Unsustainable Acts of Love and Resistance: The Politics of Value and Cost in One-on-One Performances

One-on-one performance, particularly those examples of the genre that take on a political perspective, offer theatre makers and -goers alike an alternative value, composed of a sense of importance, worth, or usefulness beyond the parameters of the stage. But does this conceptual value offset the genre’s inherent financial unsustainability? Exploring “value” versus “cost” in my 2012 site-specific collaboration with Allison Cummings, The Queen West Project, I will also be considering works from Adrian Howells and Jess Dobkin, to contend that politically themed one-on-one performances provide value precisely because their budgets do not fit into a comfortable capitalist model of exchange.