Thinking Theatre
Why It’s Important to Think About Theatre
Positionality and Disclaimer:
I’m an aging, white, cisgender male. Living in Alberta for the greatest part of my life, I’ve been socialized into a colonizing, white supremist system. Through close personal relationships I’ve been introduced to the impacts of marginalization and exclusion on others, but I haven’t experienced them myself.
As a juror for the Sterling Awards I was obliged to attend, and evaluate, about eighty plays over a two-year period. Jurors were encouraged to look for excellence, with the assurance that as theatre practitioners we would recognize excellence when we saw it.
For the critical reader, the foregoing statement should have set off alarm bells. Because we were engaged in theatre in Edmonton, excellence will be defined in relation to the type of theatre that is produced in Edmonton, with few other criteria. Judith Butler, in her article “Conscience doth make subjects of us all,” engages in a fascinating discussion about mastery and submission. In theatrical terms, people wishing to move into professional arts practice must first master a whole range of educational curricula that structures their understanding of what theatre is, what makes for good theatre, and how theatre should be created. This mastery of the educational content is reflected in a simultaneous submission to the value judgements about theatre inherent in that education.
“the more something appears to be natural, the more it is cultural; one has only to ask in whose interests it is for the “naturalness” to appear to be so to begin to unpack the power structures by which it is operating”
– Johanna Drucker
Why Think About Theatre
Theatre is one of many cultural products that serve to reinforce or challenge preconceptions and beliefs about our lives and world. We act on those beliefs, and no one has the privilege of thinking that their actions or lack of action does not have an impact on other people and society. We are all entangled. When we buy something, our money goes to benefit some people and not others. When we participate in something, we support some ideas and not others. When we attend some plays and not others, we reinforce some narratives and not others. This shapes the world.
How to Think About Theatre
Theatre can be analyzed from different perspectives. Many people feel comfortable analyzing theatre from an aesthetic perspective like whether the set/lighting/acting/music/direction was well done, or experiential perspectives like if the play moved/shocked/thrilled/titillated/amused them.
Given that we’re all entangled in shaping the world through the plays we attend, I wanted to think about theatre in relation to the social power structures of Edmonton. To do that, I needed different perspectives than just my own personal experience, and so crafted a reading course through the Master of Arts – Interdisciplinary Studies program at Athabasca University. The course professor wanted me to focus on areas of theoretical analysis that were currently providing interesting opportunities for insight, and suggested the areas of Critical Theory, feminist/gender analysis, post- and de-colonial analysis, and intersectional analysis.
(I did not use any of these theoretical perspectives in my role as a Sterlings juror. Instead I used the aesthetic and experiential perspectives noted above. Since my picks for “excellence” seemed to line up fairly well with the other judges, I feel comfortable that I was functioning within the same broad guidelines of “what makes for good theatre” as they were.)
What kind of insights can be gained into Edmonton theatre by analyzing it through different theoretical lenses?
The good people at Theatre Alberta agreed to post some short blogs about the insights on their resources page. I’d like to especially thank Simone A. Medina Polo, Communications & Marketing Coordinator, who contributed to each blog post and to the additional readings list and was an invaluable editor. A link to each post is below.
Critical Theory relates to Edmonton theatre from the perspective that every play can be analyzed as a cultural product, designed by a specific cultural machine (theatre, for instance, is a machine for producing plays), for a specific purpose. It’s important to think about because we don’t live in an equitable society where everybody has the same amount of power, and if we want to make our city a better place to live for everyone then we should think about what power structures our plays support.
Read the blog here – Theoretical Foundations – Critical Theory
Feminist/gender analysis relates to Edmonton theatre in so many ways. For the purposes of the Theatre Alberta blog on this area I pursued the topic of subject formation, or how our identities are constructed and performed. However, feminist criticism also has many insights to explore, especially, in this case, the way gendered characters are portrayed on stage. Given the ongoing discussion around the world and in Alberta about gender roles, and the overall patriarchal nature of our theatre creative management, how women are portrayed on stage is important.
So what does it mean when the Citadel Theatre enjoys a huge success with Little Shop of Horrors, a musical from 1982 during which the lead female character is shown with broken limbs from a abusive relationship, is slapped on stage, and is finally fed to a plant singing about how she’s okay with that because it will help her man, and all of this in a comedic setting? By analyzing how the lead character is portrayed on stage, an argument could be made that this play normalizes and trivializes violence against women. Harsh criticism, perhaps, and counterarguments can be made, but it’s worth thinking about how gendered characters are portrayed on stage, and that’s one of the values brought by a feminist analysis of theatre.
You can read the blog here – Theoretical Foundations – Performing Ourselves
This was a challenging set of readings because it felt like forcing Indigenous theatre into any kind of western analytical framework was just replicating colonialism. Who am I as a white settler to analyze or discuss Indigenous theatre? It’s relevant, however, because we still impose our western standards of “what makes good theatre” on everyone, even when we pretend that our theatres are sites of inclusion. This blog post includes a post-script by Simone A. Medina Polo that broadens the discussion of colonization beyond a cultural lens.
You can read the blog here – Theoretical Foundations – Colonial Theatre and Edmonton
You can think of intersectionality as an attempt to look at multiple lenses at once, and it’s relevant to Edmonton theatre because theatre productions are sites of multiple power dynamics. As noted above, theatre education in secondary and post-secondary settings has a profound impact on not only the types of theatre produced, but also on the types of people who are considered valid theatre artists by the community. Funding bodies on the municipal, provincial, and federal levels all exert their influence on what’s produced. You as audience members have a big impact on what’s successful and what’s not.
You can read the blog here – Theoretical Foundations – Intersectionality and the Drawer Boy
Conclusion
We all work and live in a complex environment where we’re forced to make sense out of hundreds of cultural products every day, from commercials to TikTok videos to billboards to magazines to music. Most of us attend theatre to be entertained, and we don’t want to think too much about what we go to see.
Yet we also live in a world where harm is being done every day. Governments and other powerful groups try to convince us of their interests every day, and these interests aren’t necessarily the same as ours. Vulnerable members of society are abused. Indigenous people are still incarcerated and still homeless at a higher rate than any other group. Funding for the arts still disproportionately benefits Anglo-European stories.
We can’t fix all these things, and theatre, perhaps, was never meant to be anything more than entertainment. However, there’s nothing wrong with thinking a bit more about what we watch and support. The theoretical glimpses offered here are only one way to think about things. I’m sure you can find many more.
Works Cited
Butler, J. “Conscience doth make subjects of us all.” Yale French Studies, (88). 1995, pp.6-26.
Drucker, J. (2016). “At the intersection of computational methods and the traditional humanities” (pp 43-68). In R. Simanowski (Ed.), Digital humanities and digital media: Conversations on politics, culture, aesthetics and literacy. London: Open Humanities Press.