Class Notes - 12/04/12

Began with Group Discussions concerning Abstracts for the Work to Come

-readers are to provide feedback from the perspective of a professional evaluator

-attempt to learn what it takes to create a successful abstract and what it means to be a productive reviewer of such scholarly documents

After Group Discussions:

Amy: excited by the Abstracts for the Work to Come; let’s go around the table and briefly describe each of our projects and share some of the feedback that we received during the group discussion

Dorothy: abstract pertains to a film project that traces perceptions of blackness in America through comedy; Andrea’s feedback brought up the question of popular opinion and how it is affected through various objects of study

Andrea: abstract focuses on an 18^th Century poem cycle fraudulently claiming to be Medieval – reading this as a performative text, as the author set to reverse English perceptions of Scottish people by presenting the poem cycle as ‘old’; feedback pertained to finding an appropriate to integrate historicization into the scholarship

Derek: abstract centers on the 2012 Chicago teachers’ strike using many of the theorists discussed this semester; also drawing on Stuart Hall – see how representations of protest can close off meaning making and what strategies are used to combat that; Sara encouraged looking at an article related to the Rodney King beating

Sara: abstract looks at an alternative street theater movement in post-Soviet Poland; marked an instance of radical street performance as combating perception; how could such performance fight Soviet hegemony?; lots of newsletters are available surrounding the street theater (so know what the movement wanted), but not much exists concerning what actually happened and what change was effected; Derek pointed out that current viewpoints in Poland may be indicative of the change (or non-change) that was effected

Courtney: abstract concerning 1^st person character novels where the author is the protagonist; how does this position affect reader’s experience – if reader identifies with the narrator, is guilt felt in relation to that identification?; Cody helped clarify ideas surrounding identification and asked what it might mean if a reader did not identify with the narrator (would that be a source of guilt?)

Cody: abstract asks about performance as it relates to speechfulness or speechlessness and how these relate to audience response; speechless responses (eye rolls, sighs, etc.) are just as relevant as speech responses; suggestions involved looking at methodology (esp. concerning reader response) and considerations concerning gauging speechful or speechless response

Kelly: abstract relates to current concerns surrounding communication and its various occurrences; consider scene in the movie Bent; consider theater as a storytelling device – what happens if narrators explain what happens

Ming: abstract allows an opportunity to theorize about a past project; projects relates to the goal of selling an idea, but the idea must be defined clearly before moving forward; work has led to a question: is a safe space performed or enacted?; from feedback I now have clarity concerning what needs to be clarified

Jess: abstract continues research into the fat female body on stage (interest in ‘othered’ female bodies); does the actor’s body inform the character? (does a fat suit equate the fat body?); does what the actor looks physically matter if it does not match what is scripted?

Jenna: abstract gives an opportunity to follow up on thoughts generated during a trip to London this past summer; fascinated by the Tower of London which tries to manipulate visitors’ emotions (was Richard III guilty?); have an interesting way of organizing the museum product; Iris pointed out a dichotomy of thought within the project – must start in the middle space of the dichotomy and work outwards (dichotomy concerns traditional vs. new ways of organizing museum space)

Iris: currently writing a play dealing with issues surrounding rape and abstract deals with inspiration for this play that came from our reading of The Exonerated, which provided great ideas but did not have a clear call to action; Jenna talked about humor and how laughter can create an ‘in-group’ (does that automatically create an ‘out-group’?); must consider what creates sympathy

Jennifer: Whitney pointed out that the abstract idea is impossible but reflects a necessary area of study; want to know more about how we interact with texts; intrigued by a reverse-engineering of texts; consider a recent interactive version of Dracula; interested in texts created for specific spaces – how does a creative writer move into new technology?

Whitney: abstract explores the digital humanities; idea builds off the course and personal blogs maintained in class this semester; looking into how such blogs simultaneously construct the identity of their writers as well as an image of the digital humanities; Jennifer said to consider how blogs both use and replace traditional ways of doing scholarship and consider the options provided for editing in blog space that does not exist in traditional print media

Amy: like the idea of the possible vs. the impossible project; the impossible is useful to write down, as it can be equally valuable and lead to a thread that leads to the important project

Ellen: along with Amy, we are uploading comments to the abstracts directly to the course blog; encourage everyone to continue making comments on the blog; don’t forget, our next class will meet at Nick’s where we will talk about holes in the field.

Course Blog #22 (Justin): Abstract for the Work to Come – Actors, Palimpsests, & Bodyminds

Workshop proposal for a theatre conference:

The rehearsal process is a period of exploration, abstraction, elimination and loose repetition. Through impulse and choice, the actor’s body is scripted and re-scripted as it interacts with performance texts, acting spaces, directors’ concepts, and other performers’ bodies and movements. Thus, by simultaneously attending to external stimuli and internal response, the actor develops a routinized display through purposeful use of the ‘bodymind’ – a formulation of the ‘sensing’ body put forward by Phillip Zarrilli and other theorists of performance training. In rehearsal, the bodymind takes an actor through a process of generation, expulsion, and cohesion, eventually building to a performance deemed ‘frozen’ and ready for audience consumption.

Given this almost violent process of creation, the embodied activity perceived by a spectator functions much like a palimpsest – an object written on and written over that provides a dense amalgam of its current state and its previous incarnations. But can the actor’s body be read as a palimpsest? Are inspirations and emotions generated and discarded in the rehearsal hall still traced upon the performer’s bodymind and, in turn, distinguishable to a perceptive audience member? Are such traces a benefit or hindrance to audience reception?

Regardless of how ‘answerable’ the above questions may be, they point to important considerations for actor training: understanding a performer’s bodymind not as a mechanical device to be refashioned and reengineered but as a repository for ideas with varying lasting impressions for performer and spectator alike. For this conference, I propose a movement-based workshop in which Anne Bogart’s Viewpoints are explored as a means for understanding the actor’s ‘palimpsested bodymind.’ Viewpoints-based exercises will be used to explore an actor’s ability to create, discard, and re-imagine impulsive play.

