete promise. The play does not imagine the future, but it brings the present to the past, to show President Allende how Chile looks when the utopias have failed.

Works Cited Bauman, Zygmunt. Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty. Polity Press, 2007.

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“¿Valió la pena, o fue solo un capricho burgués?”

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Botham, Paola. “The Twenty-First-Century History Play.” Twenty-First Century Drama: What Happens Now, edited by Sian Adiseshiah and Louise LePage, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, pp. 81-103. Fusetti, Giovanni. “Bouffons and the Ecstasy of Mocking.” Giovanni Fusetti, 2010, www .giovannifusetti.com. Accessed 12 July 2015. Garretón, Manuel Antonio. “Transición incompleta y régimen consolidado: Las paradojas de la democratización chilena.” Revista de Ciencia Política, vol. 16, no. 1-2, 1994, pp. 21-32. Garretón, Manuel Antonio, and Roberto Garretón. “La democracia incompleta en Chile: La realidad tras los rankings internacionales.” Revista de Ciencia Política, vol. 30, no. 1, 2010, pp. 115-48. Hersh, Seymour M. The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House. Summit, 1983. Huneeus, Carlos. The Pinochet Regime. Translated by Lake Sagaris, Lynn Reinner, 2007. Huneeus, Carlos. La democracia semisoberana. Taurus, 2014. La Re-sentida. La imaginación del futuro. 2013 (unpublished manuscript), Compañía de Teatro La Re-sentida, Santiago de Chile. La Re-sentida. Tratando de hacer una obra que cambie el mundo. 2010 (unpublished manuscript), Teatro La Re-sentida, teatrolaresentida.cl/index2.htm. Accessed 6 Oct. 2017. Layera, Marco. “Simulacro: Algo huele a podrido en el templo de las musas.” Apuntes de Teatro, no. 131, 2009, pp. 36-41. Layera, Marco, and La Re-sentida. Simulacro. 2008 (unpublished manuscript), Teatro La Re-sentida. teatrolaresentida.cl/index2.htm. Accessed 6 Oct. 2017. Lecoq, Jacques, with Jean-Gabriel Carasso and Jean-Claude Lallias. The Moving Body: Teaching Creative Theatre. Translated by David Bradby, 2nd ed., Methuen, 2002. Morel, Consuelo, et al. “Hipermodernidad, moda y simulacro: Estrategias de simulación (en un contexto país) para un fenómeno global.” Apuntes de Teatro, no. 131, 2009, pp. 125-37. Pradenas, Luis. Teatro en Chile: Huellas y trayectorias, siglos XVI-XX. LOM, 2006. Read, Alan. “From Theatre and Everyday Life to Theatre in the Expanded Field: Performance between Community and Inmunity.” Journal of Contemporary Drama in English, vol. 2, no.1, 2014, pp. 8-25. Ripp, Alexandra. “Remembering the Coup: Chilean Theatre Now.” PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, vol. 36, no. 3, 2014, pp. 87-101. Salazar, Gabriel. En el nombre del poder popular constituyente (Chile, siglo XXI). LOM, 2011. Solis, René. “La seconde mort d’Allende.” Libération, 18 July 2014, next.liberation.fr/ theatre/2014/07/18/la-seconde-mort-d-allende_1066525. Accessed 2 Nov. 2016. Spregelburd, Rafael. Un momento argentino. Losada, 2005.

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Teatro La Re-sentida. teatrolaresentida.cl/index2.htm. Accessed 6 Oct. 2017. Weinstein, José. “More Equity in Education: The Chilean Students Public Outcry.” The Phi Delta Kappan, vol. 93, no. 3, 2011, pp. 76-7.

The Touring Grass Stage: Staging the Site-Specific Dilemma of Glocalization in Hypermodern China Wei Zheyu

Abstract Inspired by Augusto Boal and other leftist theatre practitioners, the Shanghai-based theatre troupe Grass Stage (Caotaiban) addresses pressing social issues by creating debate forums in their performances. This chapter analyses both the socio-political context in which the company operates and the techniques it employs to confront audiences with social concerns such as the inequalities derived from urbanization and political injustice. The adoption of amateur theatre-making tactics allows Grass Stage to interrogate the contradictory socialist-capitalist reality in China, while circumventing the restrictions imposed by existing political and economic circumstances. Furthermore, this chapter examines how Grass Stage’s productions expose the paradoxes of ‘glocalization’ resulting from the old Chinese civilization’s engagement with (hyper-)modernity, neoliberalism and global mobility. In all, the study of Grass Stage’s practices reveals their radical political potential of revolt against global capitalist oppression in the face of the changes brought about by globalization on the local space and people.

In his 2005 book Hypermodern Times, French sociologist Gilles Lipovetsky proposes a new condition for contemporary society, a “second modernity, deregulated and globalized” (31), which “has no opposite, and is absolutely modern, resting essentially on three axiomatic elements constitutive of modernity itself: the market, technocratic efficiency and the individual” (31-2). This hypermodern time, according to Lipovetsky, is characterized by the dominance of hypercapitalism hand in hand with hyperindividualism, where “in every domain there is a certain excessiveness, one that oversteps all limits, like an excrescence” (32). As Lipovetsky’s observations refer to France, or European societies more generally, we need to be cautious about extending this hypothesis to suggest that every society is moving towards hypermodernity, especially if we consider the case of China.

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Since the launch of the policy of ‘Reform and Opening-up’ in the late 1970s,1 the Chinese economy has grown at an average annual rate of approximately 9%, becoming the largest in the world if measured by purchasing power parity (see Report). Such rapid economic expansion, especially the development of the industrial secondary sector, has turned China into a world factory and now gradually into a world consumer. At the same time, the middle class has extended drastically, amounting to 109 million adults in 2015, which means that society’s encounter and reconciliation with late modernity – or ‘liquid modernity’, as Zygmunt Bauman calls it – is widening.2 Chinese society is approaching a modernity of “excessiveness” in Lipovetski’s sense, which goes beyond the political (Hypermodern Times 33), or “overabundance” (Augé 269), where people face the intense and daily need to deal with the mass production and consumption of symbols. Nevertheless, in today’s China the new modernity is a hybrid of globalized ‘second modernity’, ‘first modernity’ and pre-modern tradition: on the one hand, the middle class is beginning to experience hypermodernity; on the other, the modernity that Chinese society faces is far from being fully accomplished. At present, the middle class only covers a small proportion of the population, which implies that modernization and social development still have a long way to go.3 The theatre troupe Grass Stage (Caotaiban) attempts to address the imbalance of development in Chinese society.4 Based in Shanghai, the collective adopted the name Caotaiban, which refers to the theatre ensembles that tour in rural areas and perform traditional operas, so as to highlight the amateurism and non-profit nature of its theatrical productions. Since their first project 38 xian youxi (38th Parallel Still Play) in 2005, which discussed the impact of the Korean War (1950-1953), Grass Stage has focused its activities on physical theatre and an engagement with social issues.5 Zhao Chuan, its founder, de-

1 ‘Reform and Opening-up’ (gaige kaifang) is the systematic reform in economy and politics introduced by the Communist Party of China since the third Plenary Session of the Eleventh CPC Central Committee in 1978. 2 For the purposes of this study, a ‘middle class’ adult in China is defined as one with an average wealth of over USD 28,000 (see Kersley and Stierli). 3 The middle class’s share of total population is merely 10.7% according to Credit Suisse (see Kersley and Stierli), or 20.1% according to the “China Household Finance Survey” conducted by the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics (see Gan). 4 The company’s name in English and the translations of play titles have been taken from the company’s website (see Grass Stage). 5 Sanba xian (38° latitude north) refers to the military border between North and South Korea, following the cease fire agreement signed by North and South Korea, China and the UN alliance in 1953. Based on documentary material, biographies and other historical records

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scribed his critical approach in a 2005 essay where he stated that, by addressing the political problems that were puzzling the performers, 38th Parallel Still Play reflected on what the company understood as “people’s theatre” (“Biwen juchang” 65).6 Leftist ‘people’s theatre’ movements like the educational theatre in the Philippines, the works of Chung Chiao in Taiwan, East Asian People’s Theatre Network, as well as Brazilian dramatist Augusto Boal (especially his practice of ‘invisible theatre’ and ‘forum theatre’), have profoundly influenced Zhao and Grass Stage’s practice. For Zhao, theatre becomes the instrument through which he can access reality: “Social life is what informs [Grass Stage’s] theatre. The methodology of such theatre is not representation [of social life], but infiltration and interference on a real level, just like questioning, or even interrogating. […] This kind of theatre, in certain ways, approaches the truth about itself, the personal and the communal reality” (“Biwen juchang” 70).7 Combining physical theatre, postdramatic text, documentary theatre, multimedia installation and spectator-performer interaction, Grass Stage’s productions devote attention to ‘the oppressed’ in Boal’s terms. Lu Xun 2008 (2008), a co-production between Wang Mo-lin (Taiwan), Tong Si-hong (Hong Kong), Ohashi Hirushi (Japan) and Zhao Chuan, reflected on the oppression that never ceases to exist in human society. Chinese writer Lu Xun’s masterpiece Kuangren riji (A Madman’s Dairy, 1918), which attacked feudalism and the backward Confucian ethical code through the imagery of cannibalism, inspired the performers to present a narrative, in Wang’s words, “not about Lu Xun the literary figure, but the embodied Lu Xun” (qtd. in “Lu Xun 2008”).8 In Xiao shehui (The Little Society, which comprised two ‘volumes’, 2009-2011), the performers, through their observation and contemplation, “represent[ed] the people neglected by mainstream stages – beggars, the disabled, sex workers, scavengers and so forth” (“Xiao shehui”).9 Moreover, The Communist Manifesto was read aloud in The Little Society Volume II and the audience was encouraged to make comparisons between the capitalism portrayed by Karl Marx

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about the Korean War, 38th Parallel Still Play was devised by Zhao Chuan and several other practitioners, who subsequently started the theatre company and claimed the play as their first production. In the Chinese original, “Minzhong juchang”. Unless noted otherwise, all translations from Chinese to English are by the author if this chapter. “Shehui shenghuo shi zhezhong juchang zhuyao guanxin de duixiang, guanxin de fangshi bushi fanying, ershi zhuoliyu chuantou he geng shizhi de jieru, xiangshi zhuiwen, shenzhi biwen. […] zhezhong juchang yao tongguo yiding de fangshi, qu bijin ziji de, geren de he shehuiqunluo de zhenxiang”. “Bushi zai jiangshu wenxue de Lu Xun, er shi routi de Lu Xun”. “Chengxian naxie bei zhuliu wutai hulüe de ren – qigai, canjizhe, xinggongzuozhe he shifeipin de deng”.

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and Friedrich Engels and global capitalism today (see “Xiao shehui”). Through these plays, audiences are confronted with the inequality created by economic development and the suffering of those neglected by Chinese society. The members of Grass Stage are not organized in any sort of employment relationship. They do not receive a salary, but only some reimbursement for transportation expenses. They come from different backgrounds and, though mostly well-educated, they may have also experienced first-hand the struggle of the working classes in the city. The main methodology employed for their artistic creations is jiti chuangzuo (devising), with members being invited to work together and generate content about certain topics based on their research and discussions. The performers of the plays are not cast, but rather emerge from those who attend a particular workshop. Zhao’s job as a director is to facilitate the workshops and ‘weave’ the outcomes together in the final stage (see “Rang shenghuo” 79-80). Through this method a more democratic communication platform among the participants is built, while the non-professional identity of the performers creates a friendly atmosphere that encourages the audience to join in the discussion of public issues. Therefore, post-show talks, which Zhao calls yanhou juchang or ‘post-performance theatre’, have become an indispensable part of the performance routine (see Personal interview). A particularly valuable platform for exchanging ideas between the spectators and the theatre makers is thus enabled. In this regard, Grass Stage “represents the grassroots by substituting a professional mode in the theatre with a civilian stance, guiding ordinary people without an understanding of theatre into theatre to express their will” (Pu and Yang 205). For Zhao, the Chinese word juchang (theatre) is made up of two parts: “ju”, which indicates “the play”, and “chang”, which corresponds to “the field” or “the place”. He maintains that the “play” should be relevant to “the place” (see “Rang shenghuo” 68). After premiering 38th Parallel Still Play in Gwacheon (Korea), the company was invited to perform the play in Taipei later in 2005, but due to practical reasons not all the cast were able to take part. Zhao then decided to produce a play using the same structure and a similar title, Taibei 38 du xian (38th Parallel in Taipei). On this occasion, the 38th parallel alluded to the geographic borders and political/ideological disputes between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan. Seven performers from the two regions devised the piece and then improvised in each of the performances in Taipei, addressing the geographical, political and ideological borderlines between the two regions (see Zhao “Biwen juchang” 68-9). Likewise, the performance of Lu Xun 2008 in Shanghai took place in a construction site (570 Huaihai West Road) where a new art gallery was being built. The performers interacted with the space and presented their bodies rolling in pain in the dirt, in what was reminiscent of Lu

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Xun’s imagery of “young people walking in the sandstorm, lost and suffering” (“Lu Xun 2008”).10 Touring, or lalian (field manoeuvres) as Grass Stage calls it, is a crucial part of the company’s agenda. The field manoeuvres started in 2009, when Grass Stage members travelled by train for a whole month, giving performances, lectures and workshops in a number of cities in China. Up until August 2017, there have been five rounds of field manoeuvres in around twenty cities (see Zhao Personal interview; “Xianchang: Caotaiban”). Since Grass Stage’s productions are not for profit and the overall costs are covered mainly by donations from audiences, the troupe usually resorts to free performing spaces provided by their local curator, collaborator or host. This results in new meanings emerging from the ever-changing and sometimes unpredictable performance spaces. A perfect example is Shijie gongchang (World Factory, 2014), which takes advantage of its site-specificity to expose the contradictions found in hypermodernizing China. World Factory tries to draw attention to the numerous (over 200 million) Chinese migrant workers who contribute to the country’s economic growth, but whose living conditions and welfare systems are worrying. Many of them, who have moved to the cities to work, are exposed to high risks of injury and mental health diseases, while their employers hardly provide any proper protection.11 World Factory opens with a scene referring to tragic incidents at the Foxconn City industrial park in Shenzhen (Guangdong Province) in 2010: over a period of four months, fourteen migrant workers were reported to have attempted suicide, of which eleven died and three were injured. This series of suicides proved that improvements to the working conditions for migrant workers were urgently needed – for the sake of the workers who have sacrificed a great deal to build the economy, as well as for the sustainable development of the whole of Chinese society.12 World Factory emerged from an international collaboration. In 2010, Grass Stage initiated a project with the British performing arts company METIS in which each ensemble would produce a play under the same title, World Factory, exploring the global manufacturing industry through the lens of nineteenth-century Manchester and contemporary China simultaneously.13 10 11 12 13

“Qingnianren zai fengsha zhong xingzou, dan you zhaobudao fangxiang”. For more statistics see 2016 nian quanguo. See “Liang’an sandi” for a detailed survey of the incidents. METIS’s World Factory invited audiences to join in games led by performers in which the audience members acted as decision-makers of small factories. The play renders “tangible the knotty question of how to be ethical, in real terms, when faced with actually having to survive within a global capitalist structure” (“World Factory”).

