The Emaciated Spectator and the Witness of the Powerless

Abstract

In a recent book entitled Theatre, Intimacy & Engagement I proposed some sternly expressed, yet comically touched, empirical enquiries into what I called ‘a science of appearance’. The book was intended as a reminder that claims for the special status of theatre as a pre-eminently social, communitarian act, have long been exaggerated as a convenient means to defer, yet again, some more pressing questions as to why there is ‘never enough immersion’, ‘never enough equality’, however welcoming the theatre act in its expanded form now seems to be.¹ Why, to put it too bluntly, the theatre always, by definition, fails in its political aspirations at the same time as perpetuating, refashioning and ornamenting the social imaginary. Or, as a student put it to me the other day, combining my problem and my potential of theatre much more poignantly than I could achieve, how they feel shamed by their incapacity to relate to the participatory invitation of the work of certain, quite distinct yet avowedly ‘interactive’ theatre companies with anything but ‘suspicion’, despite the performers’ generous offers of inclusivity. Just for the record, if it does not seem too indiscreet a revelation, the companies they felt shamed by included: Punchdrunk and Shunt Theatre Cooperative (UK), Fuerza Bruta (Argentina), Rimini Protokol (Germany) and Toneelgroep Amsterdam’s Roman Tragedies. This was not an impoverished repertoire by any standard of contemporary European theatre-going.