The One True Dave

Response (250-500 words) to Richard Schechner’s “Invasions Friendly and Unfriendly: The Dramaturgy of Direct Theatre”

I feel conflicted about Richard Schechner’s writing.  It is strong.  It comes from a place of great confidence.  It presents itself without doubt or question.  This makes me a little uneasy.  True, Dr. Schechner is a legitimate expert in Performance Studies.  He is incredibly well-read, well-researched and well-performed but there is something in his writing that strikes me as a little untouchable.  In this era of post-positivism, his voice is definitely present (though without using “I”).  This expert is not hidden from view.  Perhaps it is the fact he doesn’t cite anyone else within the text until page two.  (He does engage with the work of Rene Girard, Caillois and Victor Turner but with only nineteen citations over eighteen pages, it is not a rigorously supported as most of the other scholars we have looked at.)

Perhaps it is because he creates terms like “direct theatre” and riffs on the theme with “second theatre, tv news” (478) and “political direct theatre” (479) without defining the variations.  By his examples, I was under the impression that all direct theatre was political and the over-riding question was who is in control.  Also, if these are examples of direct theatre and television (and the mass media through extension) are second theatre, on what tier does theatre theatre reside on?  This is especially curious considering his invocation of Brecht and his introduction of tv’s “multivocality” (479) in his last (concluding?) paragraph.

Lastly, am uneasy about how he compares the protests in Tiananmen Square, the fall of the Berlin Wall, King Zulu at Marti Gras and Spring Break in Daytona.  The examples are strong and multifaceted in their clearly political, social and economic/capitalist resonances.  They clearly demonstrate Dr. Schechner’s thesis of the performativity of these events and how they are controlled by the prevailing power structure or instead by (unpredictable) masses of individuals.  I, however, feel it is somewhat disrespectful to the individual stakes and personal investment of the Chinese protestors, the citizens of both Germanys and the disenfranchised blacks in New Orleans to be lumped together with the orgy of consumption in Daytona without at least some differentiation made.  Perhaps it is this aloofness in Richard Schechner’s writing that I think is potentially dangerous and makes me uncomfortable coming from the “father” of performance studies.