Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Why is Political Theatre so bad?

An article about something I've often wondered- if so much great art, Blake and Dostoyevsky and Aristophenes and such, could be roughly considered "political", why is so much "political art" so lousy?

Specifically, the author is talking about "political theatre" which has seen a resurgence similar to "politcal documentaries" in recent years. Honestly, the documentaries that have come out could perhaps be called "propaganda" if it weren't for the fact that propaganda usually paints an all-too-rosy picture of someone in power and a bleak picture of someone else. These ones just paint an all-too-bleak picture of some Republican or other and call it a day. Not surprisingly, most of them are fairly boring and devoid of nuance. Maybe the best word for them would be "Slant-u-mentaries". You heard it here first.

As for the plays, there are quite a few which seem to resort to "She's tied to the railroad tracks!" melodrama, but with Donald Rumsfeld or the President in the "villian" role. If you've seen any of the recent "political theatre" you know that they pretty much expect the audience to be "progressive" in the most knee-jerk unreflexive way. The President is evil. The people are good. Mix, stir and serve. This actually comes from a long tradition in the theatre of boring political art. "Social realism" may have been interesting in the 1920s to communists, but have you ever tried to sit through one of those things today? They usually can be summed up as "Tom: the Boringly Goodhearted Factory Worker Who Gets Betrayed at Every Turn". Zzzzzzzz...

But, I think the problem is that we're living in a post-nuance age. Everyone seems to need a group to belong to, or a church of some sort to outsource their thinking to. But, the artist has to thrive on nuance, as well as beauty. Remember beauty? The President would make a great theatrical character; even though I disagree with many of his decisions and ideas, it's not hard to recognize that he is a human being who is doing what he thinks is right. There's almost something Faustian about his methods, but mixed with a belief in the goodness and freedom-searching of other men that could be considered, dare I say it? Rousseaunean... What a great character in a play. But, it's as if people can't think at a level above "comic book" anymore. One gets the feeling that a director today would return Beckett's work with a note like, "Okay, but what race is Mother Courage? And how does she feel about gays?" The problem doesn't just effect theatre. Have you watched any movies lately? Art requires nuance and challenge, or it's boring. And quite a bit of contemporary art pats us on the back and tells us what we'd like to hear... and is dutifully described as "challenging" by the art-world press.

To be fair, plenty of contemporary conservatives seem to be liberals who were mugged by reality and are now doing everything they can to make sure it doesn't happen ever again. The complacent simplemindedness of "Why do they keep harping on torture? It's not like bin Laden wouldn't torture!" is breathtaking. But, conservatives don't write plays, and aside from passion plays, they don't seem to stage any. "Progressives" do, and if they don't start staging plays that reveal even the slightest level of thought, they're going to keep sending their audience home whistling the cant. But, not me.

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