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Supported by the Arts Council England, the Royal National Theatre and Cambridge University, Zhao visited Britain in 2012 and 2013 and with other Grass Stage members he also conducted fieldwork in various places in China. World Factory premiered in Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts and since then has toured a number of Chinese cities. Devised by members of Grass Stage from various social backgrounds (employees, freelance writers and artists and designers, among others), World Factory offers the performers’ personal responses to the larger issues of industrialization, urbanization and migrant labour in China. The play is comprised of three major components: a sarcastic assessment of the dreadful working conditions of migrant workers, a comparison between nineteenth-century England and contemporary China concerning working-class living conditions and the ecological problems derived from labour-intensive industrial activities. The show draws a parallel between the lower classes of nineteenth-century England and those of contemporary China, while reflecting on what lessons may be learnt from the English experience in order to improve the situation in China. World Factory contains many charming scenes that at the same time challenge the official slogans of ‘harmonious society’ and ‘harmony’.14 Before the show starts, a performer comes on stage with a guitar and a harmonica and sings his own songs in street-performance fashion, including the piece “He zhege shijie tanlian’ai” (Dating the World). He also provides musical counterpoints throughout the play. The actor, Xu Duo (pseudonym of Xu Guojian), a singer and migrant worker himself, is one of the founders of Xin gongren yishutuan (New Workers’ Arts Group), a Beijing-based performing arts troupe formed and administered by migrant workers and volunteers.15 While Xu is playing the guitar and singing, another performer enters and shoos him off to the wings. Impersonating a clown wearing a commedia dell’arte style half-mask and a wig, the second performer asks, “Has the show begun yet? Where is the World Factory?” (Shijie gongchang).16 14

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‘Harmonious society’ (hexie shehui) is the slogan and state strategic goal for future development proposed by the Chinese Communist Party from 2004, advocating a society that would enjoy a more united spirit, more equality and more diversity (see Central CPC Committee). ‘Harmony’ (hexie) is one of the ‘core socialist values’ (Shehuizhuyi hexinjiazhiguan), first defined and promoted by the National Congress of the CPC in 2012 (see “Graphic”). Xu Duo was not able to take part in the performance I attended in Shanghai (6 July 2014). This description is based on the video recording of the performance on 11 November 2014, provided by Grass Stage (see Shijie gongchang). “Xi kaishi le ma? Shijie gongchang zai nali?”

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This clown, in a comic and grotesque manner, offers to perform a trick before the audience: “the trick’s name is ‘eight consecutive jumps at Fuyoukang [clearly alluding to Foxconn]’” (Shijie gongchang).17 She does a few dance steps, waving some blue paper dolls which are attached to a string in her hands, and invites another performer, who plays the role of an ‘expert’, onto the stage. The two actors, in an ironic tone, explain to the audience the possible cause of death for the suicide jumpers at Foxconn. The paper dolls in their hands, which symbolize labour-intensive workers, become a central image in several other scenes throughout the piece; they are tied onto strings, manipulated as puppets by the performers and, after being ridiculed, their heads are cut off, implying the loss of their lives. This mock didactic scene closes with the two performers thanking the media, the sponsor and the consumers. Next, three other actors enter and use a large white sheet as the screen on which the play’s title is projected. Also being projected is the image of a group of performers having soft drinks, who are gradually covered up in smoke to indicate that air pollution is being consumed. In a similar metaphorical style, the white sheet becomes a representation of smog in the following scene. The performers are covered and restrained by the sheet. One of them then turns into a narrator and tells the audience about her visit to Manchester. She talks about the origins of capitalism and the proletariat, and the poor living and working conditions of workers in the early nineteenth century. With the juxtaposition of images from the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester and the shadows of the performers who are marching and singing “Warszawianka”,18 two actors emerge from behind the screen with placards, recounting the class struggle (such as the founding of workers’ unions, strikes and so on) that challenged capitalist exploitation. The clown and the expert reappear and, again in their ironic tone, discuss the underlying causes and impact of air pollution, which has become a major problem in many Chinese cities. Throughout the whole show the stage is lit, hence the scene changes and role transformations are always visible to the audience. Additionally, on the upper corner of the stage various performers remain seated at a desk ‘manufacturing’ paper dolls throughout, as a reminder of the assembly lines and

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“Wo biaoyan de jiemu jiao ‘Fuyoukang baliantiao’”. The Peterloo Massacre in Manchester alludes to the clash, on 16 August 1819, between the cavalry and protestors who gathered at St. Peter’s Field to demand the reform of parliamentary representation. It left fifteen people dead and hundreds injured. “Warszawianka” is a Russian song (originally written by the socialist Polish poet Wacław Święcicki) promoting the proletariat revolution, which was very popular in the USSR and China in the first half of the twentieth century.

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exploitation. An accompanying documentary video about Grass Stage’s field research also contributes to the contextualization of Chinese industrialization by comparing the status of workers from the past and the present, both in the West and in China. In such a way, the spectators are confronted with grave social issues in a demanding fashion. For Zhao, the parallel between Manchester and contemporary China becomes a focal point (see “Chinese World Factory”). The origin of the proletariat and the Marxist political movement in Great Britain highlights the contradictory situation of present-day China, a socialist country which is failing to protect workers’ rights. During the performer’s retelling of her visit to England, a voice-over reminds her to talk about the rise of communism and workers’ movement, thus introducing a paradoxical tension. On the one hand, an external force gives orders to the performers, reflecting the authoritarian nature of the state and of globalization. On the other, Grass Stage’s devising strategy foregrounds the collective’s challenge to outside conditions. This dialectic perspective allows the audience to remain critical and cautious about any hypothesis presented in the play. In addition, the radically changing content and performing space of World Factory makes it not only unique every time that it is performed, but also selfreflexive, providing an interesting viewpoint on migrant labour and industrialization. Since the members of Grass Stage often work part-time in the show, they are not always able to feature in every touring performance. As a result, some of Grass Stage’s shows are constructed via a means which Zhao calls da jimu (blocks): each performer has his or her own role and plot development to be pieced together with those of others in order to complete the whole work, any of the performers being replaceable or dispensable if they cannot participate in a particular event. A Brechtian epic structure is thus configured, which allows the overall message not to be altered even though adjustments may be made to certain specific performances (see Brecht 139). Moreover, the theatre’s involuntary mimic of manufacturing assembly lines may also be derived from this fragmentary narrative, which reflects a complex reality and sheds light upon theatre making as a cultural practice and as an industrialized process of production. Grass Stage’s performance spaces – which range from conventional theatres and black box studios to converted old cinemas, café corners and many other non-theatre sites – cater for diverse communities. For instance, Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts and Shenzhen OCAT gallery, located in a central urban area, are markedly different from the Xin gongren juchang (New Workers’ Theatre), a tent performance space in the Beijing periphery populated by migrant workers. Therefore, each performance addresses spectators from varied so-

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cial strata, some of whom may never have entered a conventional theatre to see a play. In this sense, the company appropriates the margins of the community and creates site-specific theatre in what Jerzy Kociatkiewicz and Monika Kostera call ‘empty spaces’, that is, “Places to which no meaning is ascribed. […] They are not prohibited places, but empty spaces, inaccessible because of their invisibility” (43). The Shanghai performance at the Rockbund Art Museum on 6 July 2014, which I attended, took place on the second floor of an exotic western-style building in the former foreign settlement district. However, spectators (mostly well-educated middle-class young citizens from Shanghai) did not discover that the location of the performance was in fact a shabby corner of less than one hundred square meters until after they had passed through the smart entrance of the building. They then had to find their way along a dark passageway with exposed water pipes and electricity cables on the wall and through the backdoor at the side of the restaurant kitchen. The transition from experiencing the beautiful modern cityscape to witnessing the mechanisms of production of the city (water, electricity, food serving and waste disposing) and entering an empty urban space to watch the performance becomes a highly symbolic act which articulates the theme of World Factory. It also questions how theatre is produced in a particular space, how theatre is often disguised as an apolitical practice in consumerist societies and, consequently, how spectatorship is confined and restricted. Simultaneously, the show is inscribed within a recognizable pattern of didactic art for the masses with which the audience is familiar, thus enabling them to criticize the official doctrine, governmental policies and didactic theatre itself. Grass Stage aims to challenge customary theatre-going patterns, where theatre is understood as an activity primarily directed at the middle classes and heavily constrained by the logic of consumerism. At the same time, by being independent from the government, Grass Stage interrogates the unhealthy ecology of theatre in China today in order to foster the performers’ and the spectators’ capacity for “simultaneous thinking” (see Zhuang).19 During World Factory’s ‘post-performance theatre’ many interesting conversations were triggered. After one performance an audience member stated, “I like shopping, I like those brands, I don’t see any problem. Where should we put those migrant workers if they weren’t in the factories? Where should they go?”, while a migrant worker spectator proclaimed, “We can live with poverty, but what we really need is dignity and a sense of belonging” (“2014-OCAT”). No

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“tongbu sikao”.

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conclusion was necessarily reached in these discussions, but the point was made that their major purpose was to open up a dialogue; significantly, after the Shanghai performance, when one audience member commented, “I think the action [that we should take] is not to write a big article or make up more theories, nor to advocate anything; what is needed more is our self-inspection” (“Shijie gongchang”).20 Zhao asserts that Grass Stage’s practice is an experiment to test how theatre can relate to ordinary people, especially those who would never purchase a ticket to see a play. He argues, “People make theatre so that we can gather, that we can share our experience and emotion in life with one another and can discuss other possibilities beyond the way of life we are currently leading”.21 He also frankly admits that Grass Stage has been forced to be “very marginal” as they have chosen the non-commercial, non-governmental way of producing their plays (“Rang shenghuo” 81-2).22 It is reasonable to doubt whether there can be more Grass Stages in today’s China, since the theatre troupe has been relying solely on audience donations in Shanghai, the country’s wealthiest city, while its marginal status has scarcely improved in recent years. One can admire the achievement of Grass Stage over a decade of hard work, but one can also wonder why no other troupes like them have emerged. Is it possible that Grass Stage has just become a bourgeois utopia full of anarchist illusion, and that the sponsors (mostly from Shanghai) have been deluded by the fantasy that social problems can be dealt with simply by donating money to the arts? For Zhao, the initial aim of Grass Stage was to transcend aesthetic experimentalism. The field manoeuvres become a way to examine the body of the performer by asking the question, “Besides liberating the body for ourselves, can the process be meaningful to the spectator? If so, how?” (“Ni buzhi”).23 Therefore, Zhao suggests an alternative theatre based on the idealist belief that it can be separated from consumerism. As he writes: “Our theatre today, big or small, as well as our theatre academies, are all built on a westernized and globalized trail of development. […] Is it possible for our ‘contemporary’

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“wo juede xingdong bushi shuo yao qu xie juda de wenzhang, huozhe shi yaoqu chuangli gengduo de lilun, huozhe shandong shenme dongxi. Gengduo de shi cong ziji neixing kaishi”. “Ren zuo juchang shi yinwei women yao juhui zai yiqi, women yao fenxiang women shenghuo zhong de jingyan yu qinggan, women yao taolun zhezhong shengcun fangshi zhiwai de lingyizhong kenengxing”. “Feichang bianyuan”. “Ta chule dui women ziji juyou jiefangxing de yiyi wai, hai nengbuneng, huozhe ruhe neng yu guanzhong zaiyiqi?”

