Relationship Of Theatre Research Articles

Theatre Like an Oak in the Town Square

Theatre Like an Oak in the Town Square Courtney Elkin Mohler (bio) In the summer of 2021, the National New Play Network asked me to moderate a plenary panel titled "Decolonizing Theater's Relationship with Audiences" for their annual conference, "Growing Forward: Transcending the Transactional." The panel featured luminary artists, each working tirelessly to transform how theatre engages with community and fights for restorative justice.1 As I planned my questions, I found myself reflecting on the mighty task implied by the conference's theme and plenary's title. My thoughts drifted to several panels I have listened to or participated in over the past few years that similarly were seeking to explore theatre's relationship with "decolonization," always broadly defined. This uptick in opportunities to discuss decolonization indicates that folks are decolonization-curious, even if there is no consensus on what decolonization means in academic or artistic institutional spaces. Theatre in the United States is built on stolen lands, extracts resources, and engages with corporate capitalism. A "successful" company is touted for developing the economy of its neighborhood, which may lead to gentrification and further displacement for marginalized communities. I wanted the final beat of the plenary to wrestle with the contradictions inherent in the event's themes: Does focusing on decolonization inadvertently re-center settler colonialism? If we aren't talking about returning land to Indigenous people, what are we talking about? Due to technical difficulties and time constraints, my last question was aimed at the disembodied virtual audience, presumably theatre professionals. Into the Zoom ether, I asked, "What are you doing to Indigenize your theatrical space or practice? How does your work center the global majority Black, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander peoples and communities' histories, needs, and [End Page 34] stories?" What follows in the next few pages is an extension of this question, an open-ended charge to my greater family of artists, teachers, thinkers, creators. This is not a manifesto, not a guide, not even an article.I tread lightly,with a basket woven with skills not my own,full of more questions than answers. Indigenous Peoples the world over connect through space, place, and seasons by sharing a continuous appreciation for rivers of wisdom, ever-changing and always providing sustenance. Creativity is the result of neither human endeavor nor mastery but rather the simultaneous cause and effect of cooperative interaction with the cosmos, the great mystery, all our relations. More often than not, creation forms with human and animal assistance: spirit launched in beauty. Lakota visionary Paula Gunn Allen describes the impulse to create, to tell stories, to make art as holy and transformative—but not for the purpose of the individual. She writes: The tribes seek—through song, ceremony, legend, sacred stories (myths), and tales—to embody, articulate, and share reality, to bring the isolated, private self into harmony and balance with this reality, to verbalize the sense of majesty and reverent mystery of all things, and to articulate, in language, those truths that give to humanity its greatest significance and dignity.2 To writeTo create To embodyThrough songThrough ceremony The TribesThrough legend With sacred storiesTo Share To Share To Share! To bring the isolated self Into Harmony And Balance [End Page 35] How do we, as art-makers,writers, privileged RECORDERS,negotiate these two worldviews? Where do our neoliberalprofessional practices demandwe cement our knowledge intothe annals of time/make a mark/leave a Legacy? And when does such endeavorimplicitly or explicitly pillage thewisdom, resources, and spirited Beautypassed down by elders? (Here lies the hypocrisy of meritocracy:should this article remain anonymous?By: Anonymous. Or would such agesture render this work unverifiable,nonacademic, suspect?) Let us imagine, as Gunn Allen claims, that the grand purpose of art-making is transformation, bringing a community into balance through creative praxis. How would theatre embody this idea fully? Can we imagine a season, or a multiseason initiative, or a widespread multicompany, ongoing effort to develop a theatre that transforms our present community into a state of balance? How would an academic program in theatre—that held holistic communal healing as central—operate? What if...

