Rights of Representation: an Ethics of Intercultural Theatre Practice
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Rights of Representation: An Ethics of Intercultural Theatre Practice Emer O’Toole Royal Holloway, University of London PhD in Theatre Studies 2012 I declare that this thesis is all my own work _______________________ Emer O’Toole Acknowledgements Foremost, I would like to thank my supervisors, Dr. Karen Fricker and Prof. Helen Gilbert, and my advisor, Dr. Lynette Goddard, for their generosity with time and expertise throughout this research project. I would also like to extend my gratitude to Royal Holloway for supporting this project financially and to all at the Department of Drama and Theatre for creating a warm, encouraging and intellectually exciting environment in which to work. I’d like especially to mention Dr. Sophie Nield who was Dean of Graduate Studies during my first and second years of study. I also owe thanks to all the practitioners who gave up their time to speak with me and whose thoughts have greatly enriched this research. Heartfelt thanks to Eugénie Pastor, Mara Lockowandt, Karen Quigley, Sofia Apospori and Daniel O’Gorman for their feedback, ideas and friendship. Thanks also to all on the Platform board, especially Adam Alston. Thanks to my mother, Mary, and my father, Pearse, for their love and financial help. Thanks to my flatmates Jack, Sophie and Chris, my brothers Ronan and Ciarán, my best friend Deirdre and my boyfriend Stephen, for their practical and emotional support. Abstract This doctoral thesis proposes an ethics of intercultural theatre, offering a materially engaged framework through which to approach both the problematics and positive potential of intercultural practice. Framing intercultural debates in terms of rights of representation, it suggests that the right to represent Othered people and cultures can be strengthened through 1) involvement of members of all represented cultures, 2) equality and creative agency of all collaborators, 3) advantageousness of a given project to all involved, and 4) positive socio-political effects of a production within its performance contexts. Working through four diverse case studies – Tim Supple’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Pan Pan Theatre Company’s The Playboy of the Western World, Peter Brook’s 11 and 12 and Bisi Adigun and Roddy Doyle’s The Playboy of the Western World – this project uses a Bourdieusian theoretical framework to flag elements of contemporary intercultural practice that strengthen and weaken rights of representation. It recognises that Orientalist and Eurocentric modes of representing Otherness still require address; equally, it points to laudable working practices, moving towards a pragmatics of best intercultural theatre practice. Contents Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 1 Culture(s) and Cosmopolitanism .............................................................................................. 6 Problematising Universalism: Peter Brook’s (in)famous Mahabharata ................................... 9 Interculturalism and Postcolonialism ..................................................................................... 15 Defending Intercultural Scholarship: A Critique of Interweaving .......................................... 18 Addressing the Problems of Postcolonialism: Drawing on Discourses of Globalization and Multiculturalism ..................................................................................................................... 22 Intercultural Ethics or Intercultural Politics? .......................................................................... 26 Aesthetically and Materially Engaged Intercultural Ethics .................................................... 29 An Ethics for Materially Engaged Intercultural Theatre Scholarship ..................................... 33 1) Involvement of Members of all Represented Cultures ....................................................... 35 2) Equality and Creative Agency of all Collaborators ............................................................ 39 3) Advantageousness of the Project to the Least Economically, Symbolically or Socially Privileged Individuals and Cultures within the Production Process ....................................... 42 4) Positive Socio-Political Effects of a Production within its Performance Contexts. ............ 44 Methodology and Case Studies .............................................................................................. 46 Chapter One: Tim Supple’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream ........................................................ 52 ‘Next Peter Brook’ ................................................................................................................. 57 Brook, Lepage, Supple – Intercultural Dreaming ................................................................... 60 Indian Shakespeares ............................................................................................................... 63 The British Council ................................................................................................................ 67 Indian Arts Funding Today; Supple’s Capital in the Indian Economy of Cultural Practice ... 73 Supple’s Capital ..................................................................................................................... 79 Nature of the Collaboration .................................................................................................... 84 The Effects of the Production ................................................................................................. 92 Reflections ........................................................................................................................... 107 Chapter Two: Pan Pan Theatre Company’s The Playboy of the Western World ...................... 111 Intercultural Synge ............................................................................................................... 113 Reinvigorating Synge: Irish Interculturalism and Imperialism ............................................. 124 Interculturalism, Translation, Agency, and Cultural Capital ................................................ 126 Cultural Capital in Intercultural Contexts............................................................................. 130 Cultural Capital and the Pan Pan Playboy ............................................................................ 134 Reflections on Capital and Interculturalism ......................................................................... 140 Effects in Beijing ................................................................................................................. 141 Effects in Dublin .................................................................................................................. 146 Reflections ........................................................................................................................... 155 Chapter Three: Peter Brook’s 11 and 12 .................................................................................. 159 11 and 12 and the Brook Brand............................................................................................ 162 11 and 12’s Advantageousness to all Artists Involved ......................................................... 164 11 and 12 in a Global Economy of Cultural Practice. .......................................................... 167 Ethical Readings of 11 and 12’s Aesthetic ........................................................................... 169 The Politics of the Apolitical: Meaning and Performance Contexts ..................................... 173 Mysticism and Primitivism: Brook’s Universalism and Africa ............................................ 178 Particular Universals: The Historical Construction of Tierno Bokar .................................... 186 Complex Simples: Mimicry and Class in 11 and 12 ............................................................ 193 Reflections ........................................................................................................................... 196 Chapter Four: Bisi Adigun and Roddy Doyle’s The Playboy of the Western World ................ 200 Irish Racism ......................................................................................................................... 204 Irish Interculturalism: The Roles of Doyle and Adigun ....................................................... 207 Irish Multiculturalism........................................................................................................... 212 Art and Racism .................................................................................................................... 222 Rights of Representation and Class ...................................................................................... 227 Intercultural Conflict ............................................................................................................ 232 Reflections ........................................................................................................................... 241 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 244 Main Arguments Recapitulated ............................................................................................ 246 Findings Based On Comparative Analysis ..........................................................................