Introduction: The Sound of No Hands Clapping

Abstract

While researching this book I came across an amusing, slightly irksome, cartoon. The image, which appears on a commercial cartoon website, shows two people standing outside a building. One has his ear to the door. Evidently, he is trying to discern what is going on inside. The other looks at him with a goofy grin. The sign on the door, written in quirky lettering, says “Avant-Garde Theatre Company.” The eavesdropper has the group’s initials on his clothing. The cartoon caption reads: “Listen, you can hear the sound of no hands clapping…” (Figure I.1). What is the “sound” of no hands clapping? Silence, presumably. The cartoon insinuates the “Avant-Garde Theatre Company” does not have an audience, or if it does, their applause is either withheld or so muted the sound does not travel far. The cartoon recalls the well-known Zen koan of Hakuin Ekaku (1685–1768) about the seemingly impossible sound of one hand clapping, which serves in popular discourse as a non sequitur or paradox.1 Avant-garde theatre is so radical, the cartoon mischievously implies, it goes beyond the sound of one hand clapping (how jejune) and obtains the eminently more achievable, but perhaps less desirable, “sound” of no hands clapping. It does this, one assumes, by bamboozling, frustrating, disregarding, or eschewing a general audience and cultivating gormless devotees instead. The cartoon lampoons art deemed so esoteric, unconventional, or just plain bad it does not receive public approval—traditionally signaled at the end of a performance by the sound of clapping hands.