Theatre and Governance in Britain, 1500–1900: Democracy, Discourse and The State by Tony Fisher

Reviewed by: Theatre and Governance in Britain, 1500–1900: Democracy, Discourse and The State by Tony Fisher Jim Davis THEATRE AND GOVERNANCE IN BRITAIN, 1500–1900: DEMOCRACY, DISCOURSE AND THE STATE. By Tony Fisher. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017; pp. 290. Tony Fisher's monograph provides a new and original way of looking at the relationship between theatre and governance in Britain between 1500 and 1900. Through a series of case studies and an ongoing analysis of the philosophical basis for the perspectives he examines, he untangles the complex relationship between theatre and the state. While he covers familiar territory, he also offers new ways of reading Britain's theatrical past in a study that is well-grounded in both contemporary and historical discourses pertinent to the topics of government and theatre. In particular, he provides a valuable insight into Platonic notions of theatre and their impact on European thought. In Fisher's view, theatre was seen by government not only as a symptom of social corruption, but also as a potential instrument of reform. Consequently, as public theatres evolved alongside the expansion of the population in early modern Britain, so perceptions of the relationship between theatre and governance also changed. We move from the notion of theatrum mundi, wherein men and women are players on the stage of the world, to the "theatre of the multitude," focused more on the material conditions of everyday life. Within this context, Fisher suggests that anti-theatrical prejudice has less to do with puritan and moral opposition to the stage and is based more on a fear of disorder, sedition, and the instability and potential idleness of the common people. Insofar as theatre calls into question the authority of government by questioning the legitimacy of social and political order and hierarchy, it therefore represents the growing self-assertion of the laboring classes and their right to leisure. Thus two notions of community are at loggerheads: an ordered, unified community on the one hand, and a community of individuals (the multitude) on the other. The discourses around the threat of the [End Page 401] multitude and the threat of theatre coalesce, indicating the necessity of political governance over both common life and theatre. As new forms of power emerge in the late 1600s, the Restoration stage comes to represent an important moment in the development of theatre's relationship to governance in Britain. While anti-theatricalism, especially as represented by the opinions of Jeremy Collier, continues, freedom and conduct are more central to discourses of governmentality. In Restoration drama, this emphasis on freedom and conduct (and the possible tensions between them) is embodied by the character of the libertine, enabling a satirical emphasis on the public dimension of private conduct (in civil society rather than politics). Dramatists are not necessarily endorsing libertine conduct; rather, they could be seen as advocating appropriate governance (and self-governance) within the family through correct conduct. While Restoration comedy takes place in a predominantly upper-class milieu, it hints at the wider social consequences when liberty is not restrained by governance. Within this context, Collier's anti-theatricalism in this period can be seen as a social rather than moral critique of the theatre. In the early eighteenth century, as liberal governance absorbs the autonomous freedom of the individual, through various techniques of influence that curtail personal liberty, the question arises around the optimum license the theatre should be allowed within the public sphere. In his analysis of the events leading up to the Licensing Act of 1737, Fisher concludes that the emphasis is on keeping politics off the stage, and that the legislation aims to discipline rather than suppress theatre. Central to this discussion are the political satires of Henry Fielding, but whereas Fielding believed the stage should instruct through example and hold the powerful to account, the government believed that his satires, which often disparaged political figures, were a misuse of the stage. Fisher, however, suggests that another concern of the act was to regulate for appropriate behavior in the public sphere, and to prevent corruption and incivility among the lower orders. Prior to the act, the theatre was beginning to provide moral lessons in relation to...

