Chapter 1 - Industry

Summary

Chapter 1 considers theatre as a form of industry that confronts a central problem: how to produce a performance – in the general sense of manufacturing a product rather than in the specialist sense of financing a show – and then reproduce it over time and space. This chapter explores the centrality of blocking in addressing this problem, through an analysis of the practice’s historical and contemporary significance, and of two productions by London’s National Theatre: Noises Off (2000) and Frankenstein (2011). On the one hand, blocking demonstrates the extent to which virtues commonly attributed to the theatre – its artistry, its ephemerality, its uniqueness, and so on – are inextricable from the routines, systems, and technologies upon which any production process depends. At the same time, it abstracts the work from the worker, with all the potential for both ingenuity and exploitation that can entail, and is a precondition for forms of theatrical production – from touring shows to “McTheatre” – that have taken theatrical production firmly into the realm of the (sometimes global) market for centuries.