A Victory for Real People: Dangers in the Discourse of Democratisation
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Liz Tomlin
Liz Tomlin is Senior Lecturer in Theatre Studies at the University of Glasgow. She has published many journal articles and book chapters in the field of European contemporary theatre and performance (post-1990) through the lens of political and cultural theory. Her first monograph Acts and Apparitions: Discourses on the Real in Performance Practice and Theory 1990–2010 (Manchester University Press) was published in 2013, and she edited the third volume of British Theatre Companies 1995–2014 with Methuen Drama (2015). In 2017 she initiated the research network Incubate: Propagate which seeks, in partnership with Arts funding bodies, promoters and producers, to examine trends in emerging theatre practice. Between 1999–2009, she was the writer for and co-director of Point Blank Theatre and she continues developing her research-led practice in writing for performance and contemporary dramaturgies of theatre-making.
Abstract
In this essay, I will examine the development of a growing trend of democratisation in British contemporary theatre that seeks to reject the expertise of playwrights, actors or professional ensembles in favour of verbatim material drawn from a range of the public selected for their ordinariness, or conceptual frameworks within which the audience themselves construct and perform the aesthetic content of the work.This essay seeks to highlight how the discursive and aesthetic framing of real people in this context can, in certain instances, be seen to reflect the construction of ‘real, ordinary people’ in the political discourse surrounding the 2016 EU Referendum in the UK. In both cases, ‘real people’ are understood to be in opposition to those who might be said to hold particular professional expertise and also, commonly, to those of a more privileged socio-economic status: the so-called ‘liberal elite.’ With reference to Rimini Protokoll’s 100 % Salford, The National Theatre of Great Britain’s My Country and Kaleider’s The Money I will suggest that this particular discourse of democratisation, in both politics and theatre, can too easily conceal the expertise that lies behind the construction of ‘real people’ and their narratives.
About the author
Liz Tomlin is Senior Lecturer in Theatre Studies at the University of Glasgow. She has published many journal articles and book chapters in the field of European contemporary theatre and performance (post-1990) through the lens of political and cultural theory. Her first monograph Acts and Apparitions: Discourses on the Real in Performance Practice and Theory 1990–2010 (Manchester University Press) was published in 2013, and she edited the third volume of British Theatre Companies 1995–2014 with Methuen Drama (2015). In 2017 she initiated the research network Incubate: Propagate which seeks, in partnership with Arts funding bodies, promoters and producers, to examine trends in emerging theatre practice. Between 1999–2009, she was the writer for and co-director of Point Blank Theatre and she continues developing her research-led practice in writing for performance and contemporary dramaturgies of theatre-making.
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© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Introduction
- Nation and Negation (Terrible Rage)
- “Can I Tell You about It?”: England, Austerity and “Radical Optimism” in the Theatre of Anders Lustgarten
- Theatricalizing the National Housing Crisis in Mike Bartlett’s Game and Philip Ridley’s Radiant Vermin
- BlackLivesMatter: Remembering Mark Duggan and David Oluwale in Contemporary British Plays
- Fake News and Drama: Nationalism, Immigration and the Media in Recent British Plays
- Experiencing Nationlessness: Staging the Migrant Condition in Some Recent British Theatre
- Multiculturalism, (Im)Migration, Theatre: The National Arts Centre, Ottawa, a Case of Staging Canadian Nationalism
- ‘For We Are American’: Postmodern Pastiche and National Identity in Anne Washburn’s Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play
- ‘The State of Us’: Challenging State-Led Narratives through Performance during Ireland’s ‘Decade of Centenaries’
- The State We’re in: Violence and Working-Class Women on and off the Contemporary Irish Stage
- Before the Fall: Looking Back on the Royal Shakespeare Company’s “This Other Eden” Season (2001)
- From Chimera to Reality: Lucy Kirkwood’s Chimerica or ‘What State Are We in?’
- Does Verbatim Theatre Still Talk the Nation Talk?
- “What I’m Aspiring to Be Is a Good Dramatist”: Alecky Blythe in Conversation with Chris Megson
- A Victory for Real People: Dangers in the Discourse of Democratisation
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Introduction
- Nation and Negation (Terrible Rage)
- “Can I Tell You about It?”: England, Austerity and “Radical Optimism” in the Theatre of Anders Lustgarten
- Theatricalizing the National Housing Crisis in Mike Bartlett’s Game and Philip Ridley’s Radiant Vermin
- BlackLivesMatter: Remembering Mark Duggan and David Oluwale in Contemporary British Plays
- Fake News and Drama: Nationalism, Immigration and the Media in Recent British Plays
- Experiencing Nationlessness: Staging the Migrant Condition in Some Recent British Theatre
- Multiculturalism, (Im)Migration, Theatre: The National Arts Centre, Ottawa, a Case of Staging Canadian Nationalism
- ‘For We Are American’: Postmodern Pastiche and National Identity in Anne Washburn’s Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play
- ‘The State of Us’: Challenging State-Led Narratives through Performance during Ireland’s ‘Decade of Centenaries’
- The State We’re in: Violence and Working-Class Women on and off the Contemporary Irish Stage
- Before the Fall: Looking Back on the Royal Shakespeare Company’s “This Other Eden” Season (2001)
- From Chimera to Reality: Lucy Kirkwood’s Chimerica or ‘What State Are We in?’
- Does Verbatim Theatre Still Talk the Nation Talk?
- “What I’m Aspiring to Be Is a Good Dramatist”: Alecky Blythe in Conversation with Chris Megson
- A Victory for Real People: Dangers in the Discourse of Democratisation