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theatre to go beyond the narrative [way of development], depart from the hegemonic route of the Capital, and more easily land on the people of our times and on a life of our own?” (“Ni buzhi”).24 World Factory acknowledges the dubious tenability of this belief: the show ends with performer Wang Yifei reading his article “Shijie gongchang huo laodong miji xing gongchang de zhongjie” (The End of the World Factory or Labour-Intensive Factory) and proposing a more sustainable and more caring economy for the labourers. However, the clown figures soon appear onstage to mock such an idealist proposal. World Factory thus leaves a lasting question for the spectators: if the phenomenon of the world factory can be described as a syndrome of capitalist globalization, is it really possible to resist this trend and avoid the costs for the less developed areas and underprivileged social classes? Consequently, the ensuing task that lies before Grass Stage is to explore what to do next, once such serious social problems have been acknowledged. In that respect, the spectators are encouraged to participate in the performance in various ways. In World Factory, volunteer audience members are invited to join in a game of skipping in which they will earn money according to how fast they can skip over the rope (their ‘labour’ being extremely cheap: one cent Chinese yuan per skip). The participants are asked about their jobs and are then required to skip, while in the background a performer mirrors their actions in a dramatic manner indicating, ironically, that the game stands for actual tragic events. The performer then retells a worker’s testimony about their heavy labour, while the said recorded testimony is played as a voice-over simultaneously. The juxtaposition of the worker/audience member’s actual experience of labour and the actor’s dramatic representation forces the audience to consider the serious social issues being addressed, rather than dismissing them as jokes or carefree small talk over coffee. It can be argued that Grass Stage creates a Habermasian public sphere for citizens to hold communal discussions and “express and publish their opinions […] about matters of general interest” (Habermas 49), even though audience attitudes to the material seem to be strongly mediated by class difference.25 One may then ask whether this public sphere is effective in enabling

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“Women jintian de juchang, bulun daxiao, baokuo women de xiju xueyuan, dadou zuoluo zai yitiao xifanghua quanqiuhua de fazhan mailuo shang. […] women de ‘dangdai’ juchang, youmei keneng zouchu nage mailuo lunshu, likai ziben de qiangshi guidao, er nenggou geng rongyi luodao women shidai de renqun li qu, luodao women ziji de shenghuo zhong lai?” Zhao writes that many migrant-worker audiences of World Factory did not find the content surprising or upsetting because they were used to such poor living conditions. However, it often challenged and offended the middle-class audiences, as revealed in their re-

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the participants to engage with the reality around them, or whether their responses have been neutralized by global capitalism, condemning them to the realm of an enclosed utopian platform which only seeks relief from stress and anxiety. Yet if, as Lipovetsky suggests, narcissist self-reference and repetition constitute defining features of modernity (see Empire 237-41), the key point is not to move away from them but to apply them in the right place in order to promote actual change. Grass Stage’s intermingling of layers of reality through documentary, enactment or fictionalized retelling offers the audience a way to diversify the act of watching theatre and opens up a platform to challenge the macro-mechanisms of the social system that they inhabit. In this sense, narcissism may turn into agency. Moreover, through theatre we can identify some of the most pressing social problems and create a public forum to discuss them as a prelude for reform or revolution, if there is to be any. As Boal writes, “the theatre is not revolutionary in itself, but it is a rehearsal for the revolution. The liberated spectator, as a whole person, launches into action” (98). In this sense, World Factory stimulates very valuable public discussions with the potential to act as a rehearsal for social reform in Chinese society, which is enduring a gigantically accelerated development and witnessing tragedies like those of the suicide jumpers at Foxconn. The experience of facilitating a public forum and actively engaging with reality is of profound significance, not merely for the theatre, but for everyone who cares about the fate of society. In his discussion of globalization, Roland Robertson introduces the term ‘glocalization’ as a concept that transcends the debate between globalization and localization. Robertson indicates that globalization does not necessarily lead to homogeneity, but rather that “globalization – in the broadest sense, the compression of the world – has involved and increasingly involves the creation and the incorporation of locality, processes which themselves largely shape, in turn, the compression of the world as a whole” (340). That is to say, “homogenization went hand in hand with heterogenization” (339). Grass Stage, in this sense, is an example of what I call glocalized resistance as applied to the concept of ‘second modernity’ and its internal contradictions. Near the end of World Factory, a group of performers unknit the gloves on their hands,

sponses in the ‘post-performance theatre’. Zhao considers that the composition of World Factory itself revealed these divisions in society (see “Ni buzhi”). The play includes a scene referring to the barriers of communication between social classes: while a group of actors are symbolically performing repetitive labour-intensive work at a factory, an absent-minded performer dances to the music on his headphones, ignorant or unable to notice them. A critique of a consumerist society that is blind to the suffering and exploitation occurring in the production process is thus built into the play.

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symbolizing the tiring and pointless cycle of consumerism, and give expression to the simple nature of hypermodernity as experienced by the middle class: The hands of Americans replaced those of Englishmen; the hands of Japanese replaced those of Americans; the hands of Taiwanese replaced those of Japanese; now the hands of Mainlanders replaced those of Taiwanese; the hands of the people from the countryside replaced those of the urban people; […] the hands of young females replaced those of males. (Shijie gongchang)26 Therefore, the lesson to be learnt from Grass Stage is that hypermodernity, if it represents a neoliberal future for modernity, incorporates an internal conflict between the privileged and the unprivileged, the visible and the invisible. The dilemma of social development at the expense of neglected groups of people is not characteristic of China alone, but also of every modern society, as the current refugee crisis in Europe and the rising conservatism on a global scale indicate. As Robertson writes, “the issue of the form of globalization is related to the ideologically laden notion of world order” (340). Far from going beyond the political, as Lipovetsky sees it, the new modernity is still deeply rooted in political contradictions.27 Furthermore, as modernization continues, the local needs to develop an awareness of the global, so that its instinctive resistance against hegemony can be empowered through conscious political action. In such a way, the empty spaces and the invisible people can be energized and motivated. Speaking of site-specific performance in China, perhaps nothing is comparable to Zuiyi shi Hangzhou (Hangzhou: A Living Poem), the magnificent opening gala performance at the G20 World Summit in September 2016 in the city of Hangzhou. The performance, set in the well-known scenic location of West Lake and directed by Zhang Yimou, who also directed the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, presents the spectator with a fusion of traditional Chinese folk art, opera-style singing, ballet and symphony orchestra, supplemented with the use of high-technology scenography. The slogan for

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“Meiguoren de shou daiti yingguoren de shou; ribenren de shou daiti meiguoren de shou; taiwanren de shou daiti ribenren de shou; daluren de shou daiti taiwanren de shou; xiangxiaren de shou daiti chengliren de shou; […] nüren de shou daiti nanren de shou”. For Lipovetsky, in hypermodern society, “Class antagonisms have lost their edge, while personal, temporal tensions are growing sharper and more general. It is no longer class against class, but time against time, future against present, present against future, present against present, present against past” (Hypermodern Times 49).

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the performance, according to Zhang, “elements of West Lake, characteristics of Hangzhou, charm of Jiangnan, magnificence of China and cosmopolitanism of the world” (qtd. in Xi and Shi),28 encapsulates the great efforts made by China to play an active part in globalization and, by integrating the local with the global, to challenge the current world power structure while reinforcing both the nation-state (as a still functioning and potent entity) and its people. Yet it is the works of Grass Stage, in particular their ‘field manoeuvres’, that remind us of the other face of globalization. By either recovering the suppressed meaning of ‘empty spaces’ or revealing the hidden ones in existing theatrical spaces, Grass Stage constantly generates public spheres which enable us to re-examine the consequences of glocalization. Globalization changes the local space as well as the people who (are mobilized to) live or work in it. Beyond the relative optimism that Robertson or Lipovetsky attach to contemporary reality, there is another radical political dimension to it, a brutal, ever-expanding capitalist exploitation and the configurations of resistance that it elicits: the corresponding call – locally – for revolt – globally – against oppression.

Works Cited “2014-OCAT-Performance-WORLD-FACTORY.” Grass Stage, grassstage.cn/wp -content/uploads/2017/03/2014-OCAT-Performance-WORLD-FACTORY.pdf. Accessed 18 Jan. 2018. 2016 nian quanguo nongmingong jiance diaocha baogao. National Bureau of Statistics of the People’s Republic of China, 28 Apr. 2017, www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/zxfb/201704/ t20170428_1489334.html. Accessed 4 Dec. 2017. Augé, Marc. Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. Edited by John Howe, Verso, 1995. Bauman, Zygmunt. Liquid Modernity. Polity, 2006. Boal, Augusto. Theater of the Oppressed. Translated by Charles A. McBride and MariaOdilia Leal McBride, Pluto Press, 2000. Brecht, Bertolt. “Bertolt Brecht, A Short Organum for the Theatre (1948).” A TwentiethCentury Literature Reader: Texts and Debates, edited by Suman Gupta and David Johnson, Routledge, 2005, pp. 135-40. Central CPC Committee. “Zhonggongzhongyang guanyu goujian shehuizhuyi hexie shehui de ruogan zhongda wenti de jueding.” Xinhuanet, 18 Oct. 2006, news .xinhuanet.com/politics/2006-10/18/content_5218639.htm. Accessed 2 Dec. 2016.

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“Xihu yuansu, Hangzhou tese, Jiangnan yunwei, Zhongguo qipai, shijie datong”.

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“Chinese World Factory Performed in San Francisco during Labor Fest.” YouTube, www .youtube.com/watch?v=wXifWoAo0DY. Accessed 6 Dec. 2017. Gan, Li. “Zhongguo zhongchanjieji renshu yijing chaoguo liangyi.” Sohu, 17 Nov. 2015, business.sohu.com/20151117/n426657041.shtml. Accessed 2 Dec. 2016. “Graphic: China’s Core Socialist Values.” People.cn, 25 Dec. 2013, en.people.cn/90785/ 8494839.html. Accessed 5 Jan. 2017. Grass Stage. grassstage.cn/grass-stage/. Accessed 6 Mar. 2018. Habermas, Jürgen. “The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article (1964).” New German Critique, no. 3, autumn 1974, pp. 49-55. Kersley, Richard, and Markus Stierli. “Global Wealth in 2015: Underlying Trends Remain Positive.” Credit Suisse Research Institute, 13 Oct. 2015, www.credit-suisse .com/us/en/about-us/research/research-institute/news-and-videos/articles/news -and-expertise/2015/10/en/global-wealth-in-2015-underlying-trends-remain -positive.html. Accessed 2 Dec. 2016. Kociatkiewicz, Jerzy, and Monika Kostera. “The Anthropology of Empty Spaces.” Qualitative Sociology, vol. 22, no. 1, 1999, pp. 37-50. “Liang’an sandi” gaoxiao Fushikang diaoyan zongbaogao. Mainland-Hong KongTaiwan Universities Foxconn Investigation Team, 2010, Sohu, mfiles.sohu.com/it/ foxconn.doc. Accessed 2 Oct. 2015. Lipovetsky, Gilles. The Empire of Fashion: Dressing Modern Democracy. Translated by Catherine Porter, Princeton UP, 2002. Lipovetsky, Gilles. Hypermodern Times. Translated by Andrew Brown, Polity, 2005. “Lu Xun 2008 kan renchiren yuedu yixiang.” Ifeng.com, 12 Nov. 2008, book.ifeng.com/ yeneizixun/detail_2008_11/12/304381_0.shtml. Accessed 3 Dec. 2017. Mao, Zedong. “Talks at the Yanan Forum on Literature and Art.” Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tsetung, Foreign Language Press, 1971, pp. 250-86. Pu, Bo, and Yang Zi. “Constructing the Alternative: Grass Stage and The Little Society.” Staging China: New Theatres in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Li Ruru, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, pp. 203-14. Report for Selected Countries and Subjects. International Monetary Fund, 2014, www .imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2014/02/weodata/weorept.aspx?sy=1998&ey=2018& scsm=1&ssd=1&sort=country&ds=.&br=1&c=924%2C111&s=PPPGDP&grp=0&a=& pr.x=35&pr.y=7. Accessed 6 Mar. 2018. Robertson, Roland. “Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity-Heterogeneity.” Readings in Globalization: Key Concepts and Major Debates, edited by George Ritzer and Zeynep Atalay, Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, pp. 334-43. Shijie gongchang. Directed by Zhao Chuan, Grass Stage, 11 Nov. 2014, OCT Contemporary Art Terminal, Hall A, Shenzhen. MP4 video. “Shijie gongchang xilie.” Grass Stage, grassstage.cn/%E5%89%A7%E7%9B%AE -works/%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8C%E5%B7%A5%E5%8E%82/. Accessed 7 Dec. 2017.

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“World Factory: The Politics of Conversation.” Birkbeck Centre for Contemporary Theatre, 22 May 2015, Contemporary Theatre Review, www.contemporarytheatre review.org/2015/world-factory/. Accessed 4 Dec. 2017. Xi, Jinyan, and Shi Jiaxiu. “G20 fenghui jiang xian shuishang yanchu ‘zuiyi shi Hangzhou’ Zhang Yimou zhidao.” China News Service, 3 Sep. 2016, www.chinanews .com/gn/2016/09-03/7992957.shtml. Accessed 2 Dec. 2016. “Xianchang: Caotaiban diwuci lalian.” Sohu, 8 Aug. 2017, www.sohu.com/a/163055829 _488343. Accessed 5 Jan. 2018. “Xiao juchang li de Lu Xun 2008.” China.org.cn, 20 Nov. 2008, www.china.com.cn/ culture/weekend/2008-11/20/content_16799946_2.htm. Accessed 3 Dec. 2017. “Xiao shehui xilie.” Grass Stage, grassstage.cn/%E5%B0%8F%E7%A4%BE%E4%BC %9A/. Accessed 6 Jan. 2018. Zhao, Chuan. “Biwen juchang.” Dushu, vol. 4, 2006, pp. 63–70. Zhao, Chuan. Personal interview. 9 Jul. 2014. Zhao, Chuan. “Rang shenghuo zhong you juchang.” Interview with Xu Menglu and Liu Xinling, Xiju yu yingshi pinglun, vol. 2, 2014, pp. 79-85. Zhao, Chuan. “Ni buzhi lai kan xi, ershi lai women jian de juchang.” Grass Stage’s Blog, 4 Oct. 2016, blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_5c5194ec0102wriq.html. Accessed 28 Sep. 2017. Zhuang, Jiayun. “Minjian juchang de caotai jingshen.” Nanfengchuang, 22 Jul. 2013, www.nfcmag.com/article/4169.html. Accessed 2 Dec. 2016.

Meeting in the Theatre to Think towards Social and Political Change Andy Smith

Abstract In this chapter, Andy Smith outlines a practice that he refers to as ‘dematerialised theatre’. After examining historical influences and antecedents from the realm of conceptual art, he contextualises the practice as emerging in and from what Zygmunt Bauman described as an era of ‘liquid modernity’. Using the solo works all that is solid melts into air (2011) and commonwealth (2012) as illustrations, he then reflects on how the methodological approaches of the practice and the meeting between performance and audience they encourage have provided him with a sound foundation to explore and create work that thinks towards social and political change. The final half of the essay outlines five key characteristics of the practice in an attempt to foster forward movement and wider reflection.

