Re: RAT Politics and Theatre

[Cat Hebert <virtualdrama@juno.com>]

Mare,

I agree for the most part with Doug Rosson.

Since what you are focusing on in class is The Group Theatre, and the
question is "Where do theatre and political activism intersect", my
answer would be : when someone doing theater consciously intends for
their work to have a political effect on the audience.

By "political effect", I mean that the author/company *intend* to hold a
mirror up to society in a way that is intended to get people in the
audience thinking about their own lives (or the lives of other people --
as in apartheid) to the extent that they take action in the larger
society to effect change.

The Group Theatre, remember, was working in a situation where "ordinary"
people's lives were rarely reflected in theater -- it was considered
"vulgar". And so the effect of "Waiting for Lefty" was fairly powerful,
and had genuine political effects. (Oddly enough, a later production
[early Actor's Studio] "A Hatful of Rain", intended to be largely
psychological, also had political effects because of its "realistic"
treatment of drug addiction.)

And ... we really have to make the distinction between "intend to have a
political effect on the audience" and "is on a political subject" and
"inadvertently has a political effect on the audience -- as in Arsenic
and Old Lace, which raised euthanasia as an issue".

The most interesting bit of this for me has to do with the psychology of
delivering effective political messages through storytelling. For
example, here in Philadelphia we have constant demonstrations on behalf
of Mumia Abu-Jamal. That includes some street theatre which provides
caricatures and simple messages -- sort of like advertisements. These
pieces are intended [I was told] to "frame" the issues for passersby, but
in actuality act as reinforcement for the beliefs of the protestors. A
couple of these presentations (which tend to take place right outside my
gym) were so hostile and so poorly executed
that they clearly had an *opposite* effect on the passing audience, and,
I'm sorry to say, on me.

>From my point of view, a Jay Leno or Bill Maher one-liner has more
political effect than all of the agit-prop street theater in existence --
not only because of the range of the audience, but also because it is
carefully crafted to establish the relationship between the situation and
the point-of-view of the audience.

***
You can think of the distinction between politics and political activism
as either being the difference between established political parties and
less popular groups, or between people who send in checks on behalf of a
political cause and those who actively volunteer, protest, do speaking
engagements on behalf of that cause.

Cheers,
Cat Hebert


On Thu, 31 May 2001 21:59:21 -0600 "Mare Trevathan Philpott"
<eram@sprynet.com> writes:
> Okay wonderRATpowers activate!
> 
> I'm at Anne Bogart's SITI workshop in Saratoga Springs, NY.  As part 
> of her
> "Composition" class, I'm directing and composing with 4 actors a 
> piece on
> the Group Theatre.  The question we are looking at addressing is:
> 
> "Where do theatre and political activism intersect?"
> 
> There is some disagreement within OUR group about whether or not 
> this is an
> intriguing question as "all theatre is political."
> 
> What do you think?  Is it redundant?  A dead horse?
> 
> My position is that there is a distinction between politics and 
> political
> activism.  But I'm having trouble honing in on the articulation of 
> that
> distinction.
> 
> Thanks!
> mare
> Mare Philpott
> 
> 
> 
> 
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