Asian Shakespeare 2.0

Asia. An impossible interpellation. --Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (2006: 121) How many ages hence Shall this our lofty scene be acted over, In states unborn and accents yet unknown! --Julius Caesar 3.1.112-114 (Shakespeare 2005) The age of Asian Shakespeare 2.0 has arrived. It is an age in which performing Shakespeare in Asian theatrical styles generates incredible artistic and intellectual energy. It is an age in which certain Asian theatrical practices are foreign at home and abroad, while Shakespeare is proclaimed, once again, the bearer of universal currency. It is an age in which Asian performance and Shakespearean interpretations foster symbiotic and antithetical relationships with equal force and ever-increasing pace--fueled by the efficacy of virtual media (video sharing and social networking sites among them) and by rapid localization of globally circulating goods, ideas, and art works. Neither Asia nor Shakespeare has unified identities in any meaningful sense or even consolidated economic interests. Rather, they are defined by remarkable internal divisions and incongruities. The last two decades of the twentieth century marked the first phase of sustained study of Asian Shakespeare performance as a marginalized cultural phenomenon (Leiter 1986; Kennedy 1993; Brown 1999). The present time is defined by the rise of Asian Shakespeare 2.0 as both artistic and intellectual paradigms. As theatre artists challenge fixated notions of tradition, critics are no longer confined by the question of narrowly defined cultural authenticity. More notable productions are emerging across Asia, and these productions are being archived, read closely, and used as case studies in the classroom. Stage directors such as Ninagawa Yukio, Oh Tae-suk, Ong Keng Sen, and Wu Hsing-kuo reached diverse audiences through new strategies to bring together different cultural contexts and genres. A wave of new English-language scholarship since 2000 also put Asian Shakespeare performance in the spotlight (Trivedi and Minami 2010; Kennedy and Yong 2010; Huang and Ross 2009; Huang 2009a, 2009b; Lee et al. 2009; Dionne and Kapadia 2008; Chaudhuri and Lim 2006; Trivedi and Bartholomeusz 2005; Minami, Carruthers, and Gillies 2001). But there are critical gaps to be filled in research on the topic. First of all, the two-way traffic of intercultural exchange has not been addressed adequately. Important in their own right, questions such as is it that endures when [Shakespeare] is deprived of his tongue? dominated the research in the 1990s and continue to guide certain inquiries today (Kennedy 1993: 17; Kennedy and Yong 2010: 21), and the sea change occurring within Asian performing traditions has taken a back seat to what has been perceived as more urgent questions on Shakespeare's place in the modern world. Scholars are now seeking answers to how Asian Shakespeare formulates firsthand experience rooted in Asia (Trivedi and Minami 2010: 6). This special issue adds to the scholarship on global Shakespeare and Asian theatre's relationship to Anglophone cultural texts. As an Asianist and Shakespearean constantly moving among a number of fields that do not usually talk to one another, I am very grateful to Kathy Foley and Asian Theatre Journal for giving me this opportunity to edit this issue and put on several hats at once. The selection of essays has been consciously designed to include historical as well as contemporary work and to highlight diverse geographical areas even as some articles and interviews cover the usual suspects, such as Japan. Supplemented by reviews of performances, an exhibition, online resources, and books, as well as artists' reflections on their own works and an interview, these articles contextualize the arrival of Asian Shakespeare 2.0. Kathy Foley attempts to draw lines of convergence among what, at first glance, are disparate companies: an emerging troupe (Naked Masks) in Bangkok that tries to make Shakespeare a Thai contemporary, the work of a Balinese-influenced American company (Shadowlight) working in the shadow medium, and a Japanese theatre group (Setagaya) led by a traditionally trained kyogen actor. …

