Networks of Resistance: Connecting Stage, Street and Social Media in Tony Kushner’s Only We Who Guard The Mystery Shall Be Unhappy

Lara Stevens

Abstract


On 15 and 16 February 2003, an estimated 10 million people in over 800 cities worldwide marched to protest against the second Iraq War (Hil 2008: 29). This collective of bodies made up the largest global anti-war protest in history, clearly demonstrating the lack of popular support for the war and a return to 1960s modes of political resistance. Yet, unlike the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Western governments ignored the performing bodies of the 2003 anti-war demonstrators. The protests had little or no effect in stalling or preventing the American-led ‘Coalition of the Willing’ from embarking on the war and the anti-war resistance movements were described as impotent and atrophied (Chomsky 2004; Roy 2004; Butler 2006).

The relationship between theatre, performance, politics and activism continues to trouble scholars who problematise the connection between performance and political efficacy (Bishop 2012; Spencer 2012; Shepard 2010; Butler and Athenasiou 2013).


Full Text:

PDF

References


Adorno, Theodor W. Aesthetic Theory, trans. Robert Hullot-Kentor (London: Bloomsbury, 2004).

Amine, Khalid. ‘Re-enacting Revolution and the New Public Sphere in Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco’, Theatre Research International 38.2 (2013): 87–103.

Auslander, Philip. ‘Toward a Concept of the Political in Postmodern Theatre’, Theatre Journal 39.1 (1987): 20–34.

Baudrillard, Jean. The Gulf War Did Not Take Place, trans. Paul Patton (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995).

Bauman, Zygmunt. Collateral Damage: Social Inequalities in a Global Age (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2011). Beam, Alex. ‘Trashing the First Lady at the ART’, The Boston Globe (3 February 2004): 5.

Bishop, Claire. ‘Participation and Spectacle: Where are we now?’, in Nato Thompson (ed.) Living As Form: Socially Engaged Art from 1991–2011 (New York: Creative Times Books, 2012): 34–45.

Bumiller, Elisabeth. ‘White House Letter: Quietly, the First Lady Builds a Literary Room of Her Own’, The New York Times Online (7 October 2002), http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/07/us/white-house- letter-quietly-the-first-lady-builds-a-literary-room-of-her-own.html

Butler Judith and Athenasiou, Athena. Dispossession: The Performative in the Political, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013).

Butler, Judith. Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence, (London: Verso, 2006).

Bush, G.W. (2001), ‘Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People’, 20 September,

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/gwbush911jointsessionspeech.htm

Caroli, Betty Boyd. First Ladies: From Martha Washington to Michelle Obama (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).

Chomsky, Noam. Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance (Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2004).

Costanza-Chock, Sasha. ‘Mic Check! Media Cultures and the Occupy Movement’, Social Movement Studies 11. 3–4, (2012): 375–385.

Dean, Jodi. The Communist Horizon (London: Verso, 2012).

Hil, Richard. ‘Civil Society, Public Protest and the Invasion of Iraq’, Social Alternatives 27.1 (2008): 29–33.

Kennedy, Randy. ‘The Dead and Dostoyevsky, in a War with Bush’, The New York Times Online, (4 August 2004), http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/04/theater/the-dead-and-dostoyevsky-in-a-war-with-bush.html

Kruger, Steven F. ‘Identity and Conversion in Angels in America’ in Deborah R. Geis and Steven F. Kruger (eds.), Approaching the Millennium: Essays on Angels in America (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997): 151–169.

Kushner, Tony. ‘Only We Who Guard The Mystery Shall Be Unhappy’, The Nation online, (24 March 2003),

http://www.thenation.com/article/only-we-who-guard-mystery-shall-be-unhappy

Kushner, Tony. ‘First Lady Fights Back!’ (Scene Two, Only We Who Guard the Mystery Shall Be Unhappy’), Salon online, (5 August 2004), http://www.salon.com/2004/08/04/kushner_scene/

Moveon.org: Democracy in Action website, http://front.moveon.org/about/#.UyuyALbj3Kg

Rancière, Jacques, The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible, trans. Gabriel Rockhill (London:Continuum, 2004).

Rancière, Jacques, The Emancipated Spectator, trans. Gregory Elliott (London: Verso, 2009).

Rancière, Jacques, Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics, trans. and ed. Steven Corcoran (London: Continuum, 2010).

Roy, Arundhati. The Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire (London: Flamingo, 2004).

Shepard, Benjamin. Queer Political Performance and Protest (New York: Routledge, 2010).

Spencer, Jenny (ed.). Political And Protest Theatre After 9/11: Patriotic Dissent (New York: Routledge, 2012).

Taslaman, Caner and Taslaman, Feryal, ‘Contemporary Just War Theory: Paul Ramset and Michael Walzer’, Journal of Academic Studies 59 (2013-2014): 1–20.

Thompson, Nato. ‘Living as Form’, in Nato Thompson (ed.), Living As Form: Socially Engaged Art from 1991–2011 (New York: Creative Times Books, 2012): 16–32.

Traister, Rebecca. ‘Laura Bush hits Broadway: Review’, Salon online, (2004), http://www.salon.com/2004/08/03/kushner_2/

York, Byron. ‘Laura Bush and Her Killer Bushie’, National Review Online, (2004), http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/212085/laura-and-her-killer-bushie/byron-york

Zahrouni, Rafika. ‘The Tunisian Revolution and the Dialectics of Theatre and Reality’, Theatre Research International 38.2 (2013): 148–157.

Ziter, Edward. ‘Clowns of the Revolution: The Malas Twins and Syrian Oppositional Performance’, Theatre Research International 38.2 (2013): 137–147.


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.