1.
Who speaks?
Who calls into question? (And by what right?)
Who is speaking when the relationship between theatre and politics is thematised?
A detached observer? Or an (in all possible meanings) involved one?
From this point on, two voices will be speaking. They correspond to two different social positions, the one of a sociologist and the one of a culture critic. The former speaks in Plain Text, the latter in Italics.
2.
Politics as theatre is synonymous with the representation (the communication) of political decisions as non-political decisions. We have grown perfectly accustomed to this paradox. Nowadays, we are beginning to find it obvious that economic criteria, like audience statistics, run the show inside politics: 'isn't it anything but obvious that theatre houses and groups aim at as many spectators as possible?' It is precisely this supposed obviousness which is problematic. Decision makers always pretend they are just turning an (economic) ready-made opinion into a law - while in fact the decision to hold on to a manager-like or neo-liberal policy can be called a major political decision. Politics that pretend to be not political but only following common sense = 'fake-populist theatre'.
3.
Our society is functionally differentiated. It contains various subsystems: economy, mass media, health care, science, religion, education, politics, law, art... Therefore, it is not obvious that the debate about 'the societal role of theatre' is primarily conducted in political terms. One might just as well propose a discussion on, for instance, the relationship between theatre and education. Or not?
The current premise runs like this: in politics, society finds its unity, if not its self-consciousness. The public or political sphere - the polis - functioning as society's heart, wherein man fulfils his destiny as a social creature: that is what Aristotle conceived centuries ago, although he restricted his view clearly to free citizens (for slaves, women and children, there was a totally different scenario). Already for a long time, it has been inadequate to interpret our society with this kind of old Greek ideas.
In a functionally differentiated society, politics is just one autonomous field next to many others. The autonomy of the political system shows itself precisely in the fact that within this system - and not, for example, in art - it is decreed whether an item is a political one or not. However, economics, education or law operate autonomously as well ('autopoietical’). That is why the political system has a very limited steering capacity. It is not an aeroplane's cockpit; it is simply not able to direct economics or the performing arts. Political steering is nothing but the regulation of preconditions or (if it is observed from the 'steered' field) the art of irritating over and over again.
Nor is modern man a zoon politicon, but a multiply split subject: a dividuum (Peter Fuchs). For no one still inhabits just one social sphere. We consume, we attend (evening) classes, we read the paper, we go to the theatre, we love one or more others: we do lots of very different things and thus have a temporary place in the social sphere of economics, education, media, culture, the sphere of private relations. As individuals, we have the right to say we belong to this or that particular sphere, to identify with a particular social status or partial role. However, modern society never demands this; neither does it demand that we should recognise ourselves only in the role of the citizen.
Then why is there such an emphasis on the relationship between theatre and politics? Is there not a totally different issue at stake: the (socially impossible) attempt to restore an overripe pattern of thinking?
4.
Theatre politics, that is:
- the eternal battle over the limits of the arts system, over what should or should not (or perhaps only partially) get recognition;
- the indirect regulation of the battle over Theatre with a capital T (the legitimate theatre) by commissions and politicians;
- the blending of field internal and political interests: the crystallisation of an informal decision network.
5.
By definition, the theatre has a societal relevancy. It does not need to constantly prove this relevance by making performances about certain social problems, or productions aimed at certain audiences like youths or immigrants.
Art - and by definition also theatre - communicates in a specific way ('aesthetically'), in conformity with a particular code or distinction: a performance is beautiful or ugly, it succeeds or fails. Being compact communication, every work of art is part of society. It is not outside and certainly not opposed to society: all aesthetic communication is enacted within society. Because how else can one understand society, if not as the incessantly renewed and at the same time unimaginable whole of Communications at a certain moment?
Works of art - viz. theatrical performances - can critically examine other communications. The theatre can be a place to bring up for discussion the dominant form(s) of communication: it can create counter-images, images that can show us something off - for instance - the real complexity and ambiguity of life at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Such theatrical meta-communication criticises the doxa's in force, the stereotypes and clichés that exist on the right as well as on the left side of the political spectrum.
Whether a theatrical performance is critical or not, it can never escape its autonomy, its belonging to the socially autonomous field of art. Like every work of art, it will be judged foremost by aesthetic norms: it is good or bad theatre, a n interesting or a boring reproduction of the art system. First and foremost, theatre is something one talks about as theatre: art is art is art, and this it is not going to change because the art world takes a critical position. Beyond this primary of the esthetical code, one finds either the entertainment industry (with its 'fun-no fun' code) or the hybrid that is the 'social artistic' (which, because of its often pedagogical character, is linked first and foremost to the educational system).
Interesting theatre performances which also show counter-images, contribute to the level Of democracy in our political system. For this system, plurality is a must: there has to be a sufficiently large variety of opinions and points of view. That is why, from a democratic point of view, it is healthy when certain opinions that are considered obvious, are brought up for discussion. Preferably, this is done without any claim to the Truth: no old-fashioned ideological criticism, but simply the recognition that complexity and variety are crucial to a democratic civil society and interplay of opinions. To stage other or different possibilities - deviant: paradoxical - by way of a successful aesthetic communication: that is more than enough. It is a whole lot already. 'Political theatre' is nothing more than an aesthetic communication that opposes the implicit consensus that governs our vocabulary in speaking and writing all too often. Whether or not this communication reaches a large audience is of less importance than something that is a question of principle: the possibility to communicate in a critical (read: complexity heightening) way.