Blog Post #21 (Justin): Wrong Reviews Equal Capital

Dumb question: Why do major and minor news outlets [I'm using the word 'news' loosely] generate theatre reviews? Yes, these opinion pieces assist potential audience members to make decisions concerning their next theatre-going experience. And for working theatre artists, the articles provide a way for checking on the projects of friends and colleagues, which can be a fruitful experience (in ‘warming-the-heart’ or ‘groups-to-avoid’ senses). And, much as I hate to say it, they can provide constructive feedback that could change an artist’s future work, if not the current production under review. [Twyla Tharp’s production Movin’ Out comes to mind, which the New York Times controversially chose to review while it was still in a preliminary run in Chicago. The poor review led to a complete overhaul of the show’s second act – and a much more favorable review by the Times when the show opened on Broadway…]

All of these answers point to a particular accepted ‘accuracy’ on the part of the reviewer (taking the reviewer’s ‘opinion’ to be accurate due to expertise or specialization in the field). But, far from critical, many reviews solely praise a production (such as Hedy Weiss’s review of Equivocation for The Sun-Times) or deride a few elements yet ultimately recommend the production for other ‘redeeming’ qualities. Unfortunately, the drive to give praise where none is due (and I would contend that only the set of Equivocation is worthy of praise), may be related to spectacle’s inextricable link to capital, as pointed out by Debord (in much stronger terms). Theatre reviews are not just tied to ticket sales and publicity to theaters (although both are strong capitalist incentives for the reviews). They are also key pieces of evidence used by professional theaters to raise money through donations, grants, and corporate support. Money for productions is raised long before the show goes on, so theater's must point to other evidence of artistic merit, this is especially true for small companies where full productions are only intermittently staged. Without constant live theater to showcase to funders, overly positive reviews are development staff members’ best friends. And, yes - theater reviewers are aware of this fact.

Thus, Victory Gardens is now armed with Weiss’s review of Equivocation for their next meeting with a major donor or submission to a granting agency. The review can be handed as evidence of artistic merit with key portions highlighted: “a snap, crackle and pop production at Victory Gardens Theater,” “Director Sean Graney, in peak form, deftly moves his supremely brainy and talented cast in the play’s speed-of-light mood shifts,” “Everyone here is operating in breathtaking overdrive in a play that also pays homage to the theater.” Each is a handy sound bite to use when trying to garner funds for the theater’s next production.

Course Blog #20 (Justin): You Aren’t There!

I’ve never been in a voting booth. Touch screen voting, hanging chad, lever pulling – none of these have been a part of my adult life. It’s not that I don’t vote; I’ve just never been physically present in my voting precinct on the day of the election. My name is Justin Rincker and I’m a chronic absentee voter.

In the democratic process, I am the illegitimate member of the family – the voter no one wants to acknowledge. I don’t get to stand in line with other dutiful electors or proudly display a sticker on my chest after visiting the polls. Instead, my voting experience involves quietly requesting a ballot through the mail. I receive forms signed by official voting dignitaries who shame me for creating extra paperwork and warn me that not returning my ballot within a specified time from the election (within 14 days!) is a federal offense. Even if I leave the ballot completely blank, I must get it into the hands of the election officials to avoid a courtroom appearance. My voting experience is akin to taking a college entrance exam – number 2 pencils, scantron bubbles, and a cheaply-made booklet which smudges my hands with ink. It is neither glamorous nor concurrent with other election-day excitement. Alone, at home, I fill out the appropriate forms, lick the envelope I’ve been provided, and let the U.S. Postal Service carry away my ballot along with my cable and cell phone bills.

So, what is the appropriate place for this experience within the archive? It lacks the theatricality of the normal voting experience – no queuing, curtain pulling, or card punching. And its performativity may be stripped away as well, since my ballot could be received and counted days after the winners have been announced! The forms (the request to vote absentee, the official absentee ballot, the envelope which prominently displays the ‘confidential’ nature of the contents inside) can certainly be placed within the archive. But how boring! Where is the interactive display in which schoolchildren sit at a replica of my kitchen table, furiously erase pencil marks when they realize they’ve filled in the wrong bubbles and gag on the cheap glue used on the snail mail envelope? On second thought, perhaps just filing away the official forms in the stacks of a museum is an appropriate way for the archive to reflect the absentee voter experience – the easily overlooked archival material standing in for the easily overlooked voter.

Blog Post 19, Part II (Justin) - Only the Meaningful

In selecting quotes for this blog post, I started a Word doc split into three categories: "True," "Meaningful," and "Both." However, I soon discovered that all of my quotes were falling under "Meaningful" - I could not bring myself to trust in the label "True." Thus, I present to you the following list of MEANINGFUL quotes!


MING – “If performances ‘mean’ more to experienced viewers, ‘meaning’ necessitates narrative; the narrative here (and perhaps anywhere) is a series of ghosts—though whether it's a person, a dance move, a musical score, or something else is a question of the mind of the viewer.”

JENNIFER – “I tried not to impose a narrative on the piece, but the use of a prop (a flower-girl’s basket of petals) and symbolic costuming appealed too much to the latent lit scholar in me; I ended up reading Evans’ work as one in which the performers wracked their bodies against a female-enforced patriarchy.”

COURTNEY - "Decentering the significance of the dancers’ skills and physical virtuosity, Taylor choreographs a dance that is about movement itself and the beauty of “everyday” movements."

COURTNEY (in relation to “Esplanade”) – “In this piece dance is about the many different ways a body can move and interact with other bodies more than it is about each particular dancer’s virtuosity.”

JESS – “When I see dance, there is a part of me that yearns to do what they do, because to me, dance is almost more important to the performer than the observer.”

SARA – “I was particularly struck by the irreverence of the movement in contrast to the motivic structure of Johann Sebastian Bach's Concerto in D minor for Two Violins.”

Course Blog #19 (Justin): Using the Bodymind

In dance and physical theatre, a spectator is often reminded that the body is the only guaranteed tool of a performer – costumes, props, and set pieces may inform the performance, but only the living body is inseparable from the individual artist. Yet, simultaneously, dance and physical theatre can call the performer’s ownership of the body into question. This notion came to my attention during the performance of Black Watch as the ‘soldiers’ performed the training/disciplining of their individual bodies, their most basic possessions, so as to become a seamlessly working unit – ultimately, their bodies were no longer their own, but belonged to each other and to the state. 

The performances of “Esplanade” and “Nascimento Novo” at IU Dance Theatre’s Celebration Gala evoked this same idea. Throughout, I envisioned the internal challenge for the dancers: “This is my run, yet it is your run. This is my jump, yet it’s yours as well. This is my arm extension, yet it is our [the whole group’s] same extension.” The individual is erased, as each member works to embody the same steps and to mirror the rest of the group. This was most evident in “Esplanade” as pairs, trios, and the entire group were challenged to crawl, skip, run or leap in unison. Likewise, moments of differentiated movements called body ownership into question, as they were typified by the sharing of weight and absolute trust in another’s physical strength. “It is my head-first leap, but your ‘catch’ that keeps me whole.”