I make, think, teach, study and write about a practice I refer to as a ‘dematerialised theatre’. This is a theatre that in its writing, making rehearsal and performance looks to result in an imaginative engagement for both performers and spectators. It is a theatre that considers the present audience to be central to the activity of the work, and that through its processes removes and reduces extraneous elements in an attempt to enhance the experience and perception of space and encourage an active mutual involvement of those performing and speaking and those watching and listening. This yields plays that are often seen and described as simple in their appearance, but that address often big, complex themes and questions. The name and execution of this practice is inspired and influenced by Lucy Lippard’s monograph Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972, a volume that catalogues a number of diverse visual artworks made and first exhibited between the years of the title. Many of the examples presented in this volume challenge perceived ideas of representation and interpretation, and have in subsequent years been more commonly grouped together and referred to as belonging to a tradition of ‘conceptual

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art’.1 More loosely, Lippard suggests that this work belongs to a movement of “so-called conceptual or information or idea art” (iii). The pieces selected for the volume are “about saying more with less” (xiii), but she is careful to distinguish between this approach and the attempts of artists involved in the concurrent practice of minimalism, whose maxim ‘less is more’ pursued a more self-contained and pure aesthetic, often with connotations of the utopic and holy. Rather than a finite, complete, direct style, the practices reviewed by Lippard tended towards a more open exploration. They considered ideas of activity, transformation, context, potential and value and occasionally exhibited “political overtones” (iii). They often drew attention to the processes involved in their creation, inviting participation from the viewer and highlighting the imaginative possibilities inherent in viewing them. James Collins’s Introduction Piece No. 5, for example, suggested the simple action of introducing strangers to each other and documenting the meeting through a photograph (see Lippard 176). Yoko Ono’s instruction-based Map Piece invited spectators to make and follow their own map of a familiar territory (see Lippard 179). In his work March 31, 1966, Dan Graham charted the distance between a number of sites and the place where the viewer was standing, including how many miles it is to the “edge of the known universe” as well as the distance to the “front door” (Lippard 14). Each of these examples makes a request for physical and imaginative participation. They all engage with the ephemeral and sometimes messy processes of what Lippard identifies as “art as idea and art as action” (ix), and offer a set of principles and propositions that continue to inspire my work fifteen years after I first discovered the book. My dematerialised theatre is a practice that takes a human, life-size approach. It often utilises only what we might call the essential elements needed for theatre to take place. It usually requires only a stage and auditorium (or even just a room that can be named as such for the duration), a performer or performers (often but not always me), a text to be delivered (in my case, usually in English) and – most importantly – a present audience who are there to engage with and interpret the work. Much (but not all) of my practice to date has manifested itself in the form of monologues or ‘solo’ performances.

1 Although the term was coined in this period, a number of artistic practices and works created prior to the dates in Lippard’s title – for example the ‘readymades’ presented by Marcel Duchamp in the 1920s – are now often perceived as belonging to the tradition of ‘conceptual art’. Lippard notes how the term, which first appeared in print in Sol Lewitt’s 1967 essay “Sentences on Conceptual Art” (see Osborne 53), has in subsequent years been applied to “virtually anything in unconventional mediums” (vii).

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However, reflecting the invitation to activity in the works of conceptual or idea art such as those catalogued by Lippard, I prefer to frame and view this practice as a collaboration and an act of dialogue with a present audience. Though we might see it as solipsistic, in another sense I think ‘solo’ work can be considered the most collective and collaborative shape that theatre can take. This is certainly the attempt of my ‘solo’ performances all that is solid melts into air (2011) and commonwealth (2012), which were commissioned by BIT Teatergarasjen (Bergen, Norway) and GIFT Festival (Gateshead, UK) respectively and have been widely performed, both separately and together in a double bill, in theatres as well as at conferences and in educational settings around the UK.2 My stated aim for the work and the wider research project it formed part of was to adapt and apply my developed methodologies to making pieces that think explicitly, together with their audience, towards ideas of social and political change. The project moved my practice and thinking forward, but also realigned it with the origins of the dematerialised art documented by Lippard that first influenced me. These and subsequent examples of my theatre have similarly explored notions of transformation, context, potential and value. I hope they offer ideas and might encourage action. With particular reference to these two works, this essay will try to contextualise my practice and then outline five characteristics that I believe are key to its goal and also its continuation. It is my hope that these pages might provide loose guidelines, inspiration and a source of discussion/disagreement to other practitioners, scholars and students of theatre and performance. In naming these characteristics, I have taken inspiration from Viktor Shklovsky’s proposal that the purpose of art is that “one may recover the sensation of life; it exists to make one feel things, to make the stone stony” (12). This, then, is an attempt by me to similarly make strange and render visible aspects of my work. I am not claiming exclusivity on these qualities – they are common features in many other examples of contemporary theatre practice – but simply highlighting them and not taking them for granted. In order to emphasise each characteristic, I have attached the suffix -ness to them, hopefully reinforcing the sense and quality of what each is and can be and why they might be useful. This work has emerged in the context of what the late sociologist Zygmunt Bauman defined as an era of liquid modernity, a state in which we are unable to “fix space or bind time” (Liquid Modernity 2) and where the fluid nature of our existence creates feelings of insecurity and dissatisfaction in us as citizens.

2 The two pieces are published by Oberon Books alongside The Preston Bill, a later work first presented in 2015.

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In a number of book-length studies exploring the condition, Bauman explains, for instance, how it contributes to circumstances where “the idea of ‘common interests’ grows ever more nebulous and in the end becomes incomprehensible” (Individualized Society 24), and reflects on how in this context the ability to join together in solidarity seems to be slipping away from our grasp. Full of inequality and uncertainty, the sense of incapacity that the liquid modern condition seems to engender can often leave us feeling overwhelmed and unable to act. In the 2013 volume Moral Blindness: The Loss of Sensitivity in Liquid Modernity, a dialogue with the theorist Leonidas Donskis, Bauman casts the majority of the citizens living in and through these conditions in the role of the ‘precariat’: those affected by the manifold contradictions and complications of the ways and systems in which we live. This group is not necessarily simply made up of just one minority or social class. Rather, Bauman suggests that it “embraces people of all economic classes” (67) and, from this outline, presents the reader with the following challenge: The big question, the life-and-death question, is whether the ‘precariat’ can be recast into a ‘historical agent’, as the ‘proletariat’ was or was hoped to be, capable of acting in solidarity and pursuing a shared concept of social justice and a shared vision of the ‘good society’ – a society hospitable to all its members. The question can only be answered by the way we, the precarians, act – singly, severally, or all together. (67) I am inspired by this proposition and, through the form of people meeting in a theatre, look to offer a similar challenge to the audience. I want to create spaces for us to think about how we are all acting. The opening lines of all that is solid melts into air, for example, unashamedly suggest that the piece is “about how we change the world” (67). The task is subsequently attempted more imaginatively than actually, cataloguing what I and we might have done in the theatre in order to achieve it. This approach is intentionally gentle and humorous, but the work is serious in its aims to stimulate a sense of agency and possibility both in the space of the stage and the viewer of the piece. In commonwealth, I focus on the audience, casting those present in a role akin (or at least connected) to Bauman’s ‘precariat’. In the narrative of this piece, the audience represent or play a group of people that have arrived at a theatre, a group of people looking to this place as one that could provide a narrative of change and potential. The work considers and imagines their thoughts and activity, and by its end the fiction it layers over these audienceparticipants is suggesting that this group are “thinking that just by being here

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and thinking something like this something is changing” (58). This is another admittedly hopeful notion on my part, but again it is a serious suggestion. I hope that it is from such meetings in the theatre that we, the people in its here and now, might start to think about how we can undertake challenges like the one Bauman presents, “singly, severally [and] all together”. Though resolutely unable to offer a singular answer to the big “life-anddeath question” that Bauman posits, these works are still concerned with our capacity to think about it. As the title of this essay suggests, I use the form and space of theatre as one where we can all think towards rather than about social and political change. In these pieces, I deliberately do not attempt to incite action or propose concrete activity, which in my opinion would be reductive. Instead, I try to use the opportunity of us all gathered in a room to consider and engage with some ideas and events taking place outside the doors. Rather than do this through big, bold and confrontational actions or by trying to represent aspects of our life and society realistically, these works take on a more small and human form – one person openly talking to another group of people – to ask collectively what we might do. As with many examples of theatre made in the early part of this century, the influence of Jacques Rancière’s The Emancipated Spectator is evident here.3 Rancière confirms the specific logic of the theatre event and its potential use, asserting that “[t]here is no theatre without a spectator” (2). He also outlines the central paradox in this situation, pointing out that for the critics or “accusers” (2) of the theatre whom he confronts, to “be a spectator is to be separated from both the capacity to know and the power to act” (2), a formulation that leads to the suggestion that the audience are passive, immobile and incapable of effective action or response. Whether a number of practitioners are conscious of it or not, Rancière’s provocation has had an impact upon, or at least relates to, many approaches to theatre- and performance-making in the last ten years. During this time, companies have sought to immerse their audience in built and found environments, freeing them from their seats and the constraints of the black box space. There are manifold examples of work that use ‘real people’ rather than actors, as well as smaller more intimate performances for one audience member at a time. All endeavour to alter the position, perception or perspective 3 The first published version of the essay “The Emancipated Spectator” (originally a lecture written by Rancière upon an invitation to open the Internationale Sommerakademie in Frankfurt-on-Main (see Rancière 1)) appeared in 2007 in ArtForum International. A revised edition was subsequently published in 2009 by Verso in a volume of essays that shares the title. All references here apply to the later version.

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of the spectator and in some way make them ‘more active’, but in their attempt to do so these artists can often appear to be acknowledging and heightening the “opposition between viewing and acting” (13) that Rancière challenges: [Emancipation] begins when we understand that viewing is also an action that confirms or transforms this distribution of positions. The spectator also acts, like the pupil or scholar. She observes, selects, compares, interprets. She links what she sees to a host of other things that she has seen on other stages, in other kinds of place. She composes her own poem with the elements of the poem before her. She participates in the performance by refashioning it in her own way – by drawing back, for example, from the vital energy that it is supposed to transmit in order to make it a pure image and associate this image with a story which she has read or dreamt, experienced or invented. (13) I think Rancière’s essay asks me to question how I and we might view and use existing operations rather than build new ones. For this reason, my works are most suited to black box theatre spaces, with an audience sitting on one side of the room, ideally on a rake of seats. This is what Susan Bennett refers to in Theatre Audiences, after anthropologist Edward Hall, as a “fixed stageauditorium arrangement” (132), and is the configuration that perhaps most comes to mind when we think about theatre. I like to use it precisely because of its ubiquity and availability. In my experience, even the most proudly flexible of theatre spaces are kept in this shape. Other ideas related to my approach present themselves in Rancière’s thought. When discussing this essay, a student I taught at Manchester University pointed out that The Emancipated Spectator could be interpreted as a request to the theatre-maker or artist to be more ‘humble’, implying that the activity of the stage could be made to be more modest and perhaps unassuming. This chimed with my approach, which (as I have written elsewhere) uses techniques of removal and reduction on the space of the stage in an attempt to make room for the present and essential audience (see Smith, “Gentle Acts”). A ‘humble’ act might allow acknowledgement of the presence of an audience in the space and so recognise the essential nature of their job. It could help us try to reach for something like parity and interdependency between these spaces (stage and audience) and see them instead as existing in one space (stage and audience). Ideas such as the one described above are all included in some way in the five characteristics of this work – a work that thinks towards social and polit-

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ical change – that I now want to offer. As I have already suggested, these features are not in any way unique; they are evident and important in many other practices. What I hope might be seen as significant here is asking how they might be able to help us as makers, scholars and students as we continue to think around this subject. The first characteristic is the broad concept of theatreness. Both all that is solid melts into air and commonwealth attempt to make the particular qualities of the act of theatre visible in order to explore the possibilities it can generate and contain. At the core of each work, then, is an experiential heightening of the practice and reception of theatre itself. These works ask – and in doing so ask their specific audiences – simple questions with paradoxically complex, often very difficult answers about what we might be doing here in the theatre as well as what we might be able to do in the world outside its walls. In both pieces I try to evidence an awareness of what I think are important strengths in this act – including the fact that we are all here and meeting in this room, which in itself can be viewed as an act of potential. In both I imagine some of what might or could happen when this takes place. In both I investigate the situation through imaginative excursions into what can happen in such a potentially transformative environment. In his essay “Rough Theatre”, David Greig reminds us that theatre is an experimental playing out of possibilities in time. It builds upon the question ‘what if?’ There is a sense in which any play is an experiment whereby we establish a given set of possible conditions and then observe what happens if we put people into those conditions and set them loose in real time. Theatre reminds us constantly of the contingency, the changeability of things. (219) These works, then, offer the circumstance of us together in the theatre as an established “set of possible conditions”. In both, I view those in the room as my collaborators – the characters in and of the work being made and the story being told. We are all “set […] loose in real time” in order to view our circumstances as contingent. From this position in the theatre we are encouraged to ask the question – as Greig invites us to – what if? Through this I try to interrogate some of what we are doing and why we might be doing it. Near the end of all that is solid melts into air I posit the following thought to the present audience: “I think and hope that our lives might be better somehow because we have places like this to go to. Because I think that in places like this we can share amazing moments, moments made all the more amazing be-

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cause in a moment we know they will be gone” (85).4 This short example – and there are plenty of them in both works – tries to highlight the circumstances we are in as well as what is being attempted: some people getting together, spending some time with each other, thinking about and paying some attention to things. I want to encourage reflection and discourse around the matters that we are all taking part in and – I believe – are part of. The second characteristic of this practice that I want to propose is the important notion of lightness. Since my continuing collaboration with Tim Crouch and Karl James began in 2004, the phrase “the lightness of the lightness”, taken from Tim’s play An Oak Tree (70), has often been employed in our rehearsal room as a note to articulate and encourage a desired approach to execution and delivery. Lightness is a property we value and that manifests itself in this work in a number of ways. In all that is solid melts into air and commonwealth, this characteristic is obvious in the physical form that the pieces take – they are easy to transport and tour – but it is also vital in relation to the delivery of their content. I want to entertain and engage an audience rather than be argumentative or aggressive. In a lecture on the subject of lightness, the first of an incomplete series published under the title Six Memos for The Next Millennium in 1988, Italo Calvino explores the contribution that the property of lightness makes to literature, reflecting that “[w]henever humanity seems condemned to heaviness, I think I should fly like Perseus into a different space” (7). Careful to point out that this does not indicate a desire to use his writing in order to create an escape route into a world of “dreams or the irrational”, he suggests that the action can allow both him and his reader to “look at the world from a different perspective, with a different logic and with fresh methods of cognition and verification” (7). Calvino aims to achieve this through what he calls a “thoughtful lightness” (10) and “weightless gravity” (19). Both terms appeal to me because of their paradoxical nature, implying as they do dynamic yet quotidian properties, a capacity to convey a sense of seriousness whilst still being playful. This approach is also inspired by the writing of Georges Perec – a contemporary of Calvino and fellow member of the Oulipo group – who considers the

4 This passage echoes theatre-maker Chris Goode’s own outline of the properties of theatre (and, I think, their potential) in his 2010 lecture “House of the Future”, in which he states: “We gather together in one place, the audience and the performers and the other makers: we experience something together that is live and is vulnerable to all the unpredictable contingencies of live performance; and when the constructed encounter has been played out it is gone”.

