The Criticism Is Dead, All Hail The Criticism

International Conference For Young Theatre Critics 2015 09 24-26 Vilnius THE CRITICISM IS DEAD, ALL HAIL THE CRITICISM Daina Habdankaitė It is always both useful and fair for the speaker to highlight her presuppositions and perspective that has been taken as a starting point of the discourse. In my case the initial “confession” to be made is twofold. On the one hand, my talk will get really close to philosophical discourse which is usually associated with aiming at revealing the truth about the object at stake. But there is no Truth with a capital T to discover, so every concept and paradigm that I will use when constructing my discourse should be seen as a part of a story that is told not in order to let the truth step out but is constructing the truth itself. My task today is to offer a theoretical approach that might be functional and fruitful for further investigations on theatre criticism. On the other hand, there will be some key points of a diagnostic nature: after having presented the theoretical carcass, I will try to apply it to the current situation of theatre and theatre critics in first and foremost Lithuania. It is well known that every diagnosis is usually followed by a prescription of some kind of treatment – I cannot deny my pretention to do this as well. There are two questions that will lead us during the following half an hour: 1) What it takes for any discourse to function as a criticism? To deal with this question we need to put aside for a moment the particular nature of theatre in relation to reality and treat it as one form of discourse among others. 2) Are there any peculiarities of theatre as a criticism of a dominant discourse if we take it with all the complications caused by the complex relation between theatre and the so called reality? After dealing with both questions, there is some hope to reveal the mystery of the death of the criticism mentioned in the title. So, what do we mean when we say “criticism”? I am pretty sure we could find plenty of definitions that are more or less informative, profound and fruitful. To choose one of them would be an arbitrary move and yet it has to be done. I suggest taking Critical Theory, born in Frankfurt School, as our starting point. Frankfurt School, which is mostly associated with the names of Horkheimer, Adorno and Marcuse, is usually seen as a form of resistance to contemporary society. It is an immanent criticism towards the society based on the ideology of instrumental rationality. Critical theory demonstrates in what ways contemporary society fails to live up to its own claims. Being born in the middle of the 20th century, Critical Theory is (and I would like to add – should be) regarded as an outcome of the modernist project which itself can be interpreted as an inheritor of Enlightment‘s belief in human and his rationality. The most simple way to grasp the difference between the modernist project and the discourse that aims at deconstructing it is asking where the critic stands – inside or outside the discourse that is at stake. Instead of stating an alternative vision of the reality, critical theory – and especially its more radical, so called postmodern version, Foucault – refuses to impose its view on truth and is more eager to let the discourses speak for themselves. For instance, when Horkheimer and Adorno criticise the consumerist society, they show its inner contradiction and neurotical state caused by its own logic. They don‘t offer an alternative political, economical or social vision because if they did, the result would be another system open to criticism. When Rousseau cries „Back to nature!“ he switches one paradigm with another. When Horkheimer and Adorno shows that modern rationality contradicts itself, they state nothing substantial enough to be treated as a fully elaborated discourse. Let‘s take Michel Foucault‘s notion of critique – it will serve us as canvas to paint a picture of current situation and perspective of theatre as criticism and theatre criticism. In addition to that, the further analysis will bring out the main differences between Frankfurt School and postmodern Foucauldian view. According to Michel Foucault, critique is subjet‘s right to question the truth on its effects of power and question power on its discourses of truth. Critique thus requires three elements: a subject, a notion of truth and a power structure to oppose to. Let’s look closer to each element separately. SUBJECT. For Foucault, subject is never given in advance, it has no identity prior to experience – rationality, ability to speak, sexuality and so forth – every bit of so called identity is constructed and needs to be constantly maintained applying performative and very often disciplining acts towards oneself. As he puts it, “Maybe the problem of the self is not to discover what it is in its positivity; maybe the problem is not to discover a positive self or the positive foundation for the self. Maybe our problem now is to discover that the self is nothing else than the historical correlation of the technology built in our history. Maybe the problem is to change those technologies [or maybe to get rid of those technologies, and then, to get rid of the sacrifice which is linked to those technologie's.] And in this case, one of the main political problems nowadays would be, in the strict sense of the word, the politics of ourselves1“. For instance, to be a woman I must act like one but there’s no ideal model of womanhood to look up to, which leads to numerous practices of acting like a woman in order to feel like one and finally be able to be one. The process of self-construction often includes performative acts involving body, social, moral and economical habits, and a certain value system prescribed to a certain group of things and life choices and so forth. Now if we take theatre as an institution – with all the staff, actors, directors, art director, building, programme, projects – it is also regarded as having an identity of one kind or another. It’s almost a trivial truth to say out loud but every cultural institution seeks to create and preserve its identity in order to be recognized by the audience, accepted by cultural committees