We have been discussing kinesthetic empathy and the connection between critical and emotional intellects as they relate to spectators. How can a viewer’s thoughts and feelings be attended to simultaneously? The answer may lie in the dancers’ ability to simultaneously perform their own physical movements yet have an external focus that allows for a faultless connection to another or group. Such simultaneous attention to external stimuli and internal response may be attributed to use of what critics have termed the ‘bodymind,’ a tool that Phillip Zarrilli has discussed concerning the purposeful training of actors. He states, “Working toward mastery of embodied forms, when combined with the ability to fix and focus both the gaze and the mind, frees the practitioner from ‘consciousness about,’ allowing the person instead to enter into a state of ‘concentratedness’” (194). Is the ‘bodymind’ a performance muscle that can be trained by the scholar as well? If so, one can achieve ‘concentratedness’ through willed practice: frequent conscious performance spectatorship where marrying external stimuli and internal focus becomes habit.

Zarrilli, Phillip. “What Does it Mean to ‘Become the Character?’: Power, Presence, and Transcendence in Asian In-Body Disciplines of Practice.” Means of Performance: Intercultural Studies of Theatre and Ritual. Eds. Richard Schechner and Willa Appel. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990.

Course Blog #17 (Justin): I'm feeling (em)pathetic

Susan Leigh Foster is engaged in looking at how a culture’s definition or understanding of a term like ‘empathy’ can be used as a means to mask oppressive actions and justify unjust power relations. Foster uses a rather surprising approach in exploring empathy and its relation to dance and choreography. Instead of mining current dance practice for perceived audience reception (what one may describe as sociologic or ethnographic study) or surveying critical reviews of past dance performances (an examination of previous semiotic and phenomenological response), Foster relies on philosophic writing and highly structured dance notation as the foundation for a postcolonial exploration. Specifically, she is interested in the Enlightenment era works of Etienne Bonnot, Abbe de Condillac, and the famous iconographic system for recording dance developed by Raoul Auguste Feuillet. Foster explores Condillac’s philosophy regarding the potential role gesture and movement played in the initial development of language. She summarizes the philosopher’s ideas by stating, “Originating in an instinctual and spontaneous capacity for expression, language emerges as the conscious implementation of both vocal and gestural actions” (83). By grounding language’s evolution in the body’s physicalizations, Foster suggests that Condillac was able to put forth a notion that choreographed movement could elicit an inherent human response, a common reception based on ‘universally held sympathy.’ The Other may be seen to “implement different gestural as well as vocal vocabularies,” but due to a common sympathy [a term Foster translates as today’s conception of empathy] their actions are neither “unknowable or impenetrable” (85). Thus, colonial motivations could be masked; “The fact that the colonial body…was seen to passively receive an other’s cultural information meant that it was not responsible for helping to produce that information, but instead it could simply respond in the manner deemed appropriate” (86). For Foster, how a body is perceived or constructed in its historical moment can have enormous effects – cultural, political, and personal. Early 18^th century conceptions of empathy in France evidence this notion quite well.

Much like the other terms in our pantheon, ‘empathy’ is a troublesome word that must be well-defined in any attempt at its successful deployment. Hence the footnote in Reason and Reynolds article stating, “Note that Martin associates ‘inner mimicry’ with active response, whereas Bertolt Brecht famously argued that empathy rendered spectators passive and uncritical” (72). Given different operational settings, empathy can be perceived to carry quite opposite effects. Unlike many of the other terms discussed in this course, which seem to be bound to the entire spectacle presented by the performance (i.e. theatricality, performativity, trance, stuplime, etc.), ‘empathy’ is the only term that appears to be wholly tied to the individual performers who act as the spectated. Note, Reason and Reynolds point out the importance that music has when it is connected to the actors’ movement (a point Ming touched on in our previous class discussion of the stuplime), but the final emotional investment is still bound to the performer. The music aids in eliciting kinesthetic empathy, but it is not the sole recipient of the conjured emotion.

Class Notes - 10/25/2012

Amy: Let’s start with today’s text; I’m grateful for the initial work done on the blog posts for today; I’m sure many of your have encountered the sublime before, before moving to the stuplime, can we develop a clear understanding of ‘sublime’

Jenna: This may be rather stupid, but I found it helpful to think about the serif attached to each term, the upward b and the downward p help to remember how sublime and stuplime contrast

Cody: consider Kant’s definitions of sublime and beauty; the sublime is a reaction to the inexplicable, it is both psychological and affective (whereas beauty is merely affective and exists within an object)

Amy: What is central to Kant’s notion?

Cody: it suggests a sort of subjectivity in the viewer

Sara: the sublime isn’t in the landscape (taking the seascape picture on my blog post into consideration) but lies in the recognition of the self in relation to the experience

Jennifer: implies a sensibility in the face of the sublime (be sensible while feeling the sublime)

Courtney: gets to Ngai’s notions of shock and serenity

Amy: Why?

Courtney: she is attributing emotion to the sublime, a la Kant, but it doesn’t go far enough to be put a subject in a panic

Amy: I’m curious about the experience of the perceiver of the sublime and the removal of that spectator from such a position – consider, the ocean is sublime while watching over it, but not while drowning in it; How can we harness this in terms of performance?

Jess: this notion does not remind me of Artaud, who want to create the panic within the viewer (put the viewer amidst the ocean, not just viewing from afar)

Iris: would we say that Brecht would want that?

Sara: it’s akin to the theatricality as described by Davis; it’s not quite Brechtian, but it acknowledges subjectivity

Amy: the collision of vastness and serenity creates an emotional trance, like a state that is counter to Davis, perhaps more in a Brechtian sense; recognition of that kind lies beyond the comprehensible – the idea of comprehension and its absence is central to Ngai; Does this make sense as a baseline?; let’s look at examples of the stuplime – either in Ngai’s text or in the blog posts

Andrea: related to my experience at Black Watch where the sign language scene went on just too long, evoking a sense of the stuplime; it marks a separation in temporal links from what’s being shown – chronological links aren’t shown

Jennifer: the similar movements seem to parallel the simultaneous layers that Ngai mentions; the layers also seem related to the palimpsest, though different

Sara: the movements are also interdependent – in isolation each movement wouldn’t hold the same meaning

Jennifer: which shows the contradiction between Ngai’s layers and the palimpsest

Amy: watching the sign language goes on too long; what does that do and how do we connect it to the stuplime?