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seemingly light, everyday, domestic and often taken-for-granted things that occupy our lives. In his 1973 essay Approaches to What?, Perec offers a plea to the reader (as well as a reminder to himself) for a more inquisitive and appreciative approach to the more quotidian aspects of our existence. Asking “how should we take account of, question, describe what happens every day and recurs every day?” (210), he answers by suggesting we perhaps start with a simple reconsideration of our environment, the objects that we find within it, as well as the mannerisms and habits that we may have acquired: What we need to question is bricks, concrete, glass, our table manners, our utensils, our tools, the way we spend our time, our rhythms. To question that which seems to have ceased forever to have astonished us. We live, true, we breathe, true; we walk, we open doors, we go down staircases, we sit at a table in order to eat, we lie down on a bed in order to sleep. How? Where? When? Why? (210) In some way, all that is solid melts into air and commonwealth offer a similar request to notice the properties of our everyday as well as global operations, as illustrated here in an outlining of things that can frustrate us, from all that is solid melts into air: “It doesn’t have to be something big. I can even feel like that when the bus runs a bit late, or when people don’t turn up on time, or when the internet stops working. I can feel like it when I have to take my shoes off to get through security, or when I haven’t got the right change to go to the toilet or get a trolley for the shopping” (70). In approaching the everyday in passages such as this – which immediately follows an outlining of banks, leaders and arms traders as being a similar source of irritation – my intention has always been to try and find something like a lightness or weightless gravity. In other words, to find a balance between a humorous and serious proposition, taking conscious decisions to approach my themes – in this instance, how we can change the world – in ways that create contrasts, and through doing so perhaps reinvigorate in some way our awareness of, thoughts around and approaches to matters big and small. The third characteristic is a state of togetherness, which this work attempts to foster for a number of reasons. Togetherness, I would suggest (and have already alluded to), is already an inherent quality in any practice of theatre. A notion of togetherness is also good to consider in its capacity to provide a sense of agency, as John Holloway does in the following passage taken from his volume on political theory Crack Capitalism: “We come together and share a project of some sort, in an event, a meeting, a series of meetings; or we go down the streets in a moment of celebration or anger. Later, perhaps, we

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disperse and go our different ways, but while we are together, our project, celebration or rage may create an otherness, a different way of doing or relating” (30). In the section of Life in Fragments entitled “Forms of Togetherness”, Bauman outlines what he calls a number of “brands” of this condition (49). These include mobile togetherness (the street), tempered togetherness (the office, the factory), manifest togetherness (a football crowd, a protest march), postulated togetherness (in solidarity, nationhood, or gender, for example) and meta togetherness (in the shared territory of the pub, or the beach). Each of these, he points out, are “fragmentary, or episodic, or both” (49). None lead to “a more ‘intimate’ togetherness or a ‘better’ togetherness” (49), and neither are they permanent. But they do – whether desired or not – require an encounter in which the idea of a “commitment shoots up” (53). For each to happen, people need to be with and alongside other people. In each, this idea of commitment – an investment in or dedication to the event that is happening – appears. I think the togetherness offered by the act of theatre, even in the most intimate or private of performances, can in some way be read as an amalgam of all the brands that Bauman proposes. The theatre is a public space (like the street, or the pub). The theatre can ask for and involve the production of something (as in the space of the office or factory). In the theatre, a request can be made for a sensation of solidarity between those assembled. But due to its status as a place of simultaneity, the space of the theatre can also contain the opposite qualities (or at least allow for their possibility). Acts of theatre can also inspire private and individual moments. Its product, the performance, is temporal and fleeting. The proposals that the work of theatre makes, or the ideas that it may explore, can divide as much as unite its audience. The theatre is a place where the commitment to the ‘shared project’ that Holloway describes can be both formulated as well as questioned, for potentially varying lengths of time, both during and after the work has finished. Although in most contemporary models a monetary exchange takes place in order for an act of theatre to happen, the form of togetherness that it can still grant despite this is one that – at least at its foundations – involves a voluntary action of attendance. The commitment it requires is requested and invested in by all of its participants, hopefully on more than simply economic levels. All the works that I have been involved in creating in the last fifteen years present fluid and interpretable ideas to which the audience are invited to bring and apply their own thoughts and interests. Instead of detaching itself from the world and events that exist beyond (as well as prior to) its presentation, my dematerialised theatre practice asks the audience to engage in and see what occurs in the theatre as part of the world rather than as something separate

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from it. This also potentially offers a sense of our togetherness – both in the world as well as in the frame of the performances themselves – as a politicising and political possibility. It contains the potential to create and perhaps even assist with ideas of social and political change that the works want us – the participants – to think towards; as I suggest in commonwealth, to “think about how we make progress and continue to make progress” (58). This relates to the fourth characteristic, which I want to define as a sense of presentness. In many discussions around qualities of theatre practice and the theatre event, the idea of presence as a central and distinct component will often emerge. The fact that the unfolding narrative is happening in front of or along with the audience is often raised and cited as being a unique feature of what is taking place. In his study Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture, Philip Auslander sets out to challenge some of these perceived ideas, interrogating and exploring the dominant effect of mass and digital media. Auslander examines how the digital age has complicated our perception and reception of work, reflecting on how “the general response of live performance to the oppression and economic superiority of mediatized forms has been to become as much like them as possible” (7). He contests perceived ideas of what presence is, explores the currency attached to the real or the live event and challenges the prevalent notion that the authentic or real quality allows the product to transcend and resist market value. As Auslander illustrates, dominant media practices have affected our idea of what can be described as ‘live’ and these developments have strong “implications for how the audience perceives the whole performance” (43). Despite their simple appearance being seemingly resistant to such modes of operation, this effect extends to the creation and construction of my own pieces, which are both related to what Auslander – referencing the work of Spalding Gray – describes as “monologues as movies” (33). Like Gray, I also at times use a cinematographic language and employ recognisable tropes to invoke stronger images, however quotidian the story may be, as in the following example from commonwealth: let’s say a story about getting information, about a person who is looking for information. Information for their elderly neighbour, who thinks they might be paying too much tax. But it’s hard for them to ask the council, so they ask the neighbour if they mind helping out. And the neighbour says: Sure, that’s no problem! I can easily help you out.

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So one afternoon they stroll on down to the old town hall in the middle of town and end up sitting in the office of the local authority, with a numbered ticket in their hand, listening to a person behind a desk. (50) This technique sets up a ‘scene’. It places a recognisable, everyday situation clearly into the realm of fiction and narrative – something that the whole work also attempts to achieve. Through this, I acknowledge that the telling of this story is in itself an act of representation and perhaps a means to ask questions about how we represent ourselves. The aim of this and other tactics is not to draw attention to and heighten a sense of presence, poise or pride in the story or the work, as this would lead – I think – to connotations of hierarchy, the spiritual and self-worth that would be the opposite of the humble attempts I am describing and trying to create. Instead, my focus is on the potential that might be found in the presentness of the situation. While the works take excursions into other spaces and times through stories and reflections such as the example above, throughout their performance in various ways they constantly return to the here and now of what is taking place in the work – in commonwealth, “in a room like this in a building like this” (Preston Bill 41). The pieces look to heighten the sense of potential and possibility of the circumstances or situation in which we are currently engaged, often explicitly, as in the following extract from all that is solid melts into air: I might just be making a cup of tea or a piece of toast and suddenly I’ll be overcome by the most incredible thoughts and emotions. Sometimes I’m so overcome that I want to cry! I might just be doing something like getting a book from the library or checking my emails or tidying up the living room at the end of a long day, and I’ll stop for a moment and think to myself… BOOM! This is a good situation. What a good situation. Like now in fact… Like this. This feels like a good situation… like a situation full of possibility. (69) Following Auslander’s lead, I do not want to apply the terms ‘unique’ or ‘original’ to these works as a result of them containing this presentness, but I do purposefully allow a drawing of attention to the context where they are taking place each time they are performed – a heightening of their here and now,

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of their potential in this moment with this audience – rather than being lofty and separate. Although the words remain the same, each work looks to create a sense of something taking place that is particular and non-repeatable, something that many examples of live performance – though not all, as Dan Rebellato points out in his exploration of the phenomenon of “McTheatre” in Theatre & Globalization (39) – have in common. Operating counter to the “franchises” (41) that Rebellato describes, the approach of a dematerialised theatre is to note, highlight and acknowledge the shared moments of presentness in which the performance and audience meet, and in the case of all that is solid melts into air and commonwealth, try to consider what our collective capacity is. Both pieces, in short, attempt to think towards our social and political circumstances and socio-political change, encouraging us to ask ourselves what we might be able to do from this here and now. The final, most intangible, but no less important characteristic I want to attach to these works is that of hopefulness. This is a fluid and unpredictable quality that offers no guarantee of reaching or achieving a goal, a fact Rebecca Solnit acknowledges when she writes that to hope is “to bet on the future, on your desires, on the possibility that an open heart and uncertainty is better than gloom and safety” (5). The ideas and questions that I gently consider in all that is solid melts into air and commonwealth – and ask the audience to gently consider with me – relate to the gamble that Solnit proposes. They are intentionally and similarly fluid, their possibilities infinite rather than definite. These experiments take place in a climate of what Laurent Berlant calls ‘cruel optimism’. One that presents a sense that any actions we might try or take in this climate can unfortunately risk having the opposite effect. Countering this, Solnit reminds us to move forward regardless, noting that “waiting until everything looks feasible is too long to wait” (15). We must continue to undertake small and large actions and experiments, many of which, as Holloway remarks, are both “necessary and enjoyable” (256). These are acts that think towards and consider change and that are vital in order to maintain autonomy in the face of continuing major and minor adverse circumstances and events. We must find ways to keep going, keep thinking, and keep acting. This takes hope. I wish for my theatre to offer acts of hope in the manner that Paulo Freire describes in Pedagogy of Hope: “not out of mere stubbornness, but out of an existential, concrete imperative” (2). Through them I purposefully present a view counter to many of the opinions that appear in the present socio-political climate, which Slajov Žižek suggests has created an urge in many critical theorists – including often, I think, himself – to not celebrate but instead “cata-

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strophize” (403) our present situation. This, he argues, is popular because “what the unfortunate intellectuals cannot bear is the fact that they lead a life which is basically happy, safe and comfortable” (404). This provocation can be read as an attempt for him – and a request to us – to draw a connection between thought and action. It is true that action and participation remain concepts that can sometimes be seen as sitting outside of or being antithetical to the comfortable circumstances in which we exist in what we refer to as ‘western’ societies, a position that affords us great benefits – including the perceived luxury of academic and theatrical pursuits. For me, Žižek’s reflections bring to mind Marx’s often quoted proposal that “philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it” (173). I hope through their admittedly humble actions all that is solid melts into air and commonwealth emphasise how both are important and are related. Solnit proposes that “[h]ope calls for action. Action is impossible without hope” (5). She explains that the purpose of her activism and writing is “to make a world where people are producers of meaning, not consumers” (148) and where these hopeful actions can be viewed as “the foundation for an ongoing series of acts of defiance” (163). I hope that through all that is solid melts into air and commonwealth I attempt something similar, inviting the audience to engage in an opportunity to reflect on, and confirm as well as question, some of our activities and habits. When these performances end, my desire is that we might carry some of the critical hope they offer – as well as perhaps let it carry us – out of the theatre to whatever it is that we might encounter next.

Works Cited Auslander, Philip. Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture. 2nd ed., Routledge, 2008. Bauman, Zygmunt. Life in Fragments: Essays in Postmodern Moralities. Blackwell, 1995. Bauman, Zygmunt. Liquid Modernity. Polity, 2000. Bauman, Zygmunt. The Individualized Society. Polity, 2001. Bauman, Zygmunt, and Leonidas Donskis. Moral Blindness: The Loss of Sensitivity in Liquid Modernity. Polity, 2013. Bennett, Susan. Theatre Audiences: A Theory of Production and Reception. 2nd ed., Routledge, 1997. Berlant, Lauren. Cruel Optimism. Duke UP, 2011. Calvino, Italo. Six Memos for the Next Millennium. Translated by Geoffrey Brock, Penguin, 2009. Crouch, Tim. Plays One (My Arm, An Oak Tree, ENGLAND, The Author). Oberon, 2011.

