An Analysis of Modern Theatre - Essay Example

An analysis of Modern theatre An analysis of Modern theatre Written with a Marxist intent, or at least a Marxist bent of mind, John McGrath’s A Good Night Out and Mikhail Bakhtin’s Rabelais and his World talk about the possibility of a theater that is not restricted to the upper class white audience that it was restricted to for a long time in the West. These two theorists talk about forms of literature that may have a democratizing influence. While Rabelais and his World is not strictly a work on theatre, its influence spreads across genres. Bakhtin’s idea of the carnivalesque has been taken up by other theorists who have looked upon his contribution as something that destabilizes the equations between tragic and comic forms of theatre. Both these writers created their theories during times of political ferment when the place of the working class person was not a static one. The fluidity that this position offered gave a lot of scope for thinkers like McGrath and Bakhtin. Both these thinkers looked upon the conventions of theatre that privileged a catharsis inducing performance of a play as detrimental to the political fabric of modern democracies. They were thus, according to them, outdated. The principles of tragedy and theatre in general, which pointed to catharsis, a mixture of pity and fear that prevented praxis on the part of the spectator and led him to look at the play as nothing but a fiction could not, or should not be applied to modern theatre, according to these thinkers. This is not to say that theatre in modern times have or have not adhered to these principles. While there have been adaptations of plays that do not seek to do anything but glorify imperial assumptions of race and class, there have also been ones that are political and seek to challenge the very assumptions that the earlier plays held. It is surprising that many of such plays began through a reversal of earlier roles as they were seen. One can look at the play A Tempest and understand its political implications through the reversal of the traditional roles of Caliban and Prospero. The heroic role is played by Caliban who is a monster in William Shakespeare’s version (Cesaire, 2002). This reversal of roles comes at the back of many changes that took place in theatre during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries when the ideals that Aristotle had laid down for theatre had been completely demolished. Even naturalist ideas that had dominated theatre for a while had been pulled down and new fluid conventions were erected in their place. Importance started to be given to the common man who then became the protagonist in many important plays. One of the most important examples of this can be seen in Arthur Miller’s play, Death of a Salesman, where the protagonist, Willy Loman is a common salesman whose death forms the major part of the story (Miller, 2007). This needs to be looked at in conjunction with the theories that were propounded by John McGrath. In his book, he says, You go into a space, and some other people use certain devices to tell you a story. Because they have power over you, in a real sense, while you are there, they make a choice, with political implications, as to which story to tell - and how to tell it…. If their work is good and skillfully written, presented and acted, we come out feeling exhilarated: we are more alive for seeing it, more aware of the possibilities of the human race, more fully human ourselves. So far, so wonderfully universal. But this story we watch can have a meaning: a very specific meaning. What if we are black, say, and we go to see some splendidly effective, but com­pletely racist theatre show? Are we quite so exhilarated? Quite so fully human? Or would we not feel demeaned, excluded from humanity, diminished in our possibilities and a great deal more pessimistic about the future of the human race than when we went in? The meaning, and value, of theatre can clearly change from country to country, group to group, and - significantly - from class to class (McGrath, 1996). The political nature of theatre is something that McGrath feels is a characteristic of plays that are similar in form to the pantomime that exemplifies the needs and desires of the working class. He looks at the rise of a theatre that is working class in its sensibilities and does not conform to the stereotypes that are associated with the working class in terms of their quality. These plays are of an extremely high quality and often subvert the very ideas that are associated with quality by hegemonic power structured that are more often than not, white and middle class. McGrath constantly pokes fun at these assumptions and calls for a look into the very idea of the body. The body is an important part of this theatre and these form the very crux of the genre of pantomime. The exaggerated movements that are a part of the pantomime seek to demonstrate the role of the outside world. This again reveals the Marxist leanings that McGrath exhibits in his writings. This can be deduced from the similarities that are there between his writings and those of the great playwright Bertolt Brecht, who thought of all that happened on stage as a mere demonstration that needed to remind the audience of the outside world (Brecht, 2000). For this, there is, in pantomime, the illusion of an almost bodily connection between the audience and the actors. The exaggerated movements of the actors seek to bring the audience too within its grasp and create a social unity. This unity refers to a unity that is created by the togetherness of the people involved as part of the same society outside the theatre and not to an organic society. What comes to mind in this discussion is the play, The Accidental Death of an Anarchist. The play derives a lot of its elements from the genre of pantomime and the silent actions that the madman performs combines elements from Brecht’s epic theatre and also from the traditional genre of the pantomime. The character of the madman through actions that are supported by his bodily movements creates a tension