‘Who Cares?’: The Neoliberal Problem of Performing Care in Immersive and Participatory Play

Abstract

By using audiences as co-creators of their own experience, participatory theatre becomes imbricated in neoliberal labour practices, characterized by a D-I-Y ethos. At the same time, co-creative audiences are positioned at the privileged centre of a customized, intimate experience that is not only by me, but also for me, and about me. This article explores the tensions between the negative drag of entrepreneurial downloading and the hopeful possibilities for an artistic environment of attentive care. Through analysis of Good Things To Do, a performance created by Christine Quintana and the Good Things collective, it is argued that the dual ontology of theatrical performance, surfaced here through a slippery playful metatheatricality, renders the nature of audience labour ambiguous, assigned an uncertain status between the actual world into the fictional world, between work and play. The playfulness of this ambiguity opens space and potential to escape the sticky web of a neoliberal framework.