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Tuesday, 26 August 2008 Two forms of spectacle. The first: that which is
revelatory when
the dramatist writes his self, the performer gestures hers, creating and
unveiling body and spirit in word, speech and movement. In the study and
the rehearsal room (the sites of discipline) following exploration, the
dramatist un- The second: that which hides, which draws new curtains over the self and the world. Curtains of flashing light and loud noise, concealing torture and lusts for power even as it welcomes laughter and cheap wonder. A blanket that drowns the self and world. A light that blinds, a noise that deafens, the self. This is the condition of the contemporary drama. A spectacle that hides, rather than reveals, and rewards only our infantile or animal attraction to sound and light. In its pretense to human warmth, it commodifies emotion, our sense of wonder, manipulates it, cold and sterile: no life comes from it. It lies. Entertainment for dull children who desire deception and distraction, who fear the mature body's possibilities and inevitable tragedy ... Of the second spectacle we have the contemporary manifestations of industrialised television, film, sport, politics. All well suited to the second. Is that not enough, or must the art of theatre operate under its subsumation, instead of in conflict with it? As if the screens, from those above Times Square to those we carry in our pockets on our iPods, were not numerous enough. If the theatre is uniquely suited for the first kind of spectacle, its most significant arena, why pursue or praise the second? The suspicion that there is not enough time in these years of ours (of mine) for both. ... |