Derek: the overlapping of the performances of all of the actors, as they were added to the scene, made it difficult to focus on just one; at a point, it became overwhelming and forced viewer to ask what individual differences between each performance might mean; in that sense (too much information) it brought to mind Ngai

Sara: from Derek’s post, I understood Ngai’s notion of being open – a viewer reaches a point of appreciating beauty that does not have specific meaning

Iris – page 262; instead of becoming frustrated and angry, to the point where you give up on a performance, now you have more options for thinking about the work

Amy: does watching it to that point present opportunity for expressing what it does mean for you?

Jennifer: incorporates defamiliarization – able to what the rest of the performance after being opened up by the ‘overwhelming’ scene

Iris: essentially stopped asking questions, and watched in a different way

Sara: that moment epitomizes the idea that ‘words cannot express’ feeling; reframes how you look at the stage; not causal or continuous, so you have to watch differently

Courtney: if it was just reading, we wouldn’t have a lack of access; such moments remind the audience of such a lack of access

Sara: Black Watch created an interesting juxtaposition of visual text (that was not readable) next to sign language (that was indecipherable); provided access to an idea of communication and how it relates to new global forms of communication

Amy: What are possible applications of the stuplime to performance? What is the methodology and how is it fruitful?

Andrea: understanding is different concerning of what is necessary for transport to take place; having doubleness doesn’t need similarity to identify with characters; this is a way to be receptive/open, without having to identify or feel the same

Amy: what does it suggest if usual identification is frustrated and there is this different option?

Whitney: opens up possibility for new reactions to something; taking something like performance where the audience is keyed to identify, something else might emerge; we need to figure out how something like this might work, but Ngai doesn’t necessarily tell us how

Amy: think about the notion of the sublime in terms of spectator/spectated; How would we restage the ‘man overlooking the ocean’ as stuplime?

Jennifer: How would it change the space? How could we overwhelm in a different space? Does it require a ‘non-tradition’ space?

Jenna: reminding of Black Watch where audience focus was divided between by two poles spaced widely apart, forcing the audience to look back and forth repeatedly

Jess: brings to mind Beckett’s Not I

Sara: interesting if we ask about space; makes me think of Pina Bausch and Café Muller

Jennifer: the idea of repeated motion inducing open mental space must have been psychologically studied

Amy: Yes – military drills and raves; repetition (especially physical) moves people into a state where sense of group takes over the sense of I or self

Jennifer: similar to Buddhist monks and walking meditation, as well as children suffering trauma who use repetitive rocking movements as a self-soothing mechanism  

WATCH YouTube CLIP OF NOT I

Jess: interesting to see it in video; a friend performed the piece and put it on continuous loop in order to memorize it; it has lost something by being on a screen, but highlights how mouth has become disconnected from the person playing the role

Cody: the clip allows the spectator to become mesmerized by the enormity of the lips displayed on the screen, whereas on stage they are so small that spectator is mesmerized by the flood of words coming from the small (hard-to-see) lips emoting through a curtain; the clip makes it appear that the speaker is talking to herself, but on stage she is really talking to a spectral bystander

Iris: in the clip, I found myself almost moving along with the speaker; this is her physicality as she expresses it; it is a painful process, but brings to mind the mechanism that works behind the idea

Cody: I know the narrative of Not I very well, but in watching it always find that the narrative disappears

Jess: a viewer begins picking out his or her own connections that the original text would not allow; it’s as if one is adrift in a sea of water and the words act as life preservers that may carry one to a boat or to solid ground

Iris: I appreciate that notion of drowning and grasping at what stands out as a way of saving oneself

Amy: can you map that idea for us

Iris: the water represents a feeling of frustration and the words (the life preservers) are the only way to pull through the frustration

Jennifer: the speaker could not cut off or hinder her elocution because that would cut her listeners off from the only things they have to hold on to in the performance

Cody: other performances of this text are not as fast, so it is often easier to follow; also, the camera often follows the narrative, helping to indicate past, present, and future; I agree with Iris, words act as life preservers in this performance – we find ourselves encased in language even as it is falling apart for us

Iris: in a way, this is why Jenna’s serifs are valuable (shows the earthly thing versus that which is unearthly)

WATCH CLIP FROM BILL T. JONES DANCE

Amy: this was just a small chunk of the performance, hopefully showing a connection between the stuplime and dance; does it offer us anything?

Ming: brings to mind a certain carnality; movement is responsive/necessitated to the sound; what happens when such carnality dissolves?; refer to pages 254 and 266 in the article

Cody: it is held in the spectator’s mind

Amy: the mind struggles to make connections; does an example where cause and effect can be easily linked to music and movement make this less stuplime?

Ming: Yes – if movement and music connectivity is broken, then stuplime is more accessible

Jess: the connection of narrative would be disrupted

Amy: is stuplime an absence of response?

Jess: stuplime is being overwhelmed paired with the absence of comprehension; one must become bored and then let go of that response

Amy: I am reminded of the quote from page 271 that appears in Sara’s blog post; if stuplime just describes theater we don’t like, then the stuplime really only denotes a difference between an ‘initiated’ and an ‘uninitiated’ audience member – I want it to be more useful than that

Courtney: stuplime traits are valuable to performance repetition; consider thick language – not just emotions in the viewer, but traits that are necessary to the work of art

Andrea: the heaping up of things is another trait of the stuplime; watching a part of a performance complicates our ability to see this; in group dances, we can look at one dancer or the whole group of dancers; does Ngai address problems that may arise by viewing parts or wholes?

Sara: she seems to make that a fundamental difference between the sublime and the stuplime

Cody: returning to Kant, he suggests that we are all reasoning beings and the sublime gives us room to do such reasoning, whereas the stuplime does not

Sara: modern dance confers a certain appreciation of the human body; I am reminded of the work of Richard Foreman where even when a spectator checks out, the performance does something that forces the viewer to come back to it; also brings to mind the million year art project – 10 leather-bound volumes of past million years – after the initial reaction, one can recognize the care of creating such a work and also see what time is (‘a drowning in infinity’); a performance was then created to go with the volumes – one can hear a person reading the list of years (provides no catharsis from time, impossible to escape its oppressiveness)

Jennifer: there is an intention to these works

Amy: I tend to be uncomfortable with the idea of intention, but acknowledging intention is valuable to a point; there is a way to get to the rock (per the drowning in water analogy); it is characteristic of the stuplime that it refuses us this place (sanctuary)

Courtney: can stuplime exist in nature or does it have to be created? Can it be a natural phenomenon? (question arises as it seems to require a desire for meaning)

Amy: leads to a question of mine about Romanticism – seems to be interested not in the actual ocean (nature), but in attempts to capture the ocean (nature) within its works, yes?

