One of my favorite pieces of political journalism from the past several years is, admittedly, rather odd, both in commentary and in origin.
It was written by Jesse Green in his first year as co-chief theater critic of the New York Times. It isn’t one of the profiles of dramatic artists that made him famous, nor is it an example of the controversies that have plagued the theater section of that publication in recent years. It’s far smaller, far subtler than that: a news article written as an inside joke, and one that perhaps barely overstays its welcome.
The title is “It’s No ‘Glengarry’,” and the feature is written as a quasi-review of the phone call the White House released between President Trump of the United States and President Zelensky of the Ukraine. (Do you remember that phone call? I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if we all forgot it by now; it would probably be better for people on both sides of Capitol Hill if we resigned our memory of that particular performance to political purgatory).
The review itself is merely fine, which is to be expected: The largely improvised performances of both actors were banal, and Green, like many critics, writes far better when there is something of genuine substance to critique. (See: his profile of Arthur Laurents, which took theater criticism by storm and may have actually killed Arthur Laurents). But I love it anyway, more so for its concept than its execution (which is, ironically, a very common critique given by Jesse Green to theatremakers far more talented than I).
Green’s review is fascinating for me because it seems a genuine attempt to take seriously, in a non-academic sphere, an often pithy saying: that politics is theater, and that theater is politics. That one is the other, and the other is the same.
The latter, that theater is politics, is taken as a given. To create apolitical theater in the 21st century is not unprofitable — in fact, it’s the opposite. When shows try really hard to seem apolitical, or at least big-tent centrist, they tend to do well. Everyone assumes they see their own politics in Hamilton, for example, at least on first glance.
However, it is actively impossible. So strong has the idea that “the personal is political” taken over — and rightfully so — that an art form as inherently physical, as vulnerable, as personal as theater necessitates the existence of a politic somewhere within the framework of the show, whether the makers intended there to be one or not. Frankly, the inherently political nature of theater predates this significantly; it’s simply even more brazen now. Choosing who’s in charge of putting on the show, choosing who’s on stage and in what capacity, choosing the public face of a political production is an inherently political act, nevermind the show itself.
But the opposite — that politics is theater — seems to get a much shorter end of the analytical stick, reduced primarily to pithy sayings and derision. We may mention how performative public political trials have always been, dating back to Cicero’s nauseating mix of pathos, logos, and ethos into one overpoured cocktail. We may discuss the staging of leaders in specific orders at press conferences or the G7, or how the left seems to really hate when Hollywood actors go into politics (Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, Mehmet Oz, Matthew McConaughey). And we may say, over and over again, that “all politics is performance” as a way to explain our discontent with what we perceive as a fundamental falsity at the heart of the politics we see.
This has never really sat right with me. Part of this is certainly true: There is a certain performativity to public political action, especially politics within the realm of government, that is often sickening. And in this present time — when whether you’re leftist, on the far-right, or in between, public displays of political outrage is seen as access to a currency many want to use — it is good to point out when a person or an organization seems to only care about the marginalized in order to gain political power. The word often used for such actions is “performative,” and rightfully so.
But to claim that all examples of “politics as performance” are horrible, or to use the word “performatimative” as only an insult, only a critique, is a shame as well actively limiting to us as artistically and politically minded people.
Performance and authenticity are often placed at odds in our rhetoric: “If you have to perform something, it clearly can’t be real to you” goes the thinking. And when they seem to conflate, or when public figures do a bad job of mixing the two, the reaction is often one of cringe and discomfort. How many stories were written about Austin Butler’s accent after Elvis came out? So many, so very many. How many needed to be written? Maybe three.
But this cringe isn’t universal, of course. Plenty of artists have mixed the two for years. In music, the confessional singer-songwriter and the rapper who writes their own work are praised above all else in popular music; I’m literally listening to Guts while I write this. Good poets have been romanticized to the moon and back and back again. Some of the best comedies of the past several years — The Rehearsal, the Borat films, Fleabag — thrive on a conflation between the authentic and the act. These conflations between performance and authenticity are not denigrated; they are praised for their immediacy, their intimacy, and their willingness to “go there” in many ways.
Is politics different? In a way, yes. One can argue that these artistic situations are relatively low-stakes scenarios. The fact that we don’t know what is real and made-up in Fleabag does not meaningfully change our love of the show and its creator, at least not in a way that messes with our lives. Conversely, a company pretending to be in favor of racial equality while relying on systems that uphold racial inequality is a different beast entirely.
My point, to be clear, is not that the company deserves praise for their specific conflation of performance and authenticity; they don’t. They deserve ridicule at best and heavy critique at worst. Further, I wouldn’t even consider this to be a real conflation between the real and unreal, because it isn’t a conflation; it’s just hypocrisy.
Rather, my point is that, both in the performing arts and in politics, authenticity itself is a kind of performance. This is the real dark-side and real silver lining of the phrase “politics of theater” that we don’t often talk about. Politics is not just theater when the cameras are rolling. Politics is not just theater for those with recognized office-backed political power. Politics, especially politics based in authenticity, is inherently performative.
The civil rights marches of Martin Luther King, Jr. were performances, created specifically to highlight values of equality and nonviolence. They were scripted, staged, recorded, and broadcast as a message to a larger world that their concerns were important and they were not backing down. Just because you cannot buy the playscript to King’s civil rights marches does not mean they were any less performance-based. In fact, it makes perfect sense considering his background as a preacher, a man tasked with using rhetoric, imagery, and gesture to imbue the spiritual in one’s congregation. This too was performance.
So too are all civil rights marches, big and small. So too is the act of putting up political posters, the chanting outside city hall, the letters to the editor. Even arguing with your uncle at Thanksgiving is a kind of political performance. To be seen acting in a political light is to be seen in the midst of performance.
To an extent, we already know this. If you have Facebook, you know this intimately well. The elderly evangelical who posts poorly referenced and even more poorly edited images of random verses from Revelations knows, on some level, that their posting is performative. That doesn’t make their dedication to the cause any less true.
But I do wonder if those who were introduced to the internet’s political landscapes not by Facebook foibles but by Snapchat stories, Instagram infographics, and what can only be described as Tumblr terrorism, have somewhat missed this point. We may assume our opponents are all talk, but for ourselves, we’ve grown to assume what is authentic cannot and is not also a performance, and that a performance must be divorced from authenticity. That can be a belief you hold, sure, and I can say that the clouds are actually made of chewing gum. That doesn’t make it true.
It is important for us, as inheritors of our previous generations’ political epigenetics, to recognize, cultivate, and perhaps even celebrate the inherent performativity of our political action. To march in protest of our collective denigration and disenfranchisement is a performance. To occupy University Hall is a performance. To exist a person apart from the majority, to distinguish oneself from a society that would rather you disappear and to speak out against that society is a performance of incredible and uncontainable power. It is a performance that will help rock the foundations, the systems and structures, that hold you back.
Relish in the inherent performance of your political action, knowing full well it is not a rejection of but an inherent part of how important this action is to your being, to your soul. And if you’re going to perform, might as well yell while you’re at it. Know that those who seek your disenfranchisement will see your actions as nothing more than virtue signaling and progressive posturing. Internalize that. Hold it.
And then laugh in their face.
