Notes on Philip Auslander's "Postmodernism and Performance"

 

 Philo-Lit

In the first part, Auslander talks about the terms “Postmodernism’ and ‘Performance’

Both terms – equally unstable- both of the terms don’t have a single or fixed meaning.

‘performance’ – usually we think of theatre, dance music etc, which are the traditional performing arts.

The concept of postmodernism functions at 3 different levels.

- used as a periodizing concept (just a different period in the history of theatre)

-A way of describing contemporary culture in which the performance occur.

-A stylistic descriptor (a difference in style)

All three concepts are complicated as they are difficult to be fixed. Also, all three are interacted with each other.

 

What is the difference between the adjectives ‘postmodern’ and ‘postmodernist ‘?

Postmodern- the term is used often used to refer to a historical period (usually after world war I)

Postmodernist- term used to refer to a characteristic of postmodern period. Therefore it refers to the cultural works that posses stylistic features that align them with the period.

Some may be postmodern but may not be stylistically postmodernist. Some may have postmodern styles in it but might have performed early before world war I or after the particular ‘postmodern’ period.

The three levels of the concept of postmodernism – very important – All these three occur / is in use when we discuss theatre, dance and other performing arts (Performing arts- there are two- the traditional performing arts as well as a new one- it is also called art performance and live art)

When we try to connect the concepts ‘Performance’ and ‘Postmodernism’ there is the problem for the definition of Performance as well.

Anyway the earlist essays which try to connect both these concepts are a collection of the essays titled Performance in Postmodern Cultutre (1977). In this work, the editor Michael Benamous says everything is performing in postmodern era. Technology is performing, media is performing etc.So actually, we can talk about performance in a postmodern era, as well as , postmodern (postmodern style and features ) in a performance art.

 

Periodizing postmodernism in theatre and dance

Here he talks about dance and theatre- how dance can be categorised into modern and postmodern dance and how theatre can be categorised into modern and postmodern

To talk about dance he refers to a dance historian, writer and critic, Sally Rachel Banes. She has published a work titled Terpsichore in Sneakers. The book explains the postmodern developments in dance. In the book, in order to explain the characteristics of postmodern dance, she first explains the modern dance. After seeing the cahracteristics of modern dance, which was defined and concluded by 1950s in history, Sally Banes try to differentiate between the art forms which came after modern era. Thus they concluded the different characteristics of postmodern dance forms.

Philip Auslander then turns to theatre. He says that for dance , it was easy because already there was a defined conclusions for modern dance. In case of theatre, we do not have a defined or a structured form of characteristics list out by any critic to keep on side to compare with. So it is difficult to get a clear picture as to establish how and what has the postmodern theatre may have reacted against modernism. 

·       Normally, modern theatre means realist theatre. So if we go after the concept that postmodern theatre is a reaction against modern theatre, then postmodern theatre should be anti-realistic. But anti realist theatre was already there along with realistic forms of theatre during the modern age itself. For example, we have Bertolt Brecht and Samuel Beckett who challenged realism and from different directions, we can see them or put them into both modernist theatre and postmodernist theatre.

·       Another reason that makes it difficult to categorise postmodern theatre is that of the nature of drama. For dance you don’t have a text. In drama you have a written text based on which the actors perform. In drama the performers are given instruction through a choreographer. For the actors, the instruction is given by looking into the text and no changes can be brought out into the written text.

One simple and significant feature of postmodern theatre is pluralism.

In theatre too, people started accepting pluralism. For example,

·       By the 1960s and 1970s, women playwrights, playwrights of color, queer writers began to come into the theatre.

·       Also, there came changes in casting as well. Actors whose race does not match with the race of the character started playing the roles.

 

Performance art Monologues

 The significant feauture of postmodernism- plurality can be seen in the performance art monologues that came in 1980s and 1990s. This genre orginated with Spalding Gray.

Spalding Gray is a veteran of New York experimental theatre.

By 1975, Gray began intensely working on autobiographical performances.

He began to narrate his own life in a dead pan style- in a stand up comedy style.

After this, many people . especially from marginalised sections started narrating their life story. African-American woman, Jewish Communist and many others started narrating their autobiography.

This was not just done by the actors, people from other background or field also started performing monologue arts.

This became so common that almost everyone performed in the 1990s. 

The death of character 

·       This, according to Auslander is another characteristic of Postmodern Theatre.

·       Elinor Fuchs (Scholar and critic ) has published an essay “The Death of Character”.

·       As per the essay, there is no consistent character in Postmodern theatre.

·       The characters are fragmented flowing and uncertain identities whose exact locations and boundaries cannot be pinpointed. We cannot expect a character to be psychologically consistent throughout the play.