Jennifer and Whitney: not exactly – Romanticism was very much interested in actual nature and its wonders; requirement of the works seems to be built on actual experience with the thing depicted, not just a creation of a representation

Andrea: depicts what is always beyond you just a little

Amy: they create a different relationship between the spectator and spectated; what is usable in this? How does it speak to our own work?

Whitney: Jess noted how Shakespeare can be stuplime for her, but since that is my area, it never comes across to me as such; it is odd that the stuplime works very differently for different people

Sara: brings to mind things that are ritualistic – provides a way to recognize affective response in a crowd without asking for people to discuss it; explains efficaciousness in ritual performance – don’t just recognize performance as a semiotic experience, if you can immerse yourself into the experience of others

Amy: it’s a way into the hermeneutics; allows for a much more complicated receptive event; especially in terms of type of subjectivities that are possible (not just adoration of the individual)

Sara: comforting to know that no one feels transcendence from Gertrude Stein; provides a way for understanding that boredom can be okay

Amy: it is helpful for talking to students who don’t like something; allows us to ask why we’ve romanticized certain things into a lifeboat

Richard III Casebook (Justin): Head Gear

Prior to Richard’s dream in Act V, Scene 3 in which he is visited by the ghosts of his various victims, Richard prepares himself for the approaching battle of the next day, ensuring that his armor and weaponry have been laid out for the impending conflict. The protective gear and arms referred to by Richard are a rather curious missed opportunity on the part of IU’s production. The biker motif chosen for this Richard III yields few concrete opportunities for pairing Shakespeare’s text with contemporary items deemed ‘bikeresque,’ yet Richard’s pre-dream statements concerning his personal protective gear clearly present such a moment.
   


Image 1 - Knight's Helmet

At lines 53-54 (Folger edition), Richard asks, “What, is my beaver easier than it was, / and all my armor laid into my tent?” The term ‘beaver’ in this instance refers to the visor on a helmet (see image 1). Richard is soon assured that his head protection and “all things” [his other pieces of armor] “are in readiness” (line 55). At this moment, why not make use of the modern protective equivalent for a biker – a motorcycle helmet? Add some metal adornments, such as a spike or two, and suddenly it will become a ‘war motorcycle helmet’ (see image 2).

Image 2 - Motorcycle Helmet (sans spikes)

This simple prop achieves several duties at once: (1) it makes the term ‘beaver’ somewhat intelligible to a modern audience [making the audience ‘feel smart’ is always a bonus – they tend to judge productions more favorably when their egos are stroked]; (2) the conceptual selection for a ‘biker’ world becomes more relevant as choices that serve the story are implemented – beyond providing a reasonable way of ‘labeling’ the characters with their names and affiliations, the biker concept now helps to tell the story of the approaching battle and Richard’s involvement in it; (3) the protective gear serves as a sign for what Richard is prepared for [hand-to-hand combat], but also highlights what he is incapable of protecting himself from [the ghostly visitors he encounters in his dream].  One simple prop has made Shakespeare’s text more comprehensible to a modern audience, further grounded the production in its chosen world, and helped advance the story.  

Blog Post #14 (Justin): Loving Richard (but with a Safety Net)

Based on the dramaturgical content presented in the clip from McKellan/Loncraine’s Richard III, a presently-situated viewer is able (without prior knowledge of the text) to extrapolate or infer that Sir Ian’s grotesque leader is not going to fair well at the end of the movie. The film’s opening moments work meticulously to set up a politically avaricious Richard, who is an English equivalent of a ladder climbing Adolph Hitler. This choice requires almost no dramaturgical homework at all, as a surplus of well known images can be deployed to evoke the monstrous figure and his regime: period-perfect automobiles with tiny waving red flags ornamentally affixed to hoods, darkroom photographers taking pictures for use as political propaganda, the spit curl coiled on the sultry singer’s forehead as she croons along with a big band. McKellen’s pencil-thin mustache may not be Hitler’s small rectangular patch, but its black hue and exact lines are sufficient for indicating the reviled fascist. This is an apt evocation, for as Jennifer states in her blog post, “Richard is just a bad, bad man.”

Beyond being bad, Shakespeare’s Richard was also very, very successful. He climbed his way to the top of the political heap, while building a contingency of supporters throughout the ascent – much like a certain aforementioned dictator. The film (and I would argue the play) purposefully inspires sympathy for Richard (Hitler?). Feeling such sympathy should be a very scary moment for the spectator. One sees/feels what it is to be duped by the monster and the political machine. The challenge in producing Richard III is not in presenting an evil ruler who is hated by everyone (both characters and spectators), but in creating an evil ruler who is plausibly allowed to continue his evil regime whilst being supported by everyone (again, both characters and spectators). If Richard was just an unsympathetic evil man, he would hide his innermost thoughts and create a façade of righteousness. Instead, Shakespeare’s Richard openly shares his evil musings with us throughout the proceedings and McKellan’s Richard breaks all pretense of inhibition by doing so while relieving himself in a urinal. We are his accomplices. And that is okay, because we know he is going to get his due in the end. Because this Richard has been historically grounded as an equivalent to Hitler, we know he will not succeed and we are thus set free from feeling any guilt for sympathizing or empathizing as the plot unfolds.  

Lilly Project (Blog 13), Clifford Odets' Death Mask

Lilly Archive Project

Justin, Ming, Derek, Natalie

Introduction

We went to the Lilly Library and looked at items from three collections: the puzzle collection, Clifford Odets, and Edgar Allan Poe. In flipping through the papers describing the Odets collection, the words “Death Mask” jumped out at us: just those two words on a single line, no other description or explanation. Naturally we were drawn to this intriguing entry. And when the librarian asked us if we wanted to see it, we all said “yes, please.” We asked, thinking it might be some kind of wooden mask used in a foreign country. Instead, we had found a plaster death mask of the deceased Clifford Odets himself (see Figure 1), which was made at his death in 1963 (he died August 14, of cancer, at age 57). Clifford Odets was famous for plays such as Waiting for Lefty (1935) and the screenplay of Sweet Smell of Success (1957). This post has been written in parts connected only loosely together.

Figure 1. Death Mask of Clifford Odets (1957)
Photograph by Derek DiMatteo.

