Re: RAT Politics and Theatre

[Impacttheatre@aol.com]

I believe that any theatre- even the most heinously commercial Broadway 
Musical- can be political when read as such.  The definitional authority of 
what is or is not political- particularly when dealing with collboratively 
created texts such as performance text, wherein the playwright, director, 
designers, actors, etc all have a hand in the production of the text- rests 
to any real or useful degree with the "reader" of that text.

The collaborative nature of theatre and the fact that intention in these 
cases is more or less unknowable problematizes the notion of whether any 
particular performance is political activism.  First, the term "political 
activism" needs to be defined- no small task.  Then each performance needs to 
be assessed- read- within those parameters.  So again, we're forced with 
leaving the defintional authority squarely with the reader/consumer of text- 
even when that reader is the director, or one of the actors, or what have you.

This can only result in a multiplicity of readings with no real consensus.  
What seems like activism to one person may read like self-indulgent crap to 
another.  Bear in mind that both of these people may be in the show, in the 
audience, or consuming the written text or descriptions of it (as is the 
current case with Living Theatre) years or even decades later.  With an older 
text, one has the fortunate position of being able to add to one's reading 
the "fallout" of the production in question.  But the varied opinions about 
this may just serve to further cloud the issue.

So what's the answer?  It's political activism to you if believe it is.  
Basing the activism upon political or social results is unfair in that much 
activism goes largely unnoticed; or is condemned, ridiculed, or recuperated.

Melissa Hillman
Artistic Director
Impact Theatre
P.O. Box 12666
Berkeley, CA 94712-3666

(510) 464-4468
http://www.impacttheatre.com

"Planet Janet" plays through June 10!



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