Politics and Ethics in Applied Theatre: Face-to-Face and Disturbing the Fabric of the Sensible

Abstract

Politics and ethics in Applied Theatre explores how the problem with instrumentality in applied theatre can find an alternative in an affective turn that draws on the notions of the ‘face’ from Levinas and the ‘distribution of the sensible’ taken from Rancière. The concept of the face is used to suggest that intimate meetings between people, the primary ground of much performance practice, can create an ethical demand on a person that is both specific and general. Where the classic conception of the face suggests that this is a call that cannot be ignored, the chapter argues that through sensory or aesthetic encounter with others, we can become more aware of the demand that it makes. Once felt, we are drawn beyond ourselves in such a way that our autonomy is limited—and this can be an energising source of our commitment to social change.

In order for performance projects to encourage individuals to see the face of the other, the chapter suggests that theatre’s common prejudice towards physiognomy needs to be countered. Rather than seeing the face in order to be edified by the story of suffering it reveals, it should make an ethical demand for our responsibility to that person, and therefore, to all people in a similar situation. Participatory performance processes are, then, understood as part of a wider political project—that does not denigrate performance as preparation for the real work of political change, but values it as a purposeful part of an intervention into our sensible world.