  

Justin’s thoughts

‘Death Mask’ – these are two words one does not often associate with the archival remains of a little-known playwright housed in a Midwestern university library. Yet they appear, unaccompanied by additional text, in the “Guide to the Clifford Odets Papers in the Lilly Library.” Seeing the words ‘death mask’ immediately conjures visions of ritual performance masks purchased during global travels or perhaps images of spooky disguises used for costuming in a non-realistic play. Thus, it is rather a surprise when a Lilly librarian brings to you a cardboard box graffitied with magic marker that holds voluminous bubble wrap enveloping a stark white plaster cast of a deceased man’s face. As soon as the bright visage is pulled from its cardboard home, romantic visions quickly vanish and one realizes that the term ‘death mask’ refers, quite literally, to a plaster reproduction of a person’s face made shortly after death and just prior to interment. The experience is best described as ‘creepy’ and invites a host of questions in regards to the mask’s creation as well as queries concerning its inclusion in the university archive. 

A death mask is an oddly difficult archival object in which to ‘dance’ academically, especially in the absence of any accompanying data concerning its creation or previous homes. It is solely evidence of the living, breathing corpus that is no longer present to interact or to perform. The death mask functions much like film or photography works for performance: it serves as evidence for what was once present, but is now lost forever – that which can only be faultily re-membered through memory, description, and visual representations. As Peggy Phelan notes, “Without a copy, live performance plunges into visibility –in a maniacally charged present – and disappears into memory, into the realm of invisibility and the unconscious where it eludes regulation and control”(Phelan 148). The human body mirrors performance, as neither remain present ad infinitum, but both are lost to a perpetual present from which they necessarily disappear. 

The death mask is a reminder of the body that once was extant, but how adequately does it ‘ghost’ the person it represents? Andrew Sofer reminds us that “spectators bring associations from previous productions with them to the theater, and that these ‘ghosts’ color their experience of the current performance” (63). ‘Ghosts’ in real, lived experience work in the same way: associations from prior experience are conjured, creating a specter of what preceded. But what prior experience is recalled when an unwitting student stumbles across the ‘death mask’ of Clifford Odets in a search of the Lilly Library? The mask is a representation of a largely unknown man who once lived, but does it provide information beyond the fact that he indeed lived? A ‘ghost’ depends on memory. It is not only important how accurate or faulty a memory may be (as evidenced in Phelan’s discussion of Sophie Calle’s installations), but also that a memory exists. Without memory is there anything to ‘ghost’? If a ghost appears, but there is no memory, is the imagination just playing tricks? Thus, how problematic is imagination?

Ming’s thoughts

So, Odets's death mask.  A plaster mask taken after the mortician spruced Odets up and before he was interred...well, in our language, after death, “he” becomes “his body”, “the body”, or “the corpse”--so, before his body was interred?  Which distinction brings me to one of the themes I've visited before when I discussed literary translation and performance studies: the two disciplines have in common a tendency to use violent metaphors to describe rendering. With his death mask, Odets is rendered here, but how many layers are there to the palimpsest? The man, who after death is no longer, in English, “the man” but “the man’s body”. The body, the mask, the mortician, the loved one who presumably asked that the mask be made. Then outward: every box it's been in, the journey it traveled to the Lilly, everyone who has seen it, which now includes me. To know that this very plaster lay on a dead man's face, to look upon the shape his mourners must have looked upon if he had an open casket...that his face looks calm does little to calm my own nerves. Why was I getting the willies? The mask was made in 1963; not too long ago. But because the process is not a culturally familiar one to me, I felt odd seeing this man's death mask. Mask-layer notwithstanding, there seemed to be a layer missing, a layer of rendering that might have made it acceptable: oil on canvas, rendering his likeness; a needle on a record, rendering his voice. In the absence of as much rendering as I found normative, not enough of it had the effect of inserting sacrilegious me into a sacred space: I felt as I looked at the mask the way I might feel stumbling into a church where someone who thinks herself alone is praying audibly.  And yet, it was something made to be seen, to record how he looked—and look I did, with the willies and also a sense of fascination. Harris brings up the concept of “fetish” early in “Palimpsested Time”, touching on Marx's thought that fetishism is “guilty of 'magical' thought, insofar as it allegedly anthropomorphizes inert objects by lending agency to them” (6). If this "magicking" of objects is a crime, most of the authors we've read recently have committed it. Agency is lent to inanimate objects up the wazoo in our recent readings, not least the ones touching on photography.  I see every photo as a ("polychronic"?) palimpsest with infinite layers, among which linger the time it is taken, and every time it is seen, every person who sees it and touches it, and underneath it all the person who took it and the subject it objectified. Then there are Geertz's “thick descriptions” of the objects involved, the discursive, cultural, and historical lives to which the subject in the photo and the subject of the photo each belong. It goes on and on. Accordingly, our readings of late have nodded again and again to the stories we tell ourselves and each other about heretofore inanimate objects, and the codes of repression and exhibition enforced and reified by our “dance with things”, by our decision to see (or, Wexler would remind us, not see) them as active agents. Harris contends on page 16 that matter need not be “animate” to be necessary to the temporality of supercession or to that of explosion, perhaps suggesting that matter therefore is an undeniable agent in whatever reality there is to a construct of time.  I wonder, was Odets's mask made in order to negate time?  Negate time the way Debord's spectacle is “a negation of life which has invented a visual form for itself”? Why are all these theorists proclaiming that an inert thing can have a suppressive (or, for that matter, an animating) effect on abstractions?  How can an object negate time or life; how can an object invent?  These theorists are looking at a thing and endowing it with agency in the (admit it) fictive textual world they create, the way Brecht endows epic theater with agency when he says it “admits it is a demonstration” or the way Blank and Jensen do the same when they refer to what a play “asks of us”. What does Odets's death mask ask of us? I'm still not sure, but Harris might agree that whatever its scriptive function the mask is a palimpsest in that it is undeniably a “collation of diverse inscriptions that accrue over time”: perhaps inscribed by the man's face, the mortician, even viewers who knew him and the viewers who, like me, experience the visage as an archival item and not a reminder (17).  Harris might also agree that, as a palimpsest, the mask is a “complex, polychronic assemblage of material agents”: plaster, mortician, face, corpse, viewers, graffitied cardboard box.