between himself and the audience as a result of an almost complete rupture of the traditional fourth wall of naturalism (Innes, 2000). The madman, by jumping around on the stage and by referring to events that are of great political significance to the audience, makes himself a part of them (Fo, 2000). The specific political events that he refers to do not turn the play into a pantomime. However, it does show influences of the pantomime. Dario Fo, famous for his ability to take on the political system, does it through a reliance on support from an enlightened working class, something that is advocated by John McGrath in his writings. The Marxist leaning is present in both these writers even though they are suspicious of the way in which Marxist organizations worked in their own eras. The carnivalesque is a theory that was developed by Mikhail Bakhtin to explain the role of carnival and the organic role that it had to play in society. Through his book Rabelais and his World, he seeks to understand the phenomenon of carnivals that were a part of the Middle Ages. It is this very spirit of the carnival that informs the work of Rabelais and this is why he chooses to analyze the trope of the carnivalesque through a discussion of Rabelais. He talks of the lack of control and the dissolution of hierarchies that characterizes a work like Gargantua and Pantagruel and the carnivals in general. In Gargantua and Pantagruel, a general excess in the way ordinary events occur leads to a dissolution of hierarchies that would otherwise have prevailed (Rabelais, 1999). This spirit of the carnivalesque also means that people in high positions shall be subjected to a certain amount of critique as the positions are destabilized and the very concept of a hierarchy is under the scanner (Bakhtin, 1995). The importance of the carnivalesque lies in the fact that it can be used to analyze plays that were written at almost any point of time in history. It can be used to analyze a situation that is not ordinary and causes people in relatively higher positions to assume ridiculous avatars. This can be seen in the fact that the power of the comic is what the carnivalesque relies on for realizing its revolutionary potential. There can also be certain points where plays use instances that are out of the ordinary and supernatural, as a part of the carnivalesque and the effect may also be tragic. The case of Macbeth, where forests are moved to unsettle the order of the universe is an example that comes to mind. Here, however, the supernatural is employed to restore the original order of the universe and to punish the murderer that Macbeth is. It is also to fulfill the prophecies of the witches and thus, restore a certain kind of order (Shakespeare, 2000). This is precisely what the carnivalesque aims not to do. It aims to unsettle the order and create changes in the existing social order. There are however, problems with the idea of the carnivalesque when one looks at the entire issue through a feminist perspective. The unsettling of hierarchies may provide an option for women to transcend their positions in patriarchal societies but this is not usually how the situation works out. This can be seen in a work like The Rover. This work that came out during the Restoration Period is something that exposed the inadequacies of the carnivalesque in revolutionizing the position of women in the society and also of the inability of the carnivalesque in bringing change in patriarchal societies. On the other hand, it also victimizes them at more levels than one. It gives men the license to victimize women as is seen in the play. The character Angelica Bianca is victimized by the male characters in the play and her attempt to move up the ladder is not successful. Apart from this, the respectable ladies in the play are also looked upon as ‘loose women’ as a result of the carnivalesque that is a part of the play. Aphra Behn discusses the role of the woman artist during the Restoration Period, which was quite pathetic (Behn, 2005). The age, which was like a long carnival after the repressive Lent of the Orwellian regime that was Puritan, presented a problematic age for women who were seen as objects who were then victimized by the cavaliers. This aspect of the carnivalesque does not find mention in the works of other theorists. The democratizing aspect of the two frameworks that have been discussed in this paper is what connects the two of them. The importance of these two theories in the development of theatre in the twentieth century is seminal, to say the least. Theatre in the twentieth century has developed a non-elitist outlook and this can be seen even in the structure of the theatre that is less class-based than the ones that were a feature of theatre in earlier eras. These are the result of ground-breaking changes that were brought about by great playwrights such as Arthur Miller, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet and others. The changes that were a part of other genres were also incorporated into the genre of drama. The role of theorists is very large in these changes and therefore, an analysis of the theoretical structures that were instrumental in furthering the changes that were being brought about by dramatists is essential to an understanding of drama and the literature that has come out during the twentieth century. Like the literature of most ages, it enables a better understanding of the social, political and legal structures of the times that one is living in. Works Cited Bakhtin, M.M., 2009. Rabelais and his World, Indiana U P. Pp 28-38 Behn, A., 2005. The Rover, Worldview. Pp 56 Brecht, B., A Short Organum to the Theatre, Worldview. Pp 3-6 Cesaire, A., 2002. A Tempest, TCG Translations. Pp 5-18 Fo, D., 2000. Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Worldview. Pp 68 Innes, C., 2000. A Sourcebook on Naturalist Theatre, Routledge. Pp 3-4 McGrath, J., 1996. A Good Night Out, Nick Hern. Pp 1-2 Miller, A., 2007. Death of a Salesman, Penguin. Pp 12, 87 Rabelais, 1999.Gargantua and Pantagruel, Penguin. Pp 29 Shakespeare, W., 2000. Macbeth, Arden. Pp 70-2 Read More