Brecht and Artaud Through the Lens of Ardorno

Amanda asks: "Write about how we can change theatre to bring it into the 21^st century, and bring it into the lives of our communities and in turn bring them back again and again.  New Scripts? Perform in streets and barns?"

I would like to approach this question by first looking at the different ways in which Brecht and Artaud react against naturalism. I will then appeal to Theodore Adorno in assessing which approach is most in line with that particular kind of truth proper to theatre. 

Artaud: “If the public does not frequent our literary masterpieces, it is because those masterpieces are literary, that is to say, fixed; and fixed in forms that no longer respond to the needs of the time.” 

Brecht: "We need a type of theatre which not only releases the feelings, insights and impulses within the particular historical field of human relations in which the action takes place, but employs and encourages those thoughts and feelings which help transform the field itself." 

The two men differ most in what they see as the "needs of the time." For Brecht, who was deeply influenced by Marxism, man is conditioned by social circumstances. Change, therefore, must be sought in the social context within which man is embedded - the "historical field of human relations." For Brecht, theatre is placed in service to social change. His method for effecting change is the "alienation technique." Here an actor impersonates the character, yet remains himself; the stage represents reality, yet remains a stage. The audience member is thus prevented from identifying too closely with the character. What is important is that the actions and language of the play affect the audience members conscious life instead of the subconscious. This prevents the audience from becoming mere passive recipient of "entertainment." The point is not to wallow in emotion but to reflect critically on the issues that are represented on the stage. 

Artaud, on the other hand, wants theatre to bring man back to a state of original purity; untainted by the over-rationalization of western civilization. Where Brecht appeals to man's critical judgement and intellect (and thus stands within the enlightenment project), Artaud's goal is to reveal the unconscious forces denied by our culture. His "medicine" for the current ills of modern civilization is to furnish "the spectator with the truthful precipitates of dreams, his taste for crime, his erotic obsession, his savagery…even his cannibalism”, (Artaud 92). Healing is achieved when the audience confronts their own collective repressed desires buried in the subconscious. The ills in society cannot be mediated through intellectual analysis but rather, through an acknowledgment of those irrational forces and desires which our civilization has repressed. 

In light of these two approaches, what can we say to Amanda's question, "How can we change theatre to bring it into the 21st century?" Should we follow Brecht in his concern with social-political issues or should we look to Artaud in his emphasis on bringing to light the primitive purity and savagery of the individual which lies buried in the subconscious? Perhaps the question needs to be re-framed out of "either/or" land."

In, Commitment, Theodore Adorno writes about the controversy between “two positions on objectivity”: 1) a work of art this is committed and, 2) a work of art this is autonomous. In the “committed” position, we find both cultural conservatives and liberal progressives who believe that a work of art should “say something.” In the “autonomous” camp, we have those who believe in “art for art’s sake.” I could be misreading him, but it seems to me that you could put Brecht in the committed camp and Artaud in the autonomous camp. 

In the course of his article, Adorno calls these two alternatives into question and offers a more nuanced position. Following the aesthetics of Immanuel Kant, Adorno believes that “fine” or “beautiful” art is characterized by a kind of autonomy in that “the work of art… does not have an end.” However, following Marx, Adorno also emphasizes the fact that art is always embedded within a particular society. He writes: “There is no material content, no formal category of artistic creation, however mysteriously transmitted and itself unaware of the process, which did not originate in the empirical reality from which it breaks free” (p. 190).

For Adorno therefore, in an authentic work of art, there is an unavoidable tension within the socio-historical process from which the work of art arises and to which it belongs. These tensions enter the artwork “through the artist’s struggle with socio-historically laden materials, and they call forth conflicting interpretations” (Sanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Adorno sees these tensions and conflicts as “contradictions” to be worked out in the piece of art.