Derek’s thoughts

Polychronic assemblage, indeed. The Odets Death Mask “both is a material presence and it encodes other material and immaterial presences” (Stallybrass, qtd in Harris, 9). Its material presence is quite literally that of a plaster mask created in 1957. The other material presence it encodes is the physical features of Clifford Odets’ face at the time of his death. The primary immaterial presence (at least for those who knew Odets) is perhaps akin to what Sofer calls the “felt absence” (67), i.e. the memory of a living, corporeal, walking/talking Clifford Odets. As Harris notes, “these other presences are…the memorial marks of the past”, and are emphatically not of the present, and thus the mask is “out of time with itself” or “untimely” (10), inhabiting the present moment but also “alien to and out of step with it” (11). Because of these other presences, because of its untimeliness, the plaster mask connotes “the persistence of the past in the present” (11). The mask does so by encoding the corporeal past, allowing it to persist into the present: Clifford Odets’ facial features have been written into the plaster, an act of supersession. But at the same time the mask resists “absorption into a homogenous present” (11). After all, we are gathered here in the Lilly Library, without having known Odets or having any memory of him. As scriptive objects, masks invite the viewer to put them on, but this perversely scriptive impulse is resisted when we know this is a death mask. Instead, the mask takes on a spiritual or sacred scriptiveness that invites viewers to activate their memories of Clifford Odets. But we who never knew Odets cannot conjure a memory of him as we look at the mask. So for those who see the mask without any memory of Odets, other immaterial presences are encoded: one of imagination (spectator is invited to imagine a living Odets) and one of ghosting (spectator is reminded of other deaths, of the faces of loved ones seen at wakes/funerals past). This explosion of memory and imagination shatters the integrity of the plaster mask as memory “punctures the illusion” of the mask’s material “wholeness or finality” (16). In this way, the juxtaposition of the highly detailed—indeed, the life-like—mask with the irruption of imagination and/or memory of the “dust of the past” allows the material and immaterial presences to “converse” in the “temporality of conjunction” (16). The mask is of 1957, but our gaze works on the plaster text to read the features and bring it to life. 

Natalie’s thoughts

It would seem that this death mask is an excellent example of Phelan’s key claim about performance, that it only becomes itself through disappearance: the mask performs the memory and the absent body of Odets, as others have mentioned, only in the wake of his death, in the disappearance of the life that animates the face captured here. I think the disturbed and unsettled feeling that others have described as accompanying seeing such a thing has very much to do with Phelan’s claim and Ming’s sense that there was a “layer missing.” What the death mask seems to promise is exactly what it cannot give, contact with the material body. The “needle” of a recording of his voice or the “oil” in a painting of him would give concrete elements for us to hold on and attach ourselves to in the representation of this man—we’d know we were only getting a representation, but having other materialities would provide other points of contact. But the death mask DID made contact with the face—it actually touched it, yet it can never allow us that same experience, or even a more mediated form of it like a painting or recording could. I think that it is not simply the loss of the body here, then, but the endlessly impossible desire to do just what the mask would seem to be doing—making contact with the material body—that is being performed by this object. I think it also promises to surrender the substance of death to us but can’t give that over either—not just his death, but any death, the concrete experience of death in general. In doing so it makes us witnesses to a performance that we can never actually see.

If this object is indeed performing, then it matters in what context it takes place. Justin has already pointed out how some responses that might be called forth by the mask can’t be elicited if the viewer doesn’t have certain information. Certainly, the functions death masks used to serve—as physical remainders of the deceased in the absence of photography or genetic profiles to be archived not just by the family but also by the state, and as guides to painting portraits of the deceased—are either outdated or unlikely to be called upon now. I think it’s fair to say that if you don’t know who this person is, then if this mask is prominently displayed in a museum, library, or university building—which is apparently where many of these masks end up—another aspect of its “scriptedness” might concern generating an impulse to create and consult an archive about them. If the mask is just displayed in the glass case of a university library with the person’s name and date of birth and death, it suggests their importance to a certain “we” that the viewer is excluded from without knowing the referent. This might seem obvious, but I think it’s important to consider the ways in which this might be displayed now, and how the contours of the performance would change in other contexts.

Figure 2. Clifford Odets, book photo and death mask
Photographed by Derek DiMatteo.

Course Blog #12 (Justin): A Response to Andrea's Query about Texts and Images

“When the artifact involves an image accompanied by text, how is the text working to support or subvert the primacy of the image?”

In considering the various blog posts each of us busily posts, I have been wrestling with quandaries similar to the one quoted above that Andrea included in her recent post. The question is especially relevant considering our blog posts from last Thursday, 10/4/2012, where images featuring stage props were selected for the class to consider. How were the ‘dances’ each of us performed in relation to those images inspired/inflected/hindered by the text(s) that accompanied each picture? What was brought into the conversation and what was left out due to the words partnered with each photograph?

These questions can also be applied to the various photographs and their accompanying captions that appear in the recent articles we've read for class. In her article “Dances with Things,” Robin Bernstein deploys a sense of shock and awe as she unravels for reader’s the history of the image of a woman posing with a caricature at the Hotel Exposition - a tactic that was noted in class as we discussed her rhetorical strategy. By withholding the sparse bit of text associated with the image, the name “Helen Hernandez,” Bernstein allows readers to dance with the photograph for the first half of her essay without this supposed identifying bit of knowledge. This writing strategy points to a keen awareness of the precarious relationship between image and text and their ability to support or subvert each other. Despite this awareness, Bernstein does not suitably attend to this relationship after calling attention to its existence. She briefly notes making the assumption that the name on the back refers to the woman in the image, but she does not fully explore the dance that people may do with photographs and the various 'traditions' employed in labeling them and their contents. How might Bernstein's dance change if she considers the numerous possibilities surrounding where the label may have arisen? What if the image was labeled decades after the photograph was taken, the name merely an assumption made by an unwitting future owner of the photo? My own family is notorious for labeling photos half a century too late, making wild guesses at the identities pictured in the family heirlooms. Was the name 'Helen Hernandez' added to the photo years later by someone simply guessing as to the identity of the woman in the photograph? Or what if the name on the back refers to the taker of the photo and not to the person appearing in it? Bernstein addresses the dance that people must do when deciphering the elements within an image and begins another dance in confronting the text on the photo's reverse side. But this second 'turn around the floor' stops mid-song. The image is handled robustly but its text is given short shrift. Primacy seems to be given to whichever component has the greatest bulk - the image or the text. Perhaps we allow our eyes to do too much leading in this dance.

