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The Ethics of Participation and Participation Gone Wrong

  • Kelly Jordan EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: November 15, 2019

Abstract

This article examines the way that ethics underpin and affect audience participation in contemporary theatre, illustrated in the performance practice of British-German ensemble Gob Squad. It looks at how a proliferation of participatory practices has opened up a space for ethics to be reconfigured, and establishes that the ethics of participation may intimate that a ‘good’ performance is interchangeable with the idea of an ‘authentic’ performance. It emphasises a double dimension to the ethics of participation: the first is concerned with the self and the second is about everyone else, drawing on the corresponding theories of Nicholas Ridout (2009) and Erving Goffman (1959). Importantly, the article disentangles participation gone wrong and brings into view a new categorisation of spectator which I am calling the ‘dis-spectator,’ who deliberately challenges the structures and processes of the performance. At the centre of the discussion are a group of hecklers in the audience of Gob Squad’s War and Peace (2016), and their targeted jeering at a participant-spectator. My analysis develops a taxonomy of dis-spectatorship that outlines varying levels of transgressive behaviour from testing out the boundaries of participation to sabotaging the performance. Lastly, I call attention to a lack of consideration given to care and responsibility in participatory practices, which can leave participants in a precarious position.

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Published Online: 2019-11-15
Published in Print: 2019-11-07

© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Frontmatter
  3. Articles
  4. The Ethics of Participation and Participation Gone Wrong
  5. Spoken Like a Gentleman: The Burden of the Voice in An Anonymous Woman’s MANWATCHING and Gary McNair’s Locker Room Talk
  6. “There is No Proof”: Fermat’s Last Theorem and Historical Reconstruction in Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia
  7. “Who Would Disagree that in a World of Trump and Putin and Boris Johnson ... Brecht Is Not the Theorist and Playwright of Our Times?”: Bertolt Brecht’s Influence on David Greig’s Work
  8. The Blakean Imagination and the Land in Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem
  9. Wellesley Girl: Emotion, Democracy, and the Contemporary Dystopia
  10. Catastrophic Futures: Tragic Children in Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman
  11. Approaches to Play Directing in Contemporary Nigerian Theatre: A Study of Segun Adefila and Bolanle Austen-Peters
  12. Reviews
  13. Eva Spambalg-Berend. Dramen der Abjektion: Der Umgang mit den “Mächten des Grauens” in den Theaterstücken Sarah Kanes. Trier: WVT, 2017, 273 pp., €29.90 (paperback).
  14. Jaclyn I. Pryor. Time Slips: Queer Temporalities, Contemporary Performance, and the Hole of History. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2017, xvi + 184 pp., $99.95 (hardback), $34.95 (paperback), $34.95 (PDF ebook).
  15. Alice O’Grady, ed. Risk, Participation, and Performance Practice: Critical Vulnerabilities in a Precarious World. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2017, xxiv + 264 pp., €89.99 (hardback), €74.96 (PDF ebook).
  16. Vera Cantoni. New Playwriting at Shakespeare’s Globe. London: Bloomsbury, 2018, iii + 238 pp., £67.50 (hardback), £64.80 (PDF ebook).
  17. Joslin McKinney, and Scott Palmer, eds. Scenography Expanded: An Introduction to Contemporary Performance Design. London: Bloomsbury, 2017, xvii + 216 pp., £63.00 (hardback), £22.99 (paperback), £19.86 (PDF ebook). Thea Brejzek, and Lawrence Wallen.The Model as Performance: Staging Space in Theatre and Architecture. London: Bloomsbury, 2018, x + 188 pp., £67.50 (hardback), £20.69 (paperback), £64.80 (PDF ebook).
  18. Michael Pearce. Black British Drama: A Transnational Story. London: Routledge, 2017, 228 pp., £110.00 (hardback), £29.99 (paperback), £24.99 (PDF ebook).
  19. Trish Reid. The Theatre of Anthony Neilson. London: Bloomsbury, 2017, viii + 215 pp., £75.00 (hardback), £18.99 (paperback), £81.00 (PDF ebook).
  20. David Palmer, ed. Visions of Tragedy in Modern American Drama. London: Bloomsbury, 2018, xxii + 250 pp., £65.00 (hardback), £13.99 (paperback), £11.87 (PDF ebook).
  21. Adam Alston, and Martin Welton, eds. Theatre in the Dark: Shadow, Gloom and Blackout in Contemporary Theatre. London: Bloomsbury, 2017, xv + 283 pp., £75.00 (hardback), £81.00 (PDF ebook).
  22. David Cameron, Rebecca Wotzko, and Michael Anderson. Drama and Digital Arts Cultures. London: Bloomsbury, 2017, vii + 332 pp., £67.50 (hardback), £64.80 (PDF ebook). Peter Eckersall, Helena Grehan, and Edward Scheer.New Media Dramaturgy: Performance, Media and New Materialism. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2017, xi + 236 pp., €103.99 (hardback), €83.29 (PDF ebook).
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