Culture and Political Change: British Radical Theatre in Recent History

Extract

To speak of placing any theatre work within its ‘social and political context’ has become almost a matter of course, but, at the same time, the epistemological problems presented by the proliferation of critical theory based on fragmented views of society (or society as fragments), proposing tentative opinions and ‘open readings’, makes this a difficult task and expresses the insecurity of the age. The pluralistic accommodations demanded by theories based on identity, for example, can add to this insecurity. It may become ‘safer’ and considered virtuous to offer ‘partial readings’, thus suggesting a democratization of thought which I would argue is frequently spurious. What often results is a disjunction between theory and materiality. Life is experienced through materiality, action cannot be indeterminate, though it may imply indeterminacy. When the actors appear in the performance space to create a relationship with their audience, this action is predicated by material decisions. The size of the space, positioning of the audience, spatial relationships beween actors and set, textures and colours, and when to turn the lights on and off are all the subject of prior consideration conditioned by the intentions of the play's producers. What do they want the play to do? Why are they doing it? They seek an audience in order to expose ideas and to create a theatrical experience. These ideas may be confused or contradictory but they exist. Moreover since all creative work is derivative in some sense (in that it is based on pre-existent tradition), theatre makers cannot claim to be innocent observers. It is naive to suggest that theatre may be somehow ‘neutral’ or ‘open’ since all meaning is constructed on the basis of prior knowledge. Thus I am proposing that there is a crucial dialectical relationship between theory and practice.