More on In-Yer-Face Theatre
Several people have taken issue with my attack on the seeming lack of theatre history evidenced on the "In Yer Face Theatre" website section defining the style. And George is right: I have not read Sierz's book, nor do I find it listed as being in my library, nor in the library of the other two universities that serve as our interlibrary loan system. Nor has the book been reviewed in Theatre Journal, the leading academic journal in America. Apparently George assumes that I, "as a teacher of theater and drama at a major state university" should be aware of every book written on theatre. I would assure him that at my small (3000 student) public liberal arts college, where my teaching load is far higher than my colleagues' at the major research universities in the state, and where I also serve as the administrator of a general education program, time for reading every British tome that happens to be reviewed in New Theatre Quarterly is not possible.
Perhaps Sietz is aware of theatre history. Fine. Nevertheless, his definition doesn't exhibit much awareness, since it claims as unique things that have been done ad nauseum over the past century.
That question aside, I ask anyone who'd care to respond just what the value is of "In-Yer-Face Theatre"? What does it hope to accomplish? Why is such an approach effective in accomplishing it? How does it add to our understanding of the world in which we live? How does adding more violence, brutality, objectification, and crudity add to the art or to the world?
Perhaps Sietz is aware of theatre history. Fine. Nevertheless, his definition doesn't exhibit much awareness, since it claims as unique things that have been done ad nauseum over the past century.
That question aside, I ask anyone who'd care to respond just what the value is of "In-Yer-Face Theatre"? What does it hope to accomplish? Why is such an approach effective in accomplishing it? How does it add to our understanding of the world in which we live? How does adding more violence, brutality, objectification, and crudity add to the art or to the world?
Comments
The answer is simple -
Catharsis.
As our world becomes more complex, fragmented, violent, etc.
So shall much of the art.
As I hinted briefly, I am not enamoured of all the writers captured under that banner. But I can see a lot of value in Sarah Kane's work, or David Harrower's, which certainly to my mind "adds to our understanding of the world in which we live". I'm not up to defending this kind of work, which has been done much better by others, but I will say that qualities I admire in these writers are their poetic language and - yes - ethical truthfulness. What does it seek to accomplish? Theatre, I think...
you say: "What does it hope to accomplish? Why is such an approach effective in accomplishing it? How does it add to our understanding of the world in which we live? How does adding more violence, brutality, objectification, and crudity add to the art or to the world?"
We have so much to say as artists. Society is constructing walls in front of our voices. We must break through. This is simply another tactic. These people want to shock people into looking in the mirror through visceral means and use theatre as a place to do something other than just stage some play that's really pretty that you've wanted to do for years.
As for the violence, brutality, etc. It reminds me of Stephen Colbert's tactic on his new show where, as a huge liberal, he plays a hardcore, america-loving, right wing nut... by doing so, he becomes a living satire, and exposes that which he wants to condemn by living inside of it.
As far as it being "the same" as Jarry, Artuad, etc. There is definitely a similar impulse and aim... but why say that we can still do traditional shakespeare or Sophocles, or even tried and true Neil Simon... but we can't go back to the avant-garde's roots? You can't condemn them for repetition...
It seems to me incredibly important to remember that violence in the theatre (or any art) is not the same as violence in real life, by a long stretch. It is and does something else. And the kind of condemnation it often attracts mystifies me, especially in theatre, where to put something on stage is already to engage metaphor, to summon imagination - the representation of awful realities seems sometimes to attract more outrage than the real-life situations they are drawn from. None of Kane's most shocking scenes are worse - they don't even approach it - than things that happen daily in your favourite war zone. It's only art, after all...by which I mean a strength, not a dismissal.
From my experience, you'll find Sierz's book on the shelves of just about every Literary Manager or Dramaturg's office in Australia or Britain. And they will refer to it in discussions. If it's not being used in a teaching institution, then perhaps that goes to reinforce the distance between practice and the academy as regards theatre today.
As for the question of why put violence on-stage, I'd like to put another question. Why do the critics who desire so much to see affirmations of the "hero" or of a generalised good in the human spirit react with such violent vitriol to such representations?
One of the questions often of young playwrights asked in the world of bad dramaturgy is, where's the hope? To paraphrase Berger, the hope is in the expression of the voice itself. We can only hope that the expression is crafted or artful. Why would there be artful monuments to the Shoah if every representation had to display some kind of triumph of the will?