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Over the years I have
written often about
politics and theatre. For
me, this has been an
analysis of whether
theatre, as an art form,
can be used to spark
political change. I
have also written about
the politics of theatre
itself as well as politics
being its own genre of
theatre. What follows
is more of compendium than
a nicely laid-out
argument, but I hope you
will find some of it
nourishing and useful.
* * *
Written with unabashed optimism.
First, a self-definition:
to me, "political
theatre" is theatre
that advances
progressive/leftist
politics, a politics in
opposition to a
conservative status quo
(being fully aware that
the meanings of
"progressive/leftist"
and
"conservative"
vary from country to
country and historical
period). Second,
political theatre aims to
convince its audience,
both inside and outside
the theatre, that the
values of the status quo
should be changed into the
progressive/leftist values
in order to achieve some
version of social justice
and a redistribution of
power. In short,
"political
theatre" is theatre
aimed at righting a wrong
and creating the
conditions for
liberation. The
methods can range from the
cool anatomizing of Brecht
to fervid street theatre,
but the aim, more or less,
is the same: use theatre
to move society toward an
exercise of power
associated with peace,
justice, and equality.
(To be sure, political
theatre can also come from
the right, but its purpose
would be to reinstate some
supposedly lost set of
values and practices,
revolutionary, to be sure,
but in a retrograde
fashion. This essay
doesn't take up that
branch of the political
theatre family.)
A good example of this is
the essay written in the
last issue by Arthur
Meiselman about Lester
Cole and his
autobiography, Hollywood
Red (a book I have read as
well). Cole quite
clearly wanted his art
(both as a screenwriter
and playwright) to forward
his Marxist
politics. While he
had to twist and turn a
lot to do this, he never
veered from his principled
belief that art could
generate positive
political change.
Given these definitions,
and speaking from the
perspective of the United
States (which is the only
one I know), political
theatre does not
"work," if by
"work" we mean
that theatre, or a
theatrical piece, moves an
American audience towards
the left. We do have
the anecdote about
Odets' Waiting for
Lefty galvanizing people
to leave the theatre in a
revolutionary fever, but
that was hedged by a lot
of irony (the taxi
drivers' strike at the
heart of the play had
already been settled) and
also took place at a
politically heightened
time in our
history. But in
general, American
audiences do not go to
theatre to seek political
understanding or
motivation -- they go to
escape political
considerations, to be
entertained; or they go to
be moved, but only
internally, in a kind of
gastro-intestinal practice
of art.
And this is because
American citizens do not
look to their artists for
guidance in the debates
about power because they
know that American artists
by and large do not work
from a strong, interwoven
connection with the causes
of their historical place
and time. They have
been cordoned off (often
by their own choice) into
aesthetic camps where
their work as artists and
their work as citizens
have only the most tenuous
relationship, if any at
all, and this estrangement
does not make them
trustworthy guides.
Furthermore, American
theatre artists are not
very good at political
theatre. They lack
the gene for
artistico-political
sophistication one finds
in Europe or Latin
America, and too often
they mistake the stage for
the pulpit or the lectern
(not to mention date
themselves -- can Waiting
for Lefty be done as
anything but a museum
piece? -- or sound simply
foolish, like that
much-gasped at monologue
in Rebecca Gilman's
Spinning into Butter about
American race relations).
Plays "ripped from
the headlines" end up
becoming past tense as
soon as the headlines
turn. And too often
they become indictments
not of the audience but of
the non-audience, who are
not there to defend
themselves (or be
executed, depending upon
one's level of rage),
or they appeal to an
amorphous
"humanitarian
sentiment," exhorting
us to better ourselves.
But I'm not willing
yet to give up on theatre
being used for political
purposes, that is, as a
contributor to the debates
about power that govern
our lives -- but it has to
be done more subtly, more
in keeping with the
transformative power that
live theatre can have on
an audience rather than
trying to adapt for the
stage the borrowed
techniques of the sermon
and the lecture. (....)
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