It is from this premise that he criticizes those who ascribe to either of the “two positions on objectivity” mentioned above. The work of Brecht for instance, is infected by the deceptions of his political commitment. According to Adorno, Brecht engaged in aesthetic reduction in that his pursuit for political truth gets in the way of his ability to accurately tell the truth. On the opposite front, those who attempt to create works of art ex nihilo and react against empirical reality, are in truth subject to the forces of that reality. Although he doesn't mention Artaud in his article, I wonder if he would criticize him for being a-historical. Artaud appeals to some primal purity but if man is always and already embedded within a social and historical context, the idea that we can ever return to a place of primal purity is nonsense. 

To grasp the “truth” of a piece of artwork, Adorno believed that one must grasp both the internal dynamics of the piece and the dynamics of the socio-political totality to which the artwork belongs.  In other words, the truth content of a piece of theatre is not a metaphysical idea or essence living somewhere outside of the artwork. Neither however, is it merely a human construct: “It is historical but not arbitrary; nonpropositional, yet calling for propositional claims to be made about it; utopian in its reach, yet firmly tied to specific societal conditions.” Truth content is thus the way in which an artwork “simultaneously challenges the way things are and suggests how things could be better, while leaving them practically unchanged” (Sanford Enclyclopedia).

In terms of how we should "change theatre to bring it into the 21st century," I have no idea. I suppose it would have something to do with creating something that brings together the different aspects of humanity which Brecht and Artaud respectively deal with. 

Naturalism

The prompt question for this week asks two things::

1.  Distinguish between the show that you just enjoyed (made you laugh, cry, upset, or was entertaining, etc..) from a production that really informed or convinced you of something True.
2.  Is there a difference between performances that offer some kind of (new or newly clarified) truth versus performances that strive for documentary “verbatim” or naturalistic reality?

For Naturalism, truthfulness in the theater is about creating the illusion of reality with totally authentic and naturalistic stage pictures. Pickering and Thompson claim that Naturalists took three related ideas to create their doctrine: "scientific enquiry, materialism and pictorial realism." They go on to say that it was perhaps more particularly, "the invention of photography to present images of life that were more 'truthful' and accurate than had ever been seen before, which contributed significantly to the passion for visual realism." As Joe points out, Pickering and Thompson claim that contemporary documentary theater is a legacy of Naturalism. The goal is to present events objectively, "with the exact word spoken without emphasis, quite naturally."

This connection between Naturalism and Documentary theater is interesting in light of our experience last fall with Spill. Spill was a documentary style play with elements of verbatim reality and yet, it was also highly theatrical. Instead of merely having the actors recite the testimonies of the survivors of the Deepwater Horizon, the actors engaged in a choreographed sequences with movement, lighting, projection and sound to give the audience an experience of this tragedy.

Drawing primarily from my experience with this play I can say yes, there is difference between performances that offer some kind of clarified truth and those that strive for "verbatim" reality. Tectonic Theatre operates under a larger notion of truth than the pictorial realism of Naturalism. For example in Spill, truth can be conveyed symbolically - (I'm thinking in particular of the rig explosion scene).

A larger question (which I don't have the energy to explore right now) concerns the concept of truth. I would argue that Naturalism's concept of truth is reductionist and ultimately dangerous to true function of theatre. We can perhaps discuss this further when we get to Artaud.

Reggie Watts - Subversive Nonsense

Judith Butler claims that if identity is based upon performances, then this opens the possibility that we may perform differently than expected. In speaking about gender norms, she writes: "If the 'I' is the effect of a certain repetition, one which produces the semblance of a continuity or coherence, then there is no 'I' that precedes the gender that it is said to perform." If this is true, then we can alter performative acts in ways that undermine or subvert how they're "supposed" to be performed. 

A wonderful example of this type of subversion can be seen in the work of Reggie Watts. Attached is a ten minute Ted Talk video offered by Watts, followed by an analysis of his work by Seth Abramson of the Huffington Post. 