Black Nativity as Valence of Cultural Survival

Black Nativity as Valence of Cultural Survival Macelle Mahala (bio) When Black Nativity premiered in New York City in December 1961, the usage of the term "black" was still considered a contentious and political act. New York Times columnist Sam Zolotow suggested that several cast members found the title "in bad taste," and the lead actress quit the production after producers discarded the more folksy title Wasn't It a Mighty Day? in favor of the more militant Black Nativity (49). Traditionally performed as a gospel musical, Langston Hughes's "song play" exists at the intersection of religion, theatre, politics, and cultural practice. Black Nativity re-imagines both the narrative and performance of Christ's birth in a way that creates an African American cultural space in a holiday performance season otherwise dominated by European works such as Dickens's A Christmas Carol, Handel's Messiah, and Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker, not to mention the more plebian performances of innumerable white shopping-mall Santa Clauses. Claiming this cultural space and, at the same time, labeling it "black" is just one example of what the production of Black Nativity accomplishes in terms of the enactment of a specifically African American theatrical practice within the public sphere. Since its original production, Black Nativity has become a holiday staple for many African American theatre companies and other companies that seek to attract African American audiences. In 2007, American Theatre magazine featured four companies that produced versions of the play as evidence of the continued national appeal of this now-classic work. The article recognized Penumbra Theatre Company's production in St. Paul; Lorraine Hansberry Theatre's production in San Francisco; Congo Square Theatre Company's production in Chicago; and The Classical Theatre of Harlem's Broadway production in New York (14). Penumbra's production of the play contributes to African American cultural practice on three key fronts. First, the play is a religious celebration that equates the Nativity with various aspects of African American identity, such as the cultural survival of African Americans up from and out of slavery. The staging of these narratives ritually enact the collective memory of a common history in service of the survival and maintenance of a culturally specific group identity. Second, the production helps to maintain the theatre's relationship to the local community as the production where local artists, youth, and clergy are most broadly represented. And last, Penumbra's production of Black Nativity supports the vitality and survival of the theatre as a viable cultural institution and the livelihood of the artists who work within it. As one of the strongest selling show in the theatre's season each year, the company counts on it to bring in a certain amount of earned income. In the following pages, I examine how each of these different valences of cultural survival inform and interpenetrate one another. Black Nativity as Narrative of Cultural Survival Penumbra began producing Black Nativity in 1987 and has performed this work every year since, with the exception of the 2003–04 season (Penumbra Theatre Company 2009b). As a consequence of repeated annual productions and in order to differentiate Penumbra's more recent versions of the play from past productions and other companies' interpretations, the theatre occasionally varies the framing device of the play. In these cases, Hughes's original minimalist script operates more as inspiration than directive. Looking comparatively at the narrative frames featured [End Page 11] in Penumbra's various manifestations of Black Nativity reveals how each production concept stages African American cultural survival differently by emphasizing diverse aspects of black identity, history, and spirituality. Because black identity changes and is both temporally and geographically constructed and experienced, the narratives that support the expression and interpretation of black identity must also necessarily change from one historical moment to the next. Performance studies scholar E. Patrick Johnson writes that "[f]ar from undergirding an essentialist purview of blackness, performance, as a mode of representation, emphasizes the ways in which cultures struggle to define who they are and who they want to be" (606). Penumbra's evolving interpretation of Black Nativity is involved in precisely this ongoing process of continuous self-definition. Treating the Nativity...

The Theatrical Memory of Space: from Piscator and Brecht to Belgrade

In this article, Silvija Jestrovic introduces the notion of spatial inter-performativity to discuss theatre's relationship to actual political and cultural spaces. Focusing on the Berlin of the 1920s in performances of Brecht and Piscator, then on a street procession of the Générik Vapeur troupe that took place in Belgrade in 1994, she examines how theatrical and political spaces refer to and transform one another. Silvija Jestrovic was a SSHRC postdoctoral fellow at York University in Toronto, and has recently taken up an appointment in the School of Theatre Studies at the University of Warwick. She is currently working on a book-length project entitled Avant-Garde and the City.

Performing History: Theatrical Representations of the Past in Contemporary Theatre (review)

Performing History examines theatre's relationship to the historical past. Specifically, it investigates the relationship of a dozen theatre productions—all but one staged after World War II and in a variety of sites in the US, Western Europe, and Israel—to the French Revolution and Shoah. Plays by Georg Büchner, Yukio Mishima, Peter Weiss, Yehoshua Sobol, and Hanoch Levin are considered, as are productions by Orson Welles, Robert Wilson, Ingmar Bergman, Dudu Ma'ayan, Peter Brook, Ariane Mnouchkine, Herbert Blau, and others. What Freddie Rokem attempts here is audacious: to describe and theorize the way theatre functions as a mode of historical understanding. What he attempts is also quite courageous; his book opens theatre studies onto highly troubling critical and ethical vistas.

Source Theatre Company and the Mandate of the NEA: a Case Study

The controversy in the United States surrounding the funding of ‘offensive‐ and ‘pornographic‐ works by the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) has centered on whether or not the organization should espouse a morally conservative outlook in regard to the public funding of artistic works. However, the NEA arguably already pursues conservative policies rooted in its vision of the form, function, and outlook of the arts it exists to serve. The appointment of the actress Jane Alexander as chair of the NEA may have indicated that the organization would become more liberal in its moral stance, but the question remains: can government-supported art be anything but conservative? The following is a case study of one theatre's relationship to the NEA in the context of the Washington, DC, theatre community. The author, Mary C. Resing, is a former business manager of New Playwrights' Theatre in Washington, DC, and a former grant writer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is currently working on her dissertation on the actress-manager Vera Kommissarzhevskaia.