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Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of Hope: Reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Translated by Robert R. Barr, Bloomsbury, 2014. Goode, Chris. “House of the Future.” Thompsons’ Bank of Communicable Desire, 22 May 2010. beescope.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/house-of-future.html. Accessed 12 Dec. 2017. Greig, David. “Rough Theatre.” Cool Britannia: British Political Drama in the 1990s, edited by Rebecca D’Monté and Graham Saunders, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, pp. 20821. Holloway, John. Crack Capitalism. Pluto Press, 2010. Lippard, Lucy. Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972. 1973. U of California P, 1997. Marx, Karl. Selected Writings. Edited by David McLellan, Oxford UP, 2000. Osborne, Peter. “Conceptual Art and/as Philosophy.” Rewriting Conceptual Art, edited by Michael Newman and John Bird, Reaktion Books, 1999, pp. 47-65. Perec, Georges. Species of Spaces and Other Pieces. Edited and translated by John Sturrock, Penguin, 1997. Rancière, Jacques. The Emancipated Spectator. Translated by Gregory Elliott, Verso, 2009. Rebellato, Dan. Theatre & Globalization. Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Shklovsky, Victor. “Art as Technique.” Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays. Translated and with an introduction by Lee T. Lemon and Marion J. Reis, U of Nebraska P, 1965, pp. 3-24. Smith, Andy. “Gentle Acts of Removal, Replacement and Reduction: Considering the Audience in Co-Directing the Work of Tim Crouch.” Contemporary Theatre Review vol. 21, no. 4, 2011, pp. 410-15. Smith, Andy. The Preston Bill/commonwealth/all that is solid melts into air. Oberon, 2015. Solnit, Rebecca. Hope in the Dark. Canongate, 2005. Žižek, Slavoj. Living in the End Times. Verso, 2011.

Index #MeToo 7, 13, 14 15M 13 Indignados 13n Abramovic, Marina The Onion 94 activism 3, 4, 8, 13, 15-16, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 26, 29, 41, 43-44, 50-51, 68, 69, 72, 75, 78, 81, 86, 96, 184-185, 227 actor training 98-112 Adiseshiah, Siân, and Louise LePage 126 Adorno, Theodor W. 123-124, 144 Adsit, Janelle, et al. 19 Aeschylus 101 affect 8, 9, 14-15, 17, 19, 21-22, 23, 31, 34, 40, 84, 93, 94-95, 109, 147 affective turn 4, 16 affect theory 16, 18-19 Agamben, Giorgio 19, 19n agency 3, 16, 21, 23, 53, 61, 79, 81, 98-101, 103-108, 110-111, 120, 126, 209, 217, 222 agitprop 15, 18, 31, 31n2, 45-46 Agius, Anton 59 agora 130, 139 Aitab Valelikust Poliitikast (Enough of Unfair Politics; Estonia) 177 Allende, Salvador 182, 183n3, 190, 190n, 191, 192, 193, 194, 194n, 195 Althusser, Louis 73n Anderson, Walter Truett 2 Angelaki, Vicky 122 anger 88, 94 Annual Theatre Awards (Estonia) 169, 169n10, 174 anti-Semitism 148, 151, 154 applied theatre 141 Arab Spring 6, 13 Aragay, Mireia, and Enric Monforte 21n, 94n5 Arendt, Hannah 140 Arias, Lola 138n El año en que nací (The Year I Was Born) 189-190 Aristophanes

Attic Old Comedy 153, 159 The Frogs 100, 101-102 parabasis (step forward) 102-106, 102n, 103n, 108-112 Aristotle 95 Artist Network of Refuse and Resist! 14 Arts Council England 203 Aston, Elaine 124, 125 viral realism 124 Atay, Korhan 71, 71n Ateatru 57n3 Atlan, Kemal, and Hakan Türktan 75 Augé, Marc 199 Augustynowicz, Anna 148 Auschwitz 157 Auslander, Philip 224-225 austerity 7, 14, 135 authenticity 15, 23, 94, 122, 224 authorial intention 46, 117-118, 118n authorship 98, 102, 103 Avignon Festival 166, 169, 181 Ayhan Hanım (Mrs Ayhan) 73, 80 Azzopardi, Mario 57n4, 58, 63-64 Bachelet, Michelle 184, 184n7 Nueva Mayoría (New Majority) 184n7 Badiou, Alain 45, 81 and Simon During 45 Bakhtin, Mikhail carnival 146-147, 153 carnivalesque protest 17 Bandhopadhyay, Ajitesh 43, 44n Barnett, David 127n Barrales, Luis 186 Allende, noche de septiembre (Allende, Night of September) 189 Bartolo, Evarist 57n4 Basu, Bratya 42 Bauman, Zygmunt liquid modernity 125-126, 192, 193, 194, 199, 216-218 precariat 217 togetherness 223 Baykan, Ayşegül, and Tali Hatuka 71, 73

230 Belarus Free Theatre Trash Cuisine 8, 23, 83, 84, 84n2, 85-86, 88-89, 91, 93, 94, 96 Bénichou, Géraldine 141, 141n Bennett, Susan 219 Berlant, Lauren cruel optimism 226 Berlin Wall 134, 137 Bhabha, Homi K. 61 Bharatiya Janata 7 Bhattacharjee, Buddhadeb 41n Bhattacharya, Nabarun 49 Fataru 47, 48, 49, 50 Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee 41n Biennale Teatro, Venice 166 Billington, Michael 14 Black Lives Matter 6-7, 13 Bloody Labor Day (Turkey) 68, 71, 77 Boal, Augusto 2, 119, 200, 209 Bodag, L. M. 15 Bogdanov, Aleksandr 30 Boissevain, Jeremy 56 Boll, Julia 86, 87, 89, 90 Bolsonaro, Jair 7 Boltanski, Luc 136n, 140 and Laurent Thévenot 135, 139. See also pragmatic sociology Bond, Edward 138 Bonnici, Karmenu Mifsud 57, 61 Bonobo (theatre company) 185 Borczuch, Michał 149 Borowski, Mateusz 155 Bose, Priyanka 84n1 Botham, Paola 126, 191 bouffon/clown/fool 126, 193, 194, 195, 203-204, 208. See also Lecoq, Jacques Bourdieu, Pierre 21, 23, 104, 133, 136, 136n, 144 capital 101, 101n5, 102, 106, 110-111 doxa 101, 101n6, 105, 110, 111, 133 field 101, 101n4, 102, 106 habitus 101, 101n6, 105, 106, 108, 110, 111 immaterial/symbolic interests 102, 104, 105, 107, 110-111 material interests 102, 104-105, 107, 110-111 participant objectivation 100, 100n3

Index and Loïc J. D. Wacquant 99, 99n2, 106. See also symbolic violence Braun, Kazimierz 147, 147n Brecht, Bertolt 41, 44n, 92-93, 96, 127, 127n, 143, 152, 169 Brechtian style 58, 62, 167 epic theatre 142, 174, 175, 205 gestus 20 historicisation 126 Life of Galileo 57 Verfremdungs-effect (V-effect) 93, 96, 167, 174 Brennan, Theresa 19 Brexit 6, 104n, 121 Brincat, Angela 64 Brinker, Menachem 176 Britton, John 109, 111-112 Brook, Peter 109 Brown, Wendy neoliberal rationality 5 Busuttil, Peter 57n3 Butler, Judith 133 grievability 89 precarity 5 Buttigieg, Alfred 57n3 Ir-Rewwixta tal-Qassisin (The Priests’ Revolt) 57 cabaret 126, 146, 152, 152n10, 153, 158, 159, 167, 170 burlesque 152, 160 revue 152n10, 167, 170 Cádiz Ibero-American Theatre Festival (FIT) 181 Calderón, Guillermo 185 Callander, Emma 14 Calvino, Italo 221 Cameron, David 104n Camilleri, Joe 57n3 Canakkale 70n capitalism 7, 44, 70, 157, 158, 165, 166. See also consumerism; neoliberalism carnival 63, 146, 153. See also Bakhtin, Mikhail Carroll, Jerome, et al. 123 Caruana-Galizia, Daphne 60n Castellano, Lucio, et al. 50 catharsis 79, 84, 86, 94, 95-96, 174

Index Catholic Institute Theatre 57n4, 62 Catholicism 55-56, 147n, 155, 158 Cayo, Bosco 185 censorship 17, 30, 32, 32n, 119, 147-148, 189 Main Office for Control of the Press, Publications and Performances (Poland) 147 Centre Party (Estonia) 170-171, 173, 178 Chakraborty, Gautam 49 Chancerel, Léon 138 Chandrasekhar, Anupama Free Outgoing 124 Chattopadhyay, Debesh 22, 42-43, 47, 49, 50 Paltu da 42, 43-44, 47, 49, 50 Paltu da Bolen Ja 42, 42n5 Phandigram 45 Chaturvedi, Vinayak 54 Chetcuti, Ġużè 57 1919 54, 57, 58, 61-65 Chiao, Chung 200 child characters 190, 195 Chilean bicentennial anniversary 2010 184, 185, 187 Chilean elite 182, 183, 183n4, 184, 186, 187, 188, 190, 192 Chilean military coup 1973 (11 September) 182, 190, 191, 193 fortieth anniversary of the military coup 184, 185, 189 Chilean referendum 1988 183, 183n5 Chilean social uprising 2019 (18 October) 184-185 Chilean student movements 184, 184n7, 185 Chrisman, Laura 53 Chrząstowski, Juliusz 159 Ciappara, Josette 61n9 Cioffi, Kathleen 152n10 Citizens’ Turn (Chile) 119, 182-186 civil society 40, 45n8, 50, 75, 119, 165, 177, 184-185 direct action 15, 154 Colectivo Obras Públicas (theatre company) 185 Colectivo Zoológico 185 No tenemos que sacrificarnos por los que vendrán (We Don’t Have to Sacrifice Ourselves for Those Who Will Come After) 186

231 Colleran, Jeanne 21 Collins, James Introduction Piece No. 5 215 commedia dell’arte 19, 146, 203 commemoration 26, 28, 34-36, 70, 75, 81. See also memory Communist Party of India (Marxist) 40n1, 41n, 42, 42n6 Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia (Coalition of Parties for Democracy) 183, 183n5 consumerism 149, 150, 152-153, 206, 207, 210 Copeau, Jacques 139 Coulon-Jablonka, Olivier Chez les nôtres 143 Council for Culture and the Arts (Arts Council Malta) 56n2 counter-hegemonic performance 1, 3, 8, 84. See also Mouffe, Chantal CPC Central Committee 199n1, 203n14 Cremona, Vicki-Ann, and Toni Sant 57 Crouch, Tim An Oak Tree 221 Debord, Guy 17 De Certeau, Michel 20 decolonisation 54-56, 61 Dejmek, Kazimierz 148 Demirski, Paweł, and Monika Strzępka 118, 123, 126, 146, 146n, 150, 151-155, 159, 160 depoliticisation 28, 182 Derrida, Jacques 86 devising/devised theatre 3, 16, 23, 98-112, 201, 205 Dewey, John 133n Diamond, Elin, et al. 4 didacticism 36, 41, 167, 170, 175, 204, 206 Dimech, Manwel 59 DİSK (Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey) 75 documentary theatre 4, 15, 31, 31n3, 121-122, 138, 142-143, 167, 169-170. See also testimonial theatre; verbatim Dolan, Jill 9, 18, 78, 79 utopian performance 69-70, 78 utopian performatives 18 Domańska, Ewa 160 Dönmez, İrem 74, 75

232 Donskis, Leonidas 217 Doyle, Jennifer 93-94 Dramatyczny Theatre, Wałbrzych 152, 154, 156 Dramatyczny Theatre, Warsaw 152-153 Drewniak, Łukasz 152 Duchamp, Marcel 215n During, Simon, and Alain Badiou 45 Dutta, Prabir 48 Dutt, Utpal 42, 42n5, 43, 46, 47, 48, 50 Dushswaper Nagori (The City of Nightmares) 48, 50 Japen da 42, 43-44, 46, 48, 50 Japen da Japen Ja 42 Kallol (The Sound of Waves) 48 Teer (Arrow) 47 East Asian People’s Theatre Network 200 Edgar, Andrew, and Peter Sedgwick 176 Edinburgh Festival Fringe 84 Edkins, Jenny 28 Edwards Eastman, Agustín 183n3 Egitim-Sen (Educators’ Union) 70n Emergency (India) 40n2, 48 Emin, Mehveş 72 empathy 23, 84, 87, 92, 93, 94, 96, 173 Engels, Friedrich, and Karl Marx 200-201 Enso Workers’ Theatre 32 environmental issues 1, 7, 119, 159, 165, 167, 169, 170, 188, 204 Eplik, Vaiko 174, 175 Epner, Eero 167, 174, 175, 177 Erdoğan, Recep Tayyip 7 Eskişehir 68-69, 70, 70n, 73-74, 81 Estonian Drama Theatre 173 Estonian National Opera 172 Estonian Parliament 2015 election 171-172, 177, 177n18 Estonian restoration of independence 1991 165, 170, 174 ethics 83, 84, 87-88, 90, 91 Eurocentrism 5, 123 Europe Theatre Prize for New Theatrical Realities 166 European Union 5, 156-157 European Parliament 2014 election 100, 101, 103, 104, 109. See also Brexit Evans, Fiona

