Theatricality as Medium

Chapter 1. Theatrocracy; or, Surviving the Break

1 Theatrocracy; or, Surviving the Break T h e r e l a t i o n between theater and politics has a long and vexed history. Of all the ‘‘arts,’’ theater most directly resembles politics insofar as traditionally it has been understood to involve the assemblage of people in a shared space. But the audience in the theater differs from the members of a political grouping: its existence is limited in time, whereas a polity generally aspires to greater duration. Theater acknowledges artificiality and artifice, whereas political communities are often construed in terms of a certain naturalness, an association underscored by the etymology of the word nation—deriving from Latin nasci, to be born.1 Political entities have historically derived their legitimacy from their ability to promote what is shared and common —a ‘‘commonwealth’’—whereas theater tends frequently to the extreme and to the exceptional.2 Politics is supposed to involve an appeal to reason, whereas theater frequently appeals unabashedly to desire and emotion. Finally, perhaps most important of all, politics as generally practiced claims to be the most effective means of regulating or at least controlling conflict, whereas theater flourishes by exacerbating it. Yet both the thinkers of politics and its practitioners have recognized a need to come to terms with theater, lest it wind up dictating its terms to them. One of the earliest and most illuminating articulations of this strained relation between politics and theatricality is to be found in book 3 of Plato’s Laws. As has often been noted, not the least significant of the paradoxes that mark Plato’s work is that such an eminently theatrical writer should have so profoundly mistrusted the political effects of theatricality. In the passage I am referring to from the Laws, the main speaker, called simply ‘‘The Athenian,’’ discusses the reasons for the decline of his city. He identifies as a major issue the way in which political communities respond to fear. Formerly, he recalls, his PAGE 31 31 ................. 11043$ $CH1 11-04-04 08:11:11 PS T h e a t r o c r a c y countrymen had been able to resist the onslaught of the Persians only because of two interrelated factors, both involving fear: fear of the enemy and of the consequences of defeat, and ‘‘that other fear instilled by subjection to preexisting law,’’ which allowed them to turn mere fear into disciplined resistance (699c).3 The Athenian concludes his historical review, however, with an ominous, if at first enigmatic, observation . Noting the obvious differences in the respective political histories of the Athenians and the Persians—how the latter ‘‘reduced the commonality to utter subjection, whereas we encouraged the multitude toward unqualified liberty’’—the Athenian asserts that such differences notwithstanding, ‘‘our fate has, in a way, been the same as that of the Persians’’ (699e). Megillus, one of his interlocutors, is understandably puzzled and asks for clarification. In response, the Athenian, somewhat surprisingly, invokes the history of music as an exemplary illustration of how liberty can degenerate into license and bring about the collapse of a state of law. In times gone by, he remembers , our music was divided into several kinds and patterns. . . . These and other types were definitely fixed, and it was not permissible to misuse one kind of melody for another. The competence to take cognizance of these rules, to pass verdicts in accord with them, and, in case of need, to penalize their infraction was not left, as it is today, to the catcalls and discordant outcries of the crowd, nor yet to the clapping of applauders; the educated made it their rule to hear the performances through in silence and for the boys, their attendants, and the rabble at large, there was the discipline of the official’s rod to enforce order. Thus, the bulk of the populace was content to submit to this strict control in such matters without venturing to pronounce judgment by its clamors. Afterward, in the course of time, an unmusical license set in with the appearance of poets who were men of native genius, but ignorant of what is right and legitimate in the realm of the Muses. Possessed by a frantic and unhallowed lust for pleasure, they contaminated laments with hymns and paeans with dithyrambs , actually imitated the strains of the flute on the harp, and created a universal confusion of forms. . . . By compositions of such a kind and discourse to the same effect, they naturally inPAGE 32 32 ................. 11043...