6.
Our society 'directs' (certainly not all, but a rather large part of all) communication to specific fields: to politics, law, science, education ... or to art.
The communicative uniqueness of aesthetic communication makes art irreplaceable within society. The art system observes and communicates in conformity with a specific code, thus realising a form of communication that can be found nowhere else in modern society. However, functional differentiation also means that law, politics, science or art are mutually closed off. Even a critical work of art will therefore never be able to influence directly the political communication, the communication of collectively binding decisions. In short, politics and art are separate worlds or differentiated social systems. Undoubtedly, the political world does make binding decisions with a (sometimes) large impact on the theatre world. These decisions relate to official: recognition, grants, the restoration or building of theatres and so on. Political decisions regulate the institutional framework within which theatrical performances can be created and shown. This is far from insignificant. Nevertheless, theatre itself - leaving aside the one incidental exception - remains untouched: what is created within the framework is of no interest to the majority of politicians. Most theatre artists are perfectly happy with this limited political interest in the contents of their work. They just want to create high-quality performances, within a (preferably) professional framework.
All in all, theatre (art) communicates quite often about society, usually in a critical way. It discusses gender images, exposes the inner circle of the political elite, or irritates the worn-out ideas about love and emotionality. The political system does not take all this very seriously: it does not regard art as a politically relevant observer of society, and certainly not of the political world. This cannot come as a surprise: in modern society, the mass media has almost completely monopolised the public opinion. If politicians and parties want to observe how they are observed in society, they read the paper - and not a drama text.
7.
Theatre politics, that is:
- the director as king with a court he expertly manipulates, the battle between stars and ordinary actors, the sexual exploitation of women by men, etc. (the power relations within a theatre company);
- the company's manager who, after (once? frequently?) consulting the artistic director, fights for the position of 'the product' on 'the market' and who - as the saying goes- stops for nothing: making deals, lobbying, threatening, etc. (the theatre market as an arena with winners and losers);
- the PR man who assails the (potential) audience with a mixture of infotainment and home propaganda (the power of intentional non-information);
- the co-ordinated action of director, company manager and PR man to create a performance that is destined to sell (power = market value);
- the political sanctioning of all this.
8.
'Power is not something that is also present in politics, it is simply the very quintessence of politics' (Niklas Luhmann). If theatre explicitly stages the political power game, it necessarily reaches its own limits as a representation machine. This has everything to do with the specific nature of the theatrical communication about society.
On a stage, social reality is necessarily simplified to two or more people talking, that is to say, to personal interaction. The theatre thus narrows down the political world to powerful individuals and their courts: it never completely escapes from the pre-modern politics of lord or sovereign. No dossiers or paperwork, no offices and elections, a European negotiation table is nowhere in sight. If theatre talks about politics, it still stages a world wherein the power resides either in powerful kings or presidents, or in powerful politicians commanding invisible troops. What is being shown may be extremely critical, but it never does justice to the complexity of contemporary global politics.
The theatre, albeit a representation or communication apparatus, can never show an accurate, let alone a true image of our society. It has to constantly narrow it down to the scale of an average stage. The functioning of macrosocial domains such as the political system is therefore shrunk to the size of a group of chatting or arguing people. In short, performing art stuffs society into a living room: an eternal kitchen sink drama. It cannot avoid suggesting that communication is synonymous with interaction and that our society consists of nothing but personal relationships.
If it uses society as a theme, theatre reaches its own absolute boundaries within seconds. Being a communicative genre, it can for instance not adequately portray a war or the functioning of the global economy. From a sociological point of view, theatre is defined by its unavoidable lack of representational power. An intelligent director is of course perfectly aware of this. If the play is about war or global economy, the director will seize the opportunity to show the lack in question. (I am thinking here for instance of Needcompany's director Jan Lauwers' staging of the notorious fifth act of Shakespeare's King Lear.)
9.
Theatre politics, that is:
- the established companies running away with most grants: the big ones getting bigger (the Matthew-effect);
- the middle weights and (even more so) the newcomers or the unorthodox, decrying each other, fighting over the leftovers ('the resentment of the poor');
- the established companies (selectively) incorporating some of the not established, thereby showing off their 'open-mindedness', legitimating the grants they receive ('the power of co-option').
10.
Finally - the unavoidable Bertolt Brecht reference. May one quotation suffice: 'Brecht had humid laundry put in the actress's basket, in order to get her hip moving in the right way, the way of an alienated laundress. That is very nice; but it is also somewhat stupid, isn't it? Because the weight in the basket is not the laundry, but time, history - and how can such a weight be represented? 11 is impossible to represent the political; it resists every attempt at copying, precisely when one is trying very hard to get the copy as close to reality as possible. Contrary to the belief that is lodged very deep in all socialist art, the replica ends where the political begins' (Roland Barthes).
Translated from the Dutch by Mark Cloostermans