Index Scarborough 124 expressionist drama 31n2 Extinction Rebellion 7 Fanon, Franz 54 Farber, Yael Nirbhaya 8, 23, 83, 84-85, 84n1, 86, 88, 89, 91, 93, 96 farce 152, 158, 160 Fatherland (Estonian political party) 174 fear 19, 84, 90, 95, 194 Featherstone, Vicky 6n feminism 1, 4, 9, 13, 14, 123, 133 Fenech, Dominic 54, 58, 59n Fenech, Michael 57n3, n4 Fensham, Rachel 88, 94-96 Fernández, Nona 185 Finnish Civil War 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36 Reds 26, 27-28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36 Whites 26, 27, 32, 34, 35, 36 Fischer-Lichte, Erika 3 Fişek, Emine 118n Fisher, Mark capitalist realism 7 Florian, Stephen Id-Disklu (The Immoral Man) 61, 61n9 Fo, Dario Accidental Death of an Anarchist 57 Foucault, Michel 4, 28, 131 Fox, Dorota 152 and Dobrosława Wężowicz-Ziółkowska 146 Foxconn City industrial park 202, 204 Fragkou, Marissia 7 Francis (pope) 194 Françon, Alain 138 Frankfurt School 123, 144 Freire, Paulo 226 Frendo, Henry 55 Friedman, Milton 183n4 Friggieri, Oliver Fil-Parlament ma Jikbrux Fjuri 57, 62 Fusetti, Giovanni 193 G20 World Summit 210 Gan, Li 199n3 Gard, Ulrike, and Meg Mumford

121n5

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Index Gardner, Lynn 15 Garretón, Manuel Antonio 183-184 authoritarian enclaves 184 and Roberto Garretón 184 Garzón, Baltasar 183 gay rights 154-155, 154n12 Gazeta Wyborcza (Poland) 155 Gdansk Shipyard 156 Geertz, Clifford 2 Gémier, Firmin 139 Ġensna (Our Nation) 57 Geografía Teatral (theatre company) 185 gesture 16-20, 44, 154. See also Hughes, Jenny, and Simon Parry Gezi Park 72 Gilbert, Helen, and Joanne Tompkins 54 global economic crisis 2008 5, 7, 13-15, 132, 169 globalisation/globalization 1, 5, 6, 119, 131, 205, 208, 209, 210, 211 Głowacka, Aneta 152n10 Goffman, Erving 2 Goode, Chris 221n Gorky, Maksim The Mother 48 Grace, Fraser Gifts of War 14n Graham, Dan March 31, 1966 215 Gramsci, Antonio 144 Grass Stage (Caotaiban) 2, 119, 120, 120n, 199, 200-203, 205, 206-209, 210, 211 38 xian youxi (38th Parallel Still Play) 199, 199-200n5, 200, 201 Lu Xun 2008 200, 201 Shijie gongchang (World Factory) 119, 119n, 126, 202-205, 206, 208, 208-209n25, 209 Taibei 38 du xian (38th Parallel in Taipei) 201 Xiao shehui (The Little Society) 200 Gray, Spalding 224 Green Party (UK) 103, 104 Greig, David The Events 92n “Rough Theatre” 220 grief 8, 84, 87, 88-89, 93. See also tears Grimes, Charles 125

Grochala, Sarah 4, 117-118, 123-126, 125n Grotowski, Jerzy 109, 147 Group Theatre Movement 39 Gruszczyński, Piotr 149 Gwacheon 201 Habermas, Jürgen public sphere 29, 208 Haider-Pregler, Hilde 168 Hall, Edward 219 Hamidi-Kim, Bérénice 132, 138, 141, 141n Handke, Peter 7 Hangzhou 210-211 harmonious society (hexie shehui) 203, 203n14 Harris, Zinnie How to Hold Your Breath 6 Hartog, François 137 Harvey, David 70, 80 Hatuka, Tali, and Ayşegül Baykan 71, 73 Hersh, Seymour M. 183n3 Hessel, Stéphane 13n Hirsh, Marianne post-memory 157 Hirushi, Ohashi 200 history/histories 1, 8, 22, 28, 54, 56, 61, 62, 126, 137, 138, 151, 155, 157, 160, 169, 170, 182, 184, 185, 186, 193, 194, 195 history play 126, 190, 191 Hite, Katherine 28 Holden, Liam 85 Holland Festival 181 Holloway, John 222-223, 226 Holocaust 87, 137 Horkheimer, Max 144 Hughes, Jenny, and Simon Parry 19-20 human rights 49, 55, 85, 108, 141, 183, 183n3, 189 Declaration of Human Rights 139, 141 Huneeus, Carlos protected democracy 182-183, 184 Indian People’s Theatre Association Nabanna 39 Indigo revolt 50n inequality 6-7, 150, 168, 184, 185, 188, 190, 195, 201, 217 Innes, Christopher 158n

234 intermediality 119n, 167, 200 examples of onstage digital media 169, 174-175, 186, 190, 204, 205 in-yer-face theatre/new brutalists 148n4 Iraq War 13-15 İstanbul 68, 72, 77, 78 Jagannathan, Poorna 84n1, 84n3 Jagiełło, Władysław 157 James, Karl 221 Jameson, Fredric 7 Jänes, Laine 168n Jan Kochanowski Theatre, Opole 152 Jarocki, Jerzy 147 Jarry, Alfred Ubu Roi 57 Jarzyna, Grzegorz 148, 150 Jawale, Shena 84n1 Jelin, Elizabeth 28 Jharkhand Movement 50n John Paul II (pope) 158 Jokiruoho, Verneri 26, 27 Veljesvihaa (Brotherly Hate) 33, 33n5 Voitetut sankarit (The Beaten Heroes) 33 Juhkam, Jakob 174 Jüristo, Tarmo 175 Jürs-Munby, Karen 121 Kabir, Rukhsar 84n1 Kaliada, Natalia 84 Kammerspiele, Munich 169 Kane, Sarah 148n4 Kapsali, Maria 99 Kaunissaare, Laur 167 Kaur, Japjit 84n1 Kekäläinen, Uuno 26, 35 Poika maailman hartioilla (Boy on the Shoulders of the World) 27 Valkoinen kosto (The White Vengeance) 31-32, 35 Kent, Nicolas 21 Kershaw, Baz political efficacy 7-8 spectacles of deconstruction 17 Kersley, Richard, and Markus Stierli 199n2, n3 Kerzhentsev, Platon Tvorcheskii teatr (Creative Theatre) 30

Index Khalezin, Nicolai 84, 84n2 Kirkwood, Lucy NSFW 124 Kisan Sabha movement 50n Kishenji 41n Kissinger, Henry 183n3 Klata, Jan 118, 126, 146, 146n, 149, 150, 155-159, 160 …córka Fizdejki (…The Daughter of Fizdejko; after Witkacy) 156 Do Damaszku (To Damascus; after August Strindberg) 156 H. (after William Shakespeare’s Hamlet) 156 King Lear (after Shakespeare) 158 Lochy Watykanu (The Dungeons of the Vatican) 158 Oresteia (after Aeschylus) 157 Rewizor (The Government Inspector; after Nikolai Gogol) 156 Transfer! 157, 158 Trylogia (The Trilogy; after Henryk Sienkiewicz) 157 Wróg ludu (An Enemy of the People; after Henrik Ibsen) 159 Ziemia obiecana (The Promised Land; after Wladyslaw Reymont) 158 Kleczewska, Maja 149 A Midsummer Night’s Dream (William Shakespeare) 150 Kociatkiewicz, Jerzy, and Monika Kostera empty spaces 206, 211 Kolkata 50 Konzerthaus Berlin 166 Korchowiec, Michał 152 Kostera, Monika, and Jerzy Kociatkiewicz 206, 211 Kowalczyk, Janusz R. 152 Krajewska-Wieczorek, Anna 147n Krasiński, Zygmunt 147 Kristeva, Julia abjection 153 Kumpannija Nazzjonali tad-Drama 58, 61, 61n9, 64 Kwei-Armah, Kwame 124 Laar, Mart

174

235

Index Labor Day (Turkey) 8, 68-70, 70n, 71, 72-74, 75, 77, 79, 80, 81. See also Bloody Labor Day Labour Party (Maltese) 54, 55-56, 58, 59, 60n, 61, 62 Lacanian theory 160. See also Kristeva, Julia Laclau, Ernesto, and Chantal Mouffe floating signifier 135, 135n Lagos, Ricardo 184, 192 Lalgarh 41, 41n, 49 lalian (field manoeuvres) 202, 207, 211 La María 185 Los millonarios (The Millionaires) 186 Lambert, Benoît Que Faire? 143 Lambert, Nicolas Avenir radieux, une fission française 142-143 Elf, la Pompe Afrique 142 Le Maniement des Larmes 143 La Re-sentida 119, 120, 181-195, 181n La dictadura de lo cool (The Dictatorship of Coolness) 182, 188 La imaginación del futuro (Imagination of the Future, 2013) 125-126, 182, 188, 189-195 Simulacro (Simulacrum) 181, 187, 187n13, 188, 189, 190, 191, 193n Tratando de hacer una obra que cambie el mundo (Trying to Make a Play that Will Change the World) 181-182, 188, 191 Lassy, Ivar 31 Latchmere Theatre (Theatre503) 14, 14n Laub, Dori 87-88 laughter 95, 147, 155, 159, 160, 193-195 Law and Justice Party (Poland) 156 Lawrence, Stephen 21n Layera, Marco 187, 188, 194n Lease, Bryce 148n4, 154n12 Le-Bert, Camila 186 Lecoq, Jacques 193, 194, 195 bouffonesque body 194-195. See also bouffon Left Front 40n2, 41, 43 Le Groupov Bloody Niggers 142 Rwanda 94 142 Lehman, Hans-Ties

postdramatic form 120n, 166, 167, 168, 170, 176, 200 postdramatic theatre 120-121, 122, 175 postdramatic turn 121n5, 123-124, 127, 127n LePage, Louise, and Siân Adiseshiah 126 Levinas, Emmanuel 88 Lévi-Strauss, Claude 135n Lewitt, Sol 215n Linder, Eva-Liisa 165, 175, 177 Lipovetsky, Gilles 198, 209-210, 210n27, 211 hypermodernity 119, 198-199, 210, 210n27 second modernity 198, 199, 209 Lippard, Lucy 214-116, 215n conceptual art 214-216 Loraux, Nicole 88-89 Lorey, Isabell 5 Love, Catherine 94 Lu, Xun 201-202 Kuangren riji (A Madman’s Dairy) 200 Lyotard, Jean-François 2-3 Macpherson Inquiry 21n Magelssen, Scott 70, 76 simming 70, 76-78, 79, 80, 81 Mahato, Chattadhar 41n Maiste, Valle-Sten 167 Majumdar, Charu 43n Mally, Lynn 30 Maltese Independence 55 Malzacher, Florian 120-121, 123 Manchester 126, 202, 204, 204n18, 205 Manoel Theatre 57n4, 58, 61, 61n9 Mao Tse Tung 46 Red Book 47 Mapuche 186, 186n Marx, Karl 143, 227 and Friedrich Engels 200-201 Marxism 41, 131, 133, 143-144, 176, 191 Matejko, Jan Bitwa pod Grunwaldem (Battle of Grunwald) 157 May 1968 134, 142 May Day celebrations 71, 76-77 Mayo, Peter 56 McGrath, John 21 Meikar, Silver 177 melodrama 26, 31, 34

236 memory 22, 27, 28, 30, 87, 88, 119n, 157, 185. See also commemoration; Hirsh, Marianne mênis 93 Mercurio, El (Chile) 183n3 Merkel, Angela 194 METIS 202 World Factory 202n13 Michal, Kristen 177 Mickiewicz, Adam 147 Dziady (Forefathers’ Eve) 148, 151 Mifsud, Paul 64 migration 1, 6 anti-immigration rhetoric 7, 104n migrant workers 119, 202, 203, 205, 206, 208n25 refugees 6, 159, 210 mimesis 89, 121, 124. See also realism Mitra, Saonli 44, 49 Mitra, Satyen 48 Mitterrand, François 134-135 Mizzi, Nerik 55, 59 Mnouchkine, Ariane 140n7, 142 Théâtre du Soleil 139 modernisation 119, 184, 185, 199, 210 modernity/postmodernity 122, 125, 126, 137-138, 191, 192, 198-199, 209-210 Moneda, La (Chilean presidential palace) 190, 191, 193, 195 Monforte, Enric, and Mireia Aragay 21n, 94n Morel, Consuelo, et al. 187, 189, 193n Moreno, Alexis 186. See also La María Mouffe, Chantal agonistic pluralism 107-109 counter-hegemonic interventions 29 democratic paradox 99, 104, 106-108, 111 discursive/affective signifying practices 9 left populism 9 mourning 88, 93 and Ernesto Laclau 135, 135n Mrozek, Slawomir 147 MTADA 61 Mumford, Meg, and Garde, Ulrike 121n5 Munda rebellion 50n musical theatre 57, 118, 152, 165, 170, 172, 174, 176, 178

Index Nancy, Jean Luc 51 Nandigram 41, 41n, 45, 47, 49 National Assembly (Maltese) 58 national identity 28, 53-54, 61-62, 71, 75, 150, 151, 155-156, 170, 182, 184, 185 nationalism 1, 7, 55-56, 59, 126, 147-148, 156, 157 Nationalist Party (Maltese) 55-56, 57, 60n, 62-63 National Stary Theatre, Kraków 150, 156, 157, 158, 159 National Theatre, Warsaw 148 Natya Sojon 49n10 Naxalbari Movement 39-40, 40n1, 42, 43n, 47, 50, 50n neoliberalism 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 13, 14, 19, 84, 99, 110-111, 119, 124, 131-132, 143, 151, 182, 183, 183n4, 185, 186, 192, 195, 210 resistance to 6-7, 9, 151, 152, 190. See also Brown, Wendy Nevitt, Lucy ethics of spectatorship 90-91 New Dissatisfied, The 149 Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o 53 Nirbhaya (fearless one) 83, 85 Non-Aligned Movement 55 Norton-Taylor, Richard 21 The Colour of Justice 4, 21n Nowak, Maciek 155 Nübling, Sebastian 169 OCAT gallery 205 Occupy 6, 13 Occupy Gezi 72 Oettinger, Gerardo 186 Ojasoo, Tiit 166, 167, 169, 177 Oliver, Kelly Other 87-88 response-ability 87-88, 95 witnessing 91 Ono, Yoko Map Piece 215 Orbán, Viktor 7 Palacios, Carolina 191 Pancham Vaidik 44-45 Poshu Khamar (Animal Farm, after George Orwell) 45

