Abstract
This chapter focuses on the principles of audience construction mobilized through participatory and outreach projects. The case studies selected for this chapter take place in designated and found theatre spaces and often imagine their ideal audience as a utopian communitas of hope. By addressing their spectators as a collective of theatregoers, such theatrical events make them also aware of their own singularity. In these projects, the work of the cosmopolitan spectators is foregrounded in their relational activity as navigators of the encounter and co-creators of the performative event.
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Notes
- 1.
Die Ringe des Saturn/The Rings of Saturn was produced by Schauspiel Köln; it was adapted and directed by Katie Mitchell, with set design and costumes by Lizzie Clachan, film by Grant Gee, video by Finn Ross, music by Paul Clark, lighting by Ulrik Gad, sound design by Gareth Fry and Adrienne Quartly, and dramaturgy by Jan Hein. The cast included Ruth Marie Kröger, Nikolaus Benda, Julia Wieninger, and Juro Mikus, with Julia Klomfass (sound), James Longford (piano), Ruth Sullivan (sound effects), and Frederike Bohr, Lily McLeish, and Stefan Nagel (camera). I saw this production presented at the Festival d’Avignon in the summer of 2012, in German with French subtitles.
- 2.
The Jungle was written by Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson, founders of the Good Chance Theatre Company. It was directed by Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin, with set and costume designs by Miriam Buether and Catherine Kodicek, lighting by Jon Clark, and sound by Paul Arditti. It features Raphael Acloque, Ammar Haj Ahmad, Aliya Ali, Mohammad Amiri, Bruk Kumelay, Alyssa Denise D’Souza, Elham Ehsas, Trevor Fox, Moein Ghobsheh, Michael Gould, Ansu Kabia, Alex Lawther, Jo McInnes, John Pfumojena, Rachel Redford, Rachid Sabitri, Mohamed Sarrar, Ben Turner, and Nahel Tzegai. The Jungle ran at the Young Vic, London, from December 7, 2017, to January 9, 2018; after that it transferred to the West End and ran there from June 16, 2018, to November 3, 2018. I attended this production in July of 2018 at the Playhouse Theatre.
- 3.
The outreach project Refugee Tales was initiated by the Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group that for the last twenty five years has been actively involved in helping people in the UK immigrant detention centres. The annual walks took place in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019. I joined the project in the summer of 2018.
- 4.
Until her return to London’s National Theatre in April 2016 with the staging of Sarah Kane’s Cleansed, Mitchell had been experiencing a sort of ‘falling out’ with the British theatrical scene. Known for not sharing the British mainstream theatre’s admiration for Shakespeare, Mitchell came to be known as the ‘British theatre’s queen in exile’, because, despite her reputation as being one of the most imaginative directors in Britain today, she ‘has been largely directing in Germany and France, crisscrossing the continent by train, always working on five or six projects at once’ (Higgins 2016). On the controversy around Mitchell’s work, see Rebellato (2010).
- 5.
Since this controversy is beyond the scope of this chapter, I recommend consulting the 2019 issue of the journal Performing Ethos: International Journal of Ethics in Theatre & Performance (Volume 9, Number 1), which is dedicated to questions of ethics, performance aesthetics, and migration.
- 6.
GDWG refers to ‘Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group’. As its website specifies, ‘there is no cost for former detainees to join the walks. Anyone who had a GDWG visitor can join three walks after release from detention’ (GDWG Walking Project).
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Meerzon, Y. (2020). Staging Affective Citizenship: Constructing Communities of Hope. In: Performance, Subjectivity, Cosmopolitanism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41410-8_7
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