distributing subsidies and accumulating cultural capital in general. Another banality would be to remind everyone here that in order to be competitive every organization, especially one involved in the field of culture and entertainment, strives to bring something new for its audience. What we have here is a dialectics 1 Foucault, M., 1997b. Hermeneutics of the Self. In The Politics of Truth, eds. S. Lotringer and L. Hochroth. New York: Semiotext(e), pp. 171-237. between preserving an image that can be easily recognized and producing new content that keeps public attention on point. When it comes to criticism towards the prevailing discourse in a current society, the question of theatre’s identity appears to be not as banal as in the beginning. Since stepping out of a system always leads to creating a new one, the only effective critique that does not contradict and eliminate itself is always imminent to the dominant discourse that is criticized. The problem with such a situation is that dominant discourse tends to incorporate its critique inside of its own structure. The scheme is very simple: theatre creators, who run their theatres and receive subsidies from the government, are often also the (only) ones tackling social and political problems in their plays. By legitimizing critical voices, the dominant power turns its critique into a stable discourse that is predictable and safe. As long as supporting one’s own identity requires support from the dominant power structures, a legit criticism towards it becomes hardly possible since theatre plays risk to be viewed as an amusement that ends as soon as the theatre doors are closed. Apparently, theatre as an institution can hardly function with an identity that is constantly revised to the extent where it becomes nearly liquid – that is, so unstable that it can no more be recognized as the same neither by the audience, nor by other organizations. Contrary to that, I suggest to imagine a theatre critic who follows the same identity scheme as the biggest part of theatres. I doubt that any critic who follows the same pattern of the structure of text regardless the object that is discussed or who is clearly mentored by government or private organizations would gain a wide acceptance and popularity. Of course, I do not say that theatre critics are free from obligations regarding financial side of every written production, personal and professional bonds and so forth. What I am referring to here is the peculiar situation of theatre criticism (and criticism of other art forms) that can be recognized in Lithuania but not necessarily only here. The lack of substantial and strong tradition of theatre criticism on the one hand and the numerous platforms, such as blogs or social media, for self-expression on the other hand lead to a nearly unlimited liberty of critical expression. Criticism is no longer (was it ever?) considered as a reaction to a cultural phenomenon but is functioning as an act of imposing one’s own discourse. The question is, whether this unlimited liberty is realized with its full force by the critics themselves. We will get back to this question very soon. POWER. The notion of “power” can be tricky. We might be seduced to use the term in order to designate a political structure or institution that is hierarchically higher than those who are led and administrated by it. But the notion of “power”, used by Foucault who himself is inspired by Nietzsche, is much wider than that. It is not enough to say that politicians, directors of schools and universities, or owners of business and banks are the ones accumulating the so called power while all the rest strive to break free from intellectual, social and economic slavery. Following the ideas of Nietzsche, Foucault shows that power defines the very structure of civic reality: each and every act, choice and utterance made by no matter whom is a burst of power that is thrown into – metaphorically speaking – a battle field of other claims of power. It is impossible to escape such a structure since every pretention to say something or to perform an act is both discursive and powerful. Let’s go a few steps back and take up the idea that dominant discourse tends to incorporate its critics inside its own structure. Now – when we are in a disposition of the idea that nearly every utterance is a shout out of power and for power – we are given a chance to add some color to the previous observation. Theatre as criticism of the dominant political, social or intellectual discourse often functions as vaccine and not as poison – it strengthens the dominant system instead of defeating it. Capitalism, for instance, is in need for an opposition – be it beautiful utopias told by anarchism or a movement of non-consumerist business. In order to recognize itself and be recognized by the other, every discourse looks for an opposing one. In this case, both sides are dependent on each other and their way to function is coexistence. I am not sure if this is really what any critique, if it’s radical enough, is striving for at first place. And here’s the perfect time to explain the title of this presentation. When claiming that the criticism is dead, I imply the death of the critic who explains and reevaluates her object of investigation while relying on universal or at least widely culturally accepted norms. Furthermore, as we have seen in the beginning of my presentation, a discourse that imposes a clearly defined set of values can never function as criticism without evolving into a dogmatic discourse. Constant questioning of one’s own views and claims is the first step from critic’s grave. The second – and the most definitive one – is acknowledging that there is no discourse that would not impose any values or judgments. Is remaining in silence the path the new critic will choose? Not at all! She will impose a certain collection of values by fully accepting the consequences that come with this act. It is naïve to strive for unbiased critics – and here I am only reminding you the classic truth stated by theories of art criticism. But what needs to be added here is a broader view regarding the relation between the discourse of the critic and the discourse of the theatre play. It is pretty common to