Index Parry, Simon, and Jenny Hughes 19-20 Paswan, Ram Vilas 41n Pattie, David 92n Pawłowski, Roman 148-149 People’s Committee against Police Atrocities (PCPA) 41n people’s theatre 30, 46, 119, 200 Perec, Georges 221-222 performance art 69, 168, 170 Performance Studies 3 performative society 16, 17 performative turn 4, 16, 160 performativity 17-18, 22 Peterloo Massacre 204, 204n18 Pilv, Aare 175 Pinochet, Augusto 119, 182-183, 183n5, 185n11, 189, 193, 194n Military Junta 182, 186 Piñera, Sebastián 184, 184n7 Chile Vamos (Let’s Go Chile) 184n7 Piscator, Erwin 41, 142 Zeittheater (theatre of engagement) 158n Plato 88-89, 93 Polish Parliament 1989 election 148 Political Performances Working Group (PPWG) 1, 3, 4, 8 Polski Theatre, Wrocław 151, 153, 154, 155, 158 popular, the 21 popular/plebeian comedy 3, 118, 126, 146, 150, 153, 160 popular culture 152, 153, 155, 158, 159, 160, 167 popular theatre (France) 131-132, 138 populism 7, 9, 156, 159, 168, 170 Porn Generation, the 148-149, 148n4 Portelli, Anthony Il-Borg Pisani (Borg Pisani) 61 postcolonial identity 53-54 post-communist transformation/transition 149, 150, 152-153, 157, 165-166 Postimees (Estonia) 172 post-performance theatre 201, 206, 209n poverty/the poor 5, 58, 60, 157, 187-188, 189, 194, 195, 206 Pradenas, Luis 185 Prado, José Ramón 14

237 pragmatic sociology 135-137 city 136-142 Prague Quadrennial 166 Prague Spring 151 praxis 20, 23. See also Agamben, Giorgio precarity 5, 8, 89, 119. See also Bauman, Zygmunt; Butler, Judith Price, Hannah 14 Prints, Jaak 169 Proletkult (Proletarian Culture Movement) 27, 29-30 Pu, Bo, and Yang Zi 201 PWST National Academy of Theatre Arts, Kraków 150 Rähesoo, Jaak 165-166 Rai, Shirin M. 17, 46-47 and Janelle Reinelt 15 Rancière, Jacques 118n, 122-123, 155 emancipated spectator 46, 122, 218-219, 218n rape 41n, 83, 84, 85, 88, 91. See also sexual abuse Ratajczakowa, Dobrochna 146 Ratajczakowa et al. 148n4 Ratas, Jüri 178 Ravenhill, Mark 148n4 Read, Alan 182 realism 120, 124-126, 148n4, 194, 218 Rebellato, Dan McTheatre 226 Redling, Ellen 125 Reform and Opening-up 199, 199n1 Reform Party (Estonia) 172, 177, 178 Reinelt, Janelle 9 and Shirin M. Rai 15 Ridout, Nicholas 3, 18, 44 passionate amateur 18 Rimini Protokoll 121, 138 Airport Kids 138n experts of the everyday 121, 121n, 138 Radio Muezzin 138n Ripp, Alexandra 189, 190 Robertson, Roland 210, 211 glocalization 209, 211 Rockbund Art Museum 206 Rõivas, Taavi 172, 177n18 Rolland, Romain 139

238 Romantic drama (Poland) 147-148, 150, 151, 155 Römer, Christian 173-175, 177 Royal Court Theatre, London 6, 14, 15, 124 Royal Flemish Theatre, KVS, Brussels 166 Royal National Theatre, London 14, 203 Rózewicz, Tadeusz 147 Rozrywki Theatre, Chorzów 153 Russian (Bolshevik) Revolution 27, 30, 32 Russian-speaking population (Estonia) 171, 171n, 172, 178 Rwandan genocide 89, 91 Said, Edward 53 Salazar, Gabriel 184 Saliba, Joe 57n4, 62 Santhal insurrection 50n Santiago de Chile 4, 184, 186, 190, 194 Plaza Baquedano/Plaza de la Dignidad 185n9 Sant, Toni, and Vicki-Ann Cremona 57 satire 6, 153, 167, 174 Sauter, Willmar theatrical event 3, 118, 171-173 Savisaar, Edgar 165, 170-171, 172-173, 174, 177-178, 177n18 Savisaar, Vilja 174 Saward, Michael 15 critical performance grammars 17 Schaubühne, Berlin 181 Schechner, Richard 69 Schiaretti, Christian 139 Schiller, Leon 147 Schindler, Norbert 153 Schlossman, David A. 48 Schmidt, Bettina, and Ingo Schroeder 89-90 Schwab, Werner 148n4 scopophilia 90 Sedgwick, Peter, and Andrew Edgar 176 Semerci, Levent 73 Semper, Ene-Liis 166, 167, 177 Sen, Amartya agency freedom 99-100, 107 well-being freedom 100 Sen, Kaushik 45, 45n8, 49 Birpurush (The Valiant) 45, 45n9, 47, 48, 49

Index Dak Ghar (The Post Office) 45, 45n9, 50 Swapnasandhani Ensemble 45 Seppälä, Mikko-Olavi 30, 31 Sette Giugno 8, 54-55, 58, 59, 60n, 61, 62, 63 sexual abuse 41n, 84, 85. See also #Me Too; rape Shakespeare, William 46 Hamlet 156, 187 King Lear 158 A Midsummer Night’s Dream 150 Shanghai 4, 199, 201, 206, 207 Shaw, George Bernard 125 Shcherbak, Nastassia 84n2 Shenzhen 202, 205 Shi, Jiaxiu, and Jinyan Xi 211 Shklovsky, Viktor 216 Shusterman, Richard 133n Sidorchyk, Aleh 84n2 Sigal, Sarah 102 Simson, Kadri 173 Singh Pandey, Jyoti 85 Singing Revolution 165, 165n4 Singur 41, 41n, 47, 49 Sinha, Pamela 84n1 Słowacki, Juliusz 147 Smith, Andy all that is solid melts into air 120, 216-217, 220-222, 225-227 commonwealth 120, 216-217, 220-222, 224-227 dematerialised theatre 119-120, 127, 214-227 The Preston Bill 216n social media 13, 69, 149, 154, 167, 168 Sofsky, Wolfgang 90, 91, 93 Solidarność (Independent Self-Governing Labour Union Solidarity) 156 Solis, René 194n Solnit, Rebecca 226-227 Sommerstein, Alan H. 101 sovereignty 5, 99, 108, 111 Soviet Union 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35 Spiteri, Sarah 57 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty 60 Spregelburd, Rafael 189 Stamatiou, Evi Cabaret Solos 105-106 Caryatid Unplugged 105-106

Index The Frogs 23, 100-112 Stanislavski, Konstantin 109 State Dramatic Expert Committee (Finland) 36 Stephens, Simon 169 Stierli, Markus, and Richard Kersley 199n2, n3 storytelling 120, 121n4, 127 Strasberg, Lee 109 Straw, Jack 21n Strzępka, Monika, and Paweł Demirski 118, 123, 126, 146, 146n, 150, 151-155, 159, 160 Bierzcie i jedzcie (Take It and Eat It) 153 Courtney Love 153 Diamenty to węgiel, który wziął się do roboty (Diamonds are Coal that Got Down to Work; after Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya) 152 Dziady. Ekshumacja (Forefathers’ Eve. The Exhumation; after Adam Mickiewicz) 151 O dobru (On Goodness) 154 Opera gospodarcza dla pięknych pań I zamȯznych panów (Economic Opera for Pretty Women and Wealthy Men; after Bertolt Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera) 152 Tęczowa Trybuna 2012 (Rainbow Stand 2012) 154-155, 154n12 W imię Jakuba S. (In the Name of Jakub S.) 152-153 Stuhr, Jerzy 150 Subaltern Studies Group 54 Sugiera, Małgorzata 160 Suomen Työläinen (The Worker of Finland) 32 Święcicki, Wacław “Warszawianka” 204, 204n18 SYNDEAC (France) 139, 139n Szydłowski, Roman 158n Tagore, Rabindranath 45n8, n9 Taipei 201 Taksim Square 8, 22, 68-81 Tallinn 118, 165, 165n4, 166, 168-169, 171-172 Tarantino, Quentin 149 Taxidou, Olga 86, 89, 93 Taylor, Charles 106, 109-110

239 tears 84, 86, 88, 92-95, 155 fake tears 194. See also grief Teatro Kapital Allende, un nuevo acontecimiento (Allende, A New Event) 190 Tebhaga movement 50n Telangana peasant struggle 50n television 40, 64, 65, 148n4, 149, 158, 167, 169n10, 170, 190, 192, 193 testimonial theatre 4, 34, 121, 121n4, 157 testimony 8, 19, 28, 35, 84-88, 91-92, 93, 96, 208 theatre attendance (European Union) 164, 164n3 Théâtre de la Ville 181 Théâtre du Grabuge Passerelles 141 theatre funding 30, 36, 54, 56, 56n2, 65, 131-132, 139n, 143-144, 165, 168, 172, 175, 206-207 Theatre NO99 3, 118, 126, 127, 165, 166-178 action: “First Reading: The Board Meeting of the Reform Party” 177 action: “First Reading: Savisaar’s Great Speech” 172-173 Garjatšije estonskije parni (Hot Estonian Guys) 167 Ilona. Rosetta. Sue 169 Kodumaa karjed (Screams of Fatherland) 169 Kõnts (Filth) 170 Kuidas seletada pilte surnud jänesele (How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare) 168 Mu naine vihastas (My Wife Got Angry) 169 Nafta! (Oil!) 167 The Rise and Fall of Estonia 169 Savisaar 118, 165, 170-178 Three Kingdoms (by Simon Stephens) 169 Ühtne Eesti (Unified Estonia) 118, 119, 168, 171, 177 théâtre public (public theatre) 130, 132, 134, 139, 140, 143-144 Theatre Uncut 14 Thévenot, Laurent, and Luc Boltanski 135, 139. See also pragmatic sociology

240 Tillis, Steve 127 Tomlin, Liz 121-122, 121n5, 123-124 Tompkins, Joanne, and Helen Gilbert 54 Tong, Si-hong 200 Toom, Yana 178 tragedy 88, 101, 138, 170, 172, 173-174, 176 chorus 173, 174, 176 fallen hero 174 trauma 23, 26, 27, 28, 33, 34-36, 70, 81, 86-88, 91, 157 tribunal play 20-21, 87 Tricycle Theatre (Kiln Theatre) 21 Trojanowska, Tamara 147n Troncoso, Juan Pablo 185 Trump, Donald 6, 7 truth 14, 17, 86, 87, 88, 169, 170, 188, 195, 200 Türktan, Hakan and Kemal Atlan 75 Turner, Victor communitas 78, 78n UEFA European Championship 2012 154 UNESCO Declaration on Cultural Diversity 141 Fribourg Declaration on Cultural Rights 141 United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) 104, 104n, 108-109 United Russia (political party) 168, 173 University Theatre, Msida 57n4 Urfalino, Philippe 133 Vaarik, Marika 173, 174, 176 Valletta 54, 58, 59 Valli, Kaarlo 26, 27, 33, 34, 35 Sovittamattomat (The Incompatibles) 33-34, 35-36 Valparaíso 187 Vatican, the 158 verbatim (theatre) 23, 84, 86, 121n5 Vikal, Ankur 84n1 Vilar, Jean 134, 139 violence 19, 23, 27, 34, 41n, 48, 49, 56, 80, 84, 85, 89-91, 93, 96, 119, 182, 185n9, 189, 193, 194, 195 symbolic violence 99, 99n2, 104-106, 108 Virno, Paolo 18, 50 Vitez, Antoine 134 Von Krahl Theatre 166

Index Connecting People

166

Wacquant, Loïc J. D., and Pierre Bourdieu 99, 99n2, 106 Wałbrzych 157 Wallace, Naomi 14 The Retreating World 14 Wang, Mo-lin 200 Wang, Yifei 208 Warlikowski, Krzysztof 148, 150 Warsaw Uprising 157 Węgrzyniak, Rafał 152 Wei, Zheyu 119n Weinstein, José 184n8 Weiss, Peter 142 Westfall, Benjamín 187 Westlake, E. J. 4 Wężowicz-Ziółkowska, Dobrosława and Dorota Fox 146 white privilege 6 Wiles, David 101 Willeford, William 193 Williams, Raymond realism 124 structure of feeling 21 Williams, Robbie 158 Williams, Roy 124 Wiśniewski, Grzegorz 149 witnessing 8, 19, 23, 26, 32, 34-35, 84, 86-88, 90-91, 95, 96. See also Oliver, Kelly Woolf, Brandon 123, 124 World Social Forum 6, 13 World Trade Organization 13 World War I 58 World War II 61, 151, 157 Wrocław Współczesny Theatre 157, 158 Wybrzeze Theatre, Gdansk 156 Wyszkowski, Michał 152 Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts 203, 205 Xi, Jinyan, and Shi Jiaxiu 211 Xin gongren juchang (New Workers’ Theatre) 205 Xin gongren yishutuan (New Workers’ Arts Group) 203 Xu, Duo 203, 203n15 Xuereb, Paul 63-64

241

Index Yang, Zi, and Pu Bo

201

Zadara, Michał 149 Zapatista Rebellion, Chiapas 6 Żgħażagħ Ħaddiema Nsara (Young Christian Workers) 62 Zhang, Yimou 211 Beijing Olympics ceremony 210

Zuiyi shi Hangzhou (Hangzhou: A Living Poem) 210 Zhao, Chuan 120, 199-200, 200n5, 201, 202, 203, 205, 207-208, 208-209n25 Zhuang, Jiayun 206 Žižek, Slajov 7, 226-227 Zúñiga, Carla 185 Zupančič, Alenka failed finitude 160