Choose Drama. Choose Society: part 7 of a disussion about writing Drama in the 21st Century.
If I mention the phrase “Political Theatre” you will probably not read beyond the end of this sentence. I know, as you do, that political theatre involves an actor haranguing the audience over the body of an emaciated child, covered with a pile of old newspapers starved to death in a Dickensian slum. Meanwhile an actor with a guitar sings a rousing chorus about a workers’ co-operative that has been formed to combat the cursed landlords who caused this tragedy.
Through it all, Margaret the Spider casts a dark and troubling shadow from where she sits in her web in the corner. Can our heroes combat her malevolent influence?
Theatre of Protest has a long and honourable tradition in small co-operative theatre companies since the nineteenth century (and maybe for centuries before). The problem is, I would suggest, that this Polemic Theatre is confined by the very system that it would seek to overthrow. Polemical Theatre implies a status gradient between actor and audience. “we know something you ought to be told about.” A play that seeks to challenge the Spider Margaret is at once compromised because her very existence defines the nature and substance of the debate. Protest in music was very quickly sucked into the mainstream. Even overtly political plays like those of Dario Fo and Berthold Brecht become West End hits. This doesn’t necessarily devalue them as effective pieces of work, but by encompassing them within the Arts Industry they are compromised as political theatre. They no longer challenge and become mere vehicles of spectacle. They are now judged by programmes sold, ice creams devoured in the interval and awards won. As an audient we feel good because the wickedness of the world has been revealed to us through “Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay”. The Polemic is cathartic. But we are human and having heard the speeches we feel somehow better as we take the tube home. Somebody else has taken the need for action away from us. The Spider Margaret has the capacity to co-opt even radical, anarchic ideas into her service, making them commodities and defining them by spurious value. And thus squashing them.
In the world where everything has a value. Things can become valuable or not valuable for any reason. Reality is only the stories we tell ourselves and nothing more.
In our world, Margaret decrees that Art has a value only in the market place. It is a commodity. There is no societal justification for it because there is No Such Thing as Society.
Politics is the doings of people
Politics is the interactions of people. It asks questions such as: does any one human being have more value than another?
Theatre is a co-operative enterprise. As I have said before, it is a coming together of writer, actor and audience in a single, unmediated event.
From that point of view, all drama is to do with human beings and is therefore political by definition. (I reserve judgement on the musical “Cats” or “The Insect Play” by the Brothers Capek)
Allow me to reiterate my definitions of Drama
Drama is the interaction of characters.
This interaction is caused by the status difference of the characters.
For the sake of the narrative it is necessary for the writer to compress or to heighten time and space so that it fits within the ebb and flow of the watchers’ attention.
The narrative is guided by the choices that the dramatist makes, mediated by the actor and the threads that the watcher chooses to observe within the performance.
Drama is defined by the event itself, not by subsequent awards or recordings or critiques
The Political Playwright
The only guidance I can offer for any playwright, I think, is to create a piercing observation of what you see. You become the lens that focuses this observation for those that do no have the opportunity to see as you have. Your observation might be uncomfortable. Paint a picture in words because that is what you see. Write about an event or a conversation because that is reality as you observe it. Not according to some outside idea of what will sell. Avoid genres and classifications set by others. It is, indeed, up to the artist to work without seeking value.
It is not obligatory for all Political Drama to be Theatre of Protest.
Besides Polemical Theatre It can be Theatre of:
Acclaim,
Affirmation,
Positivity
Good Will
And a thousand other things.
If you must write, be aware that, with a drama, you are aiming to create something that will engage others in some sort of conversation. Between you and your audience and among the audience themselves. It doesn’t have to be contentious and, above all, I don’t mean it shouldn’t be funny or uplifting. The contradictions in life are funny and observing goodness can be uplifting. Political theatre needs to be engaging. Troubling at times but also honest and humanely genuine. Don’t forget The Margaret will subvert what you do. She will even engulf anarchy and turn it to her own use. How many visual artists do you know that are only interested in the commodification of their ar. Turning it from Art into Industry?
If you must write to earn a living, Look carefully at the terms of any commission you apply for. Commissioning bodies will set arbitrary frameworks which, in the end are there to promote the status quo. Obviously you answer questions creatively. They will ask you how your work will achieve this or that end. But these questions bear no relevance to the Art that you produce. Be aware that those sort of questions are to maintain those with the money to keep their place in the web. But you are not on your own; as I’ve said before you should be embarking on this project co-operatively with actors and director. Basically, you lie. Or rather you use whatever the current issue that is being promoted and turn it back to them. Political Theatre incorporates all issues that a funding body can think up.
Are you writing to be liked? Is that where you are looking for validation for your work? If you do not achieve massive sales or win awards, are you somehow diminished? Is your apparent well-being dependent on someone else’s validation of your work?
My measure for personal validation for a drama comes from the quality of human interaction it achieves. If, somehow, I can deliver some sort of insight into the world I observe, then I am rewarded. That insight might come in the form of a joke or a request to read a poem or write a play.
The Spider Margaret throws a thin membrane over the world that prevents us seeing the reality beneath. But it can be pierced through by seeking human involvement one with another.
Life is NOT a Zero Sum Game.
Sometimes we talk about Hegelian dialectic when discussing theatre. But in our world today the terms of the dialectic are defined by The Margaret. Often, there is not a clear cut distinction between the elements of engagement. People are messy beings and an audience will contain a messy range of experiences. Political theatre for the twentieth century should be driven by the need to pierce the web and explore the nature of Humanity in its glorious diversity. There are contradictions in human nature but they are neither right or wrong, good or valued. They are what we are. We are made up of the imperatives to conserve while, at the same time, sharing what we conserve with others. The discussion should not be between the individual and society but how they are both parts of the same human experience. In a thousand years time, our political system will have collapsed, the language we speak now will be incomprehensible. Our work and worries will be meaningless. But what will remain – if there are still human beings on the planet – will be human nature. If we can explore and explain our humanity then that will still apply when everything else has gone.
In the end, political theatre is not what we present but how we present it.
We should speak honestly
We should recognise the humanity of the audience and the actors.
We should not try to steer emotions by artificial means
Avoid writing polemic. Start with the characters and follow them through the events you wish to describe.
And if you can make an audience laugh you have validated your work before the world.
I’d love to discuss this further so do drop me a note or comment. And, if you don’t know it, try reading Mark Fisher’s interesting little book: “Capitalist Realism”
