In preparation for my postgraduate forum presentation which will be held on Firday the 13th, I have made the following hand out
In Search of a Real-Theatre-Politik
Presentation by Sarah McLaughlin to the Postgraduate Forum on the 13th of March 2009
The focus of my practice and research here in the London University of the Arts has been primarily concerned with the historical tension that exists between art and utility in political theatre.
The desire to separate theatre and politics is not a new phenomenon. Throughout antiquity, the concern that theatre can corrupt political life has been a recurrent apprehension among social commentators. Similarly, certain dramaturges have expressed comparable misgivings about the amalgamation of performance and politics for precisely the opposite reason. They, on the other hand, fear that politics may corrupt and even eviscerate theatre. Despite these reservations about the combination of politics and theatre a belief persists among many that theatre not only has the duty to serve the people but also the unique ability to bring salvation to a corrupt and distorted social world.
There is an inherent tension here which concerns me, as a maker of political theatre. If politics and art are mutually destructive forces, and each corrupts the other, how can political theatre be created without compromise? Can the makers of theatre reconcile art and utility? This research question has best been articulated in the words of Sir David Hare;
You want the world to be different. You want injustice to be addressed. You want a social system which relieves the ubiquitous suffering of the poor. Why on earth do you imagine that theatre might be an effective, even an appropriate, way to achieve such things? (David Hare, 2005; 19)
Problematically, theatre with a political goal often lacks nuance, as it is designed primarily to be accessible. For this reason it can be simplistic and unchallenging, or, worse still, it can be dogmatic, dictatorial, heavy handed and one-sided. Habitually, the maker of political theatre does not want her audience to miss the point, so instead she browbeats them into awareness. It is my goal to find a new way to approach the making of political theatre.
Whereas the traditional elitist method of political theatre seeks to edify its audience by granting them information, I want the audience to have ownership of their own experience. Grounding my work in the theories expressed by Jacques Ranciere’s seminal piece of literature The Emancipated Spectator, I am trying to create a form of political theatre that speaks to the audience as a collection for individuals rather than as a unified community. In so doing the theatre maker can allow each member to interpret the work differently depending on each individual’s life experience.
Giving away artistic control in this manner demands a certain level of humility from the theatre maker. The artist must consider the political problems that they confront as having more than one solution and more importantly they must accept that they do not know, and cannot possibly know, the answer to the problems they seek to explore. Although by most definitions, political theatre necessitates the expression of a certain political view point; my political theatre will instead encourage the development and articulation of independent perspectives for each member of the audience.
Today, during the debriefing of our group project, we were advised to wait a week before writing about the performance on our blogs. I think this is very wise advice, because although I have already gained a great deal from the making of Ambient Noise, I believe that with a little more time to reflect upon the experience my understanding of the process will evolve further. So for now I will say little about the work, and until I do here are some images to fill the silence.