Blog Post #11 (Justin): This is not a 'full-fledged semiotic crisis'

This morning I had a discussion with my students in Introduction to Theater concerning the IU Department of Theatre and Drama’s recent production of When the Rain Stops Falling and the performers’ use of physical and vocal choices in the performance. One student was particularly struck by one of the actor’s use of his necktie and shirt tails as a means to express a nervous emotional state. By fidgeting with his garments, the actor’s gestures indicated the guilt his character was experiencing during a particularly challenging moment of the play. The student’s comment motivated me to briefly speak about costumes and how they do not just serve to dress a character according to period or to associate the individual to related characters (think West Side Story and “when you’re a Jet you’re a Jet”). Importantly, costumes can also serve as stage props and give actors items to ‘fiddle with’ in order to denote emotional state, as the student had noticed. This is akin to Sofer’s early remark suggesting that “the prop’s impact is mediated…by the gestures of the individual actor who handles the object” (61). Likewise, this particular example (the anxious tweaking of a tie and shirt) fulfills Sofer’s other supposition that a “prop’s impact is mediated…by the horizon of interpretations available to historically situated spectators at a given time” (61). To understand the adjustment of such clothing as an indicator of nervous tension, it helps if one is acquainted with such articles of clothing and knows how to read those garments as being worn and used ‘properly.’ Sofer sums up the effect a prop can have on the minds of the audience when he states, “The prop springs to life as much in the imagination of spectators as in the hands of actors or the words of the playwright” (61).



Actors Anne Dudek and Doug Hara (photo from michiganavemag.com)

 

I was reminded of the aforementioned teaching moment because of the image I selected for today’s blog post: a publicity still taken for a revival at Lookingglass Theatre of Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses. I am drawn to this photo not because of the candelabra held by the actress (the obvious stage prop in the image), but due to the bright pair of wings worn by the nude blindfolded actor lying by the pool of water. I hesitated to choose the image because I would traditionally categorize such an item as a ‘costume.’ But these wings have adopted a stage life much like the props discussed by Sofer. I attended a lecture given by Zimmerman several years ago where she discussed the various design elements deployed in her shows, noting a habit of recycling elements from one show to another. This habit was not born out of a larger metatheatrical statement she wished to express or a particular affection for specific items, but was due to economic necessity: theater budgets are small and one has to do what one can to stay within a set limit. Despite these initial pragmatic reasons, the practice has taken on special meaning for Zimmerman. The wings from Metamorphoses are a case in point, as a subsequent show required a use of dirty unkempt wings to appear on stage and she could not resist recycling the Metamorphoses pair. Zimmerman noted how she had grown attached to the beautiful white wings and found herself excited to see them on stage again, although now mangled and ugly as if abused by time. They were a happy reminder of a previous success. Such ‘ghosting’ appears in many guises in theatrical work and is nicely summarized by Sofer, “[Marvin] Carlson reminds us that spectators bring associations from previous productions with them to the theater, and that these ‘ghosts’ color their experience of the current performance” (63). Although Sofer’s work calls attention to the ghosts that theater audiences may notice or imagine, Mary Zimmerman’s wings are an indication of how ghosts may appear for the artists creating the work.

Response to the Bloggers of Prompt 5

The blog posts were highly engaging, and I’m writing one post to react to them in general, because I saw several connections between them. Regarding sincerity, Jenna draws our attention to the title, suggesting that the audience knows ahead of time that the characters have been dealt an injustice, and the audience is already primed to believe in the characters’ innocence, and thereby judge their words sincere. Audience predisposition indeed seems an important factor. Just as important is the audience’s reaction to the performance itself. Ming, Justin, and Jennifer each pointed to the importance of the telling of the stories, rather than the over-emotionalized recreation or re-living of the events, as essential to the creation of a sense of sincerity within the performance of the play. I felt the same way—that it’s best to just tell the story rather than preach at the audience. Just as Blank and Jensen write “trust the stories” (xvi), I would add trust the audience.

Ming wrote of her reaction to the focus on the dialogue, which showed us that things weren’t fair, thus eliciting an emotional response in her. Justin also wrote about how the play focuses on dialogue, referring to the way Blank and Jensen pointedly do not follow Dawson’s Unity of Piscatorian Stage Devices, suggesting that to cover the stage with realia would have been cliché and resulted in a weakening of the authenticity of the play. I agree—the use of such realia would seem too self-conscious and detract from the story. It might even seem like the director was trying too hard to convince the audience that the stories were real, thus making the audience doubt the “truth” of the performance. The sparse set allows the audience to focus more on the words, the stories of the characters themselves. The audience can see the contradictions and the hypocrisy become apparent through the simplicity; the simplicity enhances the sense of sincerity. The dissonance between what we’re taught about how the system works and the way the system is shown to actually work is thus all the more powerful—especially when this gap is exploited by Rhodes to harm Sunny and Jesse (36). The audience also sees the dissonance they are feeling played out on stage in the characters who trust the system and are betrayed by it, such as Gary (30-31) and Sunny (43). It’s also felt when David’s prosecutor lies (44). The sense of sincerity felt by the audience does indeed contribute to the feeling that what they see is the truth. I’m not sure if Jennifer is equating the two when she writes “sincere/True” in her post, but I can see her point that the play’s simple telling of these six stories, because they are mediated and crafted, is not so different from Herzog manipulating facts to lead an audience to a realization of larger Truths. I’m not sure about the role of humor in creating this effect, but I do like Jennifer’s use of the phrase “dramatic testimony” to describe the play.

Would celebrity actors cause the “dramatic testimony” to feel less sincere? Would celebrity actors make it easier for spectators to “lose [their] sense of these characters as real people”, as Andrea asks? Would celebrity actors be distracting or would using them provide the distance necessary for theatricality? As Jennifer suggests in her post, I think it would draw the audience’s attention to the fact that it’s a set of stories being told to them second hand by actors. Rather than interpreting this as “an unproductive or unpurposeful phenomenological rupture,” as Justin posits in his post, I suggest the opposite: that the recognition of the celebrity would be beneficial because it would prevent the audience from slipping into the error of conflating the actor with the character—and it would thereby create the space necessary for the audience to engage in the process of theatricality. Here’s where the issue of trusting the audience comes up again. Create the conditions for theatricality and trust the audience to make meaning.

This brings us finally to the question of the role of theater, something that Ming deals with in her post. She questions whether people go to the theater “to take part in moral decisions,” asking “why is the best thing about theater a discussion about right and wrong?” She wonders whether this is because theaters are nominally secular cultural sites, in contrast to religious houses of worship such as churches, which therefore allow an audience more freedom to both have a moral reaction and to “consider the reasons why”—and I would add, for themselves. This seems reasonable. From a Marxist perspective, houses of worship seem like they can easily be places where ideological dogma is received uncritically by an already-receptive audience (this is not necessarily the case in reality), whereas a theater is potentially freer of such a dynamic (ideology is present in theater, too), thereby allowing more room for alternatives in terms of what is being presented (no dogma dictates what the priest preaches, or even whether there needs to be any preaching!), and also more room for interpretation, decision-making, and meaning-making by the critically-aware spectator observing the theatricality unfolding before them.