Exception and the Rule: Agamben, Stuff Happens, and Representation in the Post-Truth Age

Abstract

The contemporary post-truth environment imposes limitations and ethical consid erations upon the political theatre-maker’s ability to highlight political leaders’ exceptional acts of deception. By unpacking and applying Giorgio Agamben’s writing on the State of Exception to post-truth political performances, Alex D. Wilson discusses in this article how political deception is an exceptional act of sovereign power and how the state of exception is an inherently performative phenomenon. The inherent challenges this state of affairs presents to the theatre are discussed with particular reference to David Hare’s Stuff Happens (2004), which, it is argued, falls into its own state of exception in terms of its approach to truth. Alex D. Wilson is a PhD candidate in Theatre Studies at the University of Otago, who recently completed an MA which explored ethical authorship of British theatrical work produced in response to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. He is the artistic director of Arcade, a Dunedin-based performing arts company.