Reggie Watt's Ted Talk

In what follows I will summarize some of Abramson's points. However, to fully appreciate his argument, I encourage you to read it first hand. 

Abramson begins his article by distinguishing between postmodernism and meta-modernism. The post-modernists, according to Abramson, are those who contend generally that "there is no stable self, no stable Truth, no stable language, no notable structure for us to hang onto whatsoever as we move through a series of performances and collapsing institutions in contemporary America." Meta-modernism is a disputed concept and those who talk about it "can't agree on whether it comes 'between' Modernism and postmodernism or supercedes both and thereby effectively declares both dead." Professor Stephen Knudsen, writing in ArtsPulse, says that metamodernism, "allows the possibility of staying sympathetic to the poststructualist deconstruction of subjectivity and the self... and yet it still encourages genuine protagonists and creators and the recouping of some of modernism's virtues." 

Abramson claims that Reggie Watts's TedTalk is a masterpiece of meta-modernism. He explores ten characteristics of meta-modernism, present in this clip. Again, I'm just summarizing some of Abramson's points. Again, for his full argument, read the article linked above. 

1. Code Switching (0:16 to 0:53). 
- In the beginning of his talk, Watts switches seamlessly between languages. Abramson says: "Watts telegraphs to his audience that communication in the conventional sense is not his primary aim, nor is deconstructing language. Instead, he aims to embody the twenty-first century information consumer, within whom countless unbreakable codes that are obscure to all listeners are crafted into an authentic and 'whole' identity nonetheless." However, how are we to know that the languages Watts speaks are accurate? We don't! Even the integrity and fidelity of the codes Watts is using are in doubt, "meaning that even if his audience understood a number of those codes, and even if they looked beneath the patina of coherence Watts has layered atop his monologue, they'd still feel the anxiety of uncertainty--which is exactly how Watts wants it." He "exits" his string of linguistic code-switches in a false British accent. The topic he is discussing however, is entirely inconsistent with the occasion casting doubt on the relevance of anything he said previously. 

2. Ordered Nonsense (0:53 to 1:34). 
- "One of Watts's most common techniques is to speak vacuously--that is, incomprehensibly--in such a reasonable, deliberate, and confident way that the listener begins to question her judgment that nothing of consequence has just been said. Hearing Watts's "ordered nonsense" forces the audience to acknowledge that, in the Internet Age, we often give the benefit of the doubt to someone only to find later that that trust was undeserved. More generally, we habitually presume that people know what they're talking about--for instance, politicians, academics, doctors, or prominent political and cultural pundits--when all evidence points to the contrary."

3. Enforced Reality (1:34 to 1:40). 
- "The key to reality-shifting is to not acknowledge you're doing it. Watts is known for telling stories that include hard data and then changing a datum the second time it's referenced, forcing the listener to decide whether the first number provided, the second, or neither is true."

4. Disguised Sense (1:40 to 1:57). 
- "The other side of the coin to Watts's use of "ordered nonsense" is "disguised sense." Essentially, Watts sets the table for one reality--in which what he's saying is nonsense and his audience knows it--and then pulls out the rug from beneath us all by cleverly encoding actual sense into his monologue."

5. Revealed Presumption (1:58 to 2:10). 
- Watts follows the first sensible thing he's said to his audience with a code-switch into pseudo-ebonics. What does this mean?

 "First, Watts is forcing his audience to feel surprise--and to feel shame at that surprise--when he code-switches from the accent of an Oxford don to the accent of (an outrageous stereotype of) an urban-dwelling African-American male. What's certain is that Watts changes his diction level to make that transformation; what's unclear is what it should mean to his audience that that shift has occurred..."

"The second thing Watts does is introduce here, for the first time, the specter of a stable self: the 'real' Reggie Watts. In saying 'I wrote this song' in pseudo-ebonics, Watts gives his audience implicit permission, because of what they know about his background as a songwriter, to believe that he's now ceased code-switching and is speaking in his 'real' voice. As it happens... what the audience hears at this point in the performance is not Watts's 'real' voice. But what does it say about the audience's presumption that it might have been?"