regard them as of a different kind by claiming that critic always takes a metaposition while theatre play functions as an object under the scalpel of the critic. But if we follow the idea of a multiverse of centers of power, it becomes clear that if any of the participating discourses claims to have reached a meta level, we will not buy into this so easily. Being able to produce a metadiscourse would mean having rejected the last remaining bits of self-identity which then would mean disappearing as a speaker and letting the discourse speak itself. Even if a trick of such a kind is possible, theatre criticism is definitely not the discourse that would be able to do that since it is in need of a speaker whose discourse gets into opposition with the other. What we need to accept here is that theatre criticism is also a discourse that takes part in the game of thrones, in the game of power. My last remaining task today is to refute a presupposition that theatre plays enter into a particular game with reality itself while theatre critics always constitutes a secondary layer of discourse. TRUTH. Until now we have been treating both theatre and theatre criticism as any other form of discourse but when it comes to the question of truth, we need to be more specific. Apparently, to distinguish between true and false discourses is useless since none of them ever represents the full scope of what we intend to call the real. The truthful discourse belongs to the winner of the power battle instead of being defined by correspondence between the word and the real. But what does it have to do with theatre critics and theatre as critics? Any critique is always a reaction to the given structure, the given discourse. Having this in mind, the following question is if any kind of discourse is capable of bringing up something new, brave and productive when dealing with the prevailing system, its logic and images? Here is the moment when theatre as a form of art gains its valuable peculiarity and appears to have a hidden force when it comes to overcoming the given discourse. What I have called an artistic reaction is better explained by Wolfgang Iser in The Fictive and the Imaginary where he introduces a threefold scheme peculiar to an artistic creation. The triad, consisting of the real, the fictive and the imaginary, is always in play in every given artistic discourse2. Here the fictive serves as a middle term, connecting the real with the imaginary. The intended act of fiction extends the limits of the real and transforms the liquid and chaotic nature of the imaginary into something more distinct than blurred shadows of imagination. The intended act of fictionalizing leads to imagining another model of the reality that functions on equal terms with all other kinds of discourses on – or should I say of – the reality. Apparently, the dimension of fictionalizing saves the day for theatre as criticism of the dominant discourse. The mode of fictionalizing is responsible for introducing new combinations even though the creative material used by theatre comes from tradition. What is the main structural difference between utopia and a piece of art is that the latter does not arise as an alternative discourse but is created imminently and functions as a distortion of the regular world-view without imposing any new paradigm instead of the corrupted old one. My last question is pretty simple: why do we need theatre criticism today and what do we expect from it? If we sum up the outcome of today‘s reasoning, we get a diagnosis that can be easily extracted from the analysis of the current state of theatre criticism and prevailing mood in the society regarding it. It seems that there is no point in expecting a theatre critic to impose a well-founded system of values from a distanced position. The liquid identity refers here to a lack of tradition and vision of what a real theatre critic should look like and furthermore, the liquid identity is closely related to the games of power every producer of discourse is involved in. There is nothing in itself that makes one a valid critic – it is always the context of one’s writings that plays the main role. One is never a critic before they start writing criticism, one cannot even be sure that they have a potential to become one. One is never a good critic before their writings have been accepted by other so-called critics, published in certain magazines or one is accidentally referred to as a critic, which happened to me once or twice when a journalist who was referring to my text about the performance when taking interview with the author, took it for granted that I was a dance critic. And one cannot say the journalist got it wrong! But the final question I want to raise is more of a normative nature. What kind of theatre criticism is needed today, or to be more precise – what kind of criticism would work the best, would gain the most in the battlefield where different sources of power meet? I think it is time for critics to drop down the ideal of objective reflection together with the aim to serve as a bridge between the viewer and the performance. There are no voids of perception to fill in since there is no Truth from the capital T to interpret. Armored with social media, blogs and the imperative ‘fake it till you make it’, people are free to perform as critics and claim their right to be accepted as them. Such context leads to a less ambitious and paradoxically more effective point of view: what if today’s and tomorrow’s 2 Iser, W, 2002. Fiktyvumas ir įsivaizdavimas. Translated by L. Jonušys. Vilnius: Aidai. criticism functioned as a comment, a question to the theatre play or an answer to the question raised by the play itself. What if instead of judging the criticism would produce a discourse supplementing the object in question? What if the best way to criticize is to fictionalize? What if critic is first and foremost a creator, producing and imposing her own discourse? Would anyone feel lost after having discovered that the critic does not refer directly to the play she was expected to talk about? Maybe getting lost in the discourse is the first step towards finding something unexpected and fruitful for our reasoning? I will leave these questions open.