{"title":"Creative Interpretation and the Politics of Failure","authors":"Leopold Lippert","doi":"10.1515/jcde-2023-0025","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"In this article, I ask what happens to theatrical performance when it fails. By describing a performance as “failed,” I do not necessarily imply its normative dismissal – as a “flawed” enactment or an artistic vision not properly executed. Instead, I use failure as a conceptual starting point for the articulation of alternative meaning-making practices. In this sense, failure is a form of creative interpretation that capitalizes on performance’s constitutive contingency, its structural unreliability that for many is part of its appeal, the very “magic” only a gathering of live bodies can create. Specifically, the article looks at two recent US American plays and one musical in order to discuss the theatrical politics of failure: Moisés Kaufman and Tectonic Theater Project’s <jats:italic>The Laramie Project</jats:italic> (2000), Ayad Akhtar’s <jats:italic>The Who and the What</jats:italic> (2014), and Dave Malloy’s <jats:italic>Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812</jats:italic> (2012). By discussing the ways in which these pieces and their performances creatively address failure, I point to three formal and cultural dimensions in which failure can be mobilized theatrically: first, failure problematizes the easy formal subsumption of performance under production, pointing to the ways in which a specific performance may not adequately actualize the conceptual work of the production, be it because audiences intervene in ways not intended by the production or because performers deviate from the production’s script in one way or another. Second, failure can be mobilized to reveal tacit cultural conventions or standards of success that entrench particular (classist, racist, sexist, ableist, etc.) normative behaviors. And third, failure can enable more creative approaches to the relationship between the labor of theater practitioners and its exchange value for spectators, who paid – at least – the price of a theater ticket and typically expect some form of artistic professionalism as remuneration.","PeriodicalId":41187,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Contemporary Drama in English","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2023-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Contemporary Drama in English","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jcde-2023-0025","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"THEATER","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
In this article, I ask what happens to theatrical performance when it fails. By describing a performance as “failed,” I do not necessarily imply its normative dismissal – as a “flawed” enactment or an artistic vision not properly executed. Instead, I use failure as a conceptual starting point for the articulation of alternative meaning-making practices. In this sense, failure is a form of creative interpretation that capitalizes on performance’s constitutive contingency, its structural unreliability that for many is part of its appeal, the very “magic” only a gathering of live bodies can create. Specifically, the article looks at two recent US American plays and one musical in order to discuss the theatrical politics of failure: Moisés Kaufman and Tectonic Theater Project’s The Laramie Project (2000), Ayad Akhtar’s The Who and the What (2014), and Dave Malloy’s Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 (2012). By discussing the ways in which these pieces and their performances creatively address failure, I point to three formal and cultural dimensions in which failure can be mobilized theatrically: first, failure problematizes the easy formal subsumption of performance under production, pointing to the ways in which a specific performance may not adequately actualize the conceptual work of the production, be it because audiences intervene in ways not intended by the production or because performers deviate from the production’s script in one way or another. Second, failure can be mobilized to reveal tacit cultural conventions or standards of success that entrench particular (classist, racist, sexist, ableist, etc.) normative behaviors. And third, failure can enable more creative approaches to the relationship between the labor of theater practitioners and its exchange value for spectators, who paid – at least – the price of a theater ticket and typically expect some form of artistic professionalism as remuneration.
在这篇文章中,我要问的是戏剧表演失败后会发生什么。用“失败”来形容一场表演,我并不一定是在暗示它的规范性被抛弃——作为一场“有缺陷的”演出,或者一种没有被恰当执行的艺术愿景。相反,我使用失败作为概念的起点,以表达不同的意义创造实践。从这个意义上说,失败是一种创造性的解释形式,它利用了表演的构成偶然性,它的结构不可靠性,对许多人来说,这是它的吸引力的一部分,是只有活人聚集才能创造的“魔力”。具体来说,本文着眼于最近的两部美国戏剧和一部音乐剧,以讨论失败的戏剧政治:mois Kaufman和Tectonic Theater Project的the Laramie Project (2000), Ayad Akhtar的the Who and the What(2014),以及Dave Malloy的Natasha, Pierre &1812年大彗星(2012年)。通过讨论这些作品及其表演创造性地处理失败的方式,我指出了三个形式和文化维度,在这些维度中,失败可以被戏剧性地调动起来:首先,失败使演出在制作过程中很容易被正式纳入问题,指出具体的表演可能无法充分实现作品的概念工作,可能是因为观众以非制作意图的方式进行干预,或者因为表演者以这样或那样的方式偏离了作品的剧本。其次,失败可以被动员起来,以揭示隐性的文化习俗或成功的标准,这些文化习俗或标准巩固了特定的(阶级主义、种族主义、性别歧视、残疾主义等)规范行为。第三,失败可以让我们用更有创造性的方法来研究戏剧从业者的劳动与其对观众的交换价值之间的关系,观众至少支付了一张剧院门票的价格,通常期望某种形式的艺术专业精神作为报酬。