6. Erroneous Self-Correction (2:10 to 2:27). 
- "We've all been erroneously corrected by others in our lives, and it's certainly annoying, but what does it mean to be erroneously corrected by oneself? (Precisely the sort of thing we do when we edit our own blog-posts or Facebook statuses in a way that makes them even more inaccurate, grating, or tone-deaf.) Does it suggest that one doesn't really know oneself, or that one has ceased to distinguish between false and actual reality?"

7. Layered Realities (2:27 to 3:07). 
- "In classic Wattsian fashion, even the comment "I wrote a song"--which would appear indisputable--turns out to be false, as Watts actually improvises the song he sings at this point in the performance."

8. Juxtapositive Spaces (3:07 to 3:53). 
- "Juxtaposition - that is, engaging in two different and seemingly conflicting behaviors or discussions at the same time--is the way younger American artists remain 'true' to themselves while acknowledging that there is, in fact, no Truth. Metamodernism seeks to resolve the yearning for Truth seen in Modernism with the acceptance that there is no Truth seen in postmodernism, which is why the proto-metamodernists of the aughts often said that they were 'between' Modernism and postmodernism rather than 'beyond' or 'above' one or the other."

"Juxtaposition of creative and performative spaces is a classically metamodernist maneuver (to use an anachronistic phrasing) because it emphasizes the fluidity of realities. If I perform something in the same space and in roughly the same timespan that I've created it, you can never know to what extent I took into account the fact of a composition's incipient performance at the moment I authored it, just as one can't know for certain whether creation and performance are ever distinct processes in the first instance."

9. Juxtaposition of Man and Machine (3:53 to 4:35). 
-"When we watch Reggie Watts 'playing' his sound board, it's easy to think he's using a machine as a tool. In fact, he's using himself: His own vocal talents as filtered through a machine. He is, then, in effect playing (or re-playing) himself. In this way, he turns himself into an instrument, but not the same sort of 'instrument' we could accurately say one is using when one sings. Instead, in a perfect exemplar of the layered realities of metamodernism, Watts becomes a human instrument that the human who's playing it (again Watts) can step outside of and manipulate as though it were a separate medium. A single man is thus split into two different media."

10. Looping (4:35 to 5:25). 
"While metamodernism doesn't go in for conclusions or endings - after all, if all realities are happening all the time, how can we say where any one reality begins or ends?--it often does use 'looping' to show us that it is possible to return to realities we've visited previously, thereby creating a 'frame' for all the realities we traveled to in the meantime."

"Looping forces a reframing of everything that precedes it, meaning that it sends us back through (by way of forcing us to recontextualize) all the prior realities we've experienced."

Conclusion:
Abramson claims that the best summation of Watt's philosophy comes in the following statement:

The important thing to remember is that this simulation is a good one. It's believable, it's tactile, you can reach out, things are solid, you can move objects from one area to another, you can feel your body, you can say I'd like to go over to this location, you can move this mass of molecules through the air over to another location. At will. That's something you live inside of every day.

"He's speaking, of course, about the more or less 'stable' reality we feel we inhabit every day. That is, he's comforting his disoriented audience with the knowledge that, however many realities there may be, the one we foolishly believe is the most important does, indeed, have its benefits. Of course, most of these benefits have to do with the body rather than the mind, but they're benefits even so. In case this isn't clear enough, he adds: 'Feel not as though it is a sphere we live on; rather, an infinite plane which has the illusion of leading yourself back to a point of origin. Once we understand that all the spheres in the skies [sic] are just large infinite planes, it will be plain to see."

Abramson says that "these are words few postmodernists would be caught dead saying... For the metamodernist, this sort of mind-expanding exercise is not just important but, in fact, the final destination of this new brand of art."