·       In performance art monologues (which is mentioned in the previous section), there is pluralism but no fragmentation so it cannot be completely considered as Postmodern theatre if looked from this perspective.

·       Examples  for fragmented characters:

•  Sam Shepard’s Angel City
•  Jeffrey M. Jones’s Der Inka Von Peru

 

(a)    Sam Shepard’s Angel City

The author, Sam Shepard- radically experimental writer associated with New York Off- Off Broadway movement of the 1960s.

Compared to other radical plays, Angel City is a little bit conventional’ because it has a fairly clear and linear plot.

But, with regard to the characters, the characters are so different in the second act when compared to how they are portrayed in the first act. (eg: A Hollywood actress become a nun in the second act)

It is also unclear whether the characters have been transformed somehow or whether they are enacting their own fantasies.

From all the other perspectives the play is conventional.

(b)    Jeffrey M. Jones’s Der Inka Von Peru

The play is made of a modified version of existing and available texts. This is a mix of the history of Peru, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet , Oscar Wilde’s Importance of Being Earnest, etc.

The play is filled with overlapping plots , so it looks fragmented.

It is a pastiche of melodrama.

Since almost five plots are brought together, the characters are not consistent.

The characters are not having a consistent identity and do not have any consistency even in the language they use. 

Both of these plays are examples for portraying characters as fragmented and flexible. (No psychologically consistent entity)

 

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A Postmodern approach to directing

 Looking at the direction of the theatre, some changes can be seen in postmodern theatre.

Critic and Journalist Don Shewey describes the works of the director Peter Sellars as the best examples for postmodern direction.

Peter Sellars – took the songs of George Gershwin and mixed it with the Maxim Gorky’s play. He then mixed this with a modified version of the text of The Count of Monte Cristo

He is also known forn non traditional casting- he selected actors from different cultural strata for the play Monte Cristo in 1985.

 

Don Shewy also notices one major thing about the director Peter Sellars. Even in Postmodern era, the distinction between high and low culture persisted, the distinction between avant-garde and mainstream theatre persisted. In such an era, Peter Sellars got opportunity to work in different cultural contexts. He worked at Shakespeare Company as well as attempted to establish American National Theatre in Wahington DC. This shows that even in such an era when distinction persisted Peter Sellars was accepted. This is only because of the talent of the director.

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Postmodernism and Stand up comedy

 

Stand up comedy became more diverse in the era of Postmodernism.

In US, the stand up comedy had a Jewish heritage. From 1960s, it was joined by Afro Americans.

In the postmodern era, in the 1980s, many women came up for stand up comedies.

In the postmodern era, the definition of comedy became problematic. Some comics responded by becoming metacomedians whose performances took the impossibility of being a comedian in the postmodern world.

Steve Martin exemplified this tendency in his stand up comedy- Martin adopted the gestures, tone and manner of traditional stand up comic. All the traditional techniques used were cliché. But when he mixed everything together, there was no content in it.

In case of character, some stand up comedians also tried to portray fragmented characters. One radical comedian was Andy Kaufman, who appeared as ‘The Foreign Man’.  In a television programme, while doing the performance, he slowly switched over to himself. But again, this was not the rral Kauffman, just close to him. Thus, Kauffman created a hall of mirrors in which no persona ever turned out to be a dependable representation.

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Representation in postmodernist performance

  Julian Beck’s Living theatre is an important concept here.

Many generations of experimental theatre  have inspired from Beck and Malina’s approach to theatre.

They brought out The Open Theatre, The Performance group, Bread and Puppet Theatre, etc which are radical experimental theatre.

They are radical in the sense that , in these theatres , the actors do not represent fictional characters, they represent themselves, they talk about their own problems. Example, Paradise Now by The Living Theatre. It is actually an ‘antirepresentational’ stance taken by the actors.

 

Postmodernist political theatre

The radical theatre positioned itself as part of counterculture sept apart from the dominant culture.

Postmodern theatre does not deal directly with political issues. It must interrogate the political and social configurations of postmodern culture without leaving its own representations unquestioned and without claiming to take up position outside of postmodern culture from which to comment on it.

Wooster group is an example of such a theatre group. Its play- LSD is the best example.

LSD incorporated many texts in it, presented these through a variety type of performances. The actors spoke as fictional as well as for  themselves.

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Please Note: This is the summarized note on the essay by Philip Auslander. The author of this note does not hold any personal opinions on the works and authors mentioned . The author has not included any extra inoformation. The intention of this is  only to make the reading of the essay easy.

Philo- Lit