More questions ...

I've come up with a few more questions that I forgot to add the other day, but there is one really significant question that came up as I was reading Amy C.'s post and Anna Deavere Smith's introduction to Fires in the Mirror.

It occurs to me that as Deavere Smith has spent decades of her life in pursuit of "American character" -- which is something she sees as multiple and changing and always in process -- in this class we are looking both for what "American character" might be and how that relates to "World character." Amy brings up the point, which we discussed in class, that each person's perspective is his or her own and in many ways impossible to access, but that we as actors are attempting, as Anna Deavere Smith calls it, to cross the bridge between our own and others' perspectives. The big question this class poses is how we can use a combination of people's personal experience, research on history and culture, and plays and performance from different cultures to "cross the bridge" between ourselves and others in a larger sense -- how does the very problem of studying other countries' theatre from an "American" perspective point out the tensions inherent in the idea of "global" identity or "human" identity? How can we as actors find a way to use that tension productively?

But also, we have to remember that the very idea of us as "Americans" is misleading! So here's the big question I came up with: as we interview people, read plays and look at performance over the course of the semester, one thing to consider is the idea Anna Deavere Smith brings up of "margin vs. center." Our individual experiences of this nation vary widely, but in other countries and cultures people may refer to us generally as "Americans." Do we consider ourselves at the margins of "American" culture, or its center? Do we use our identity as Americans strategically, or do we generally even recognize it at all? (I, for example, sometimes would like to deny my identity as an American because there is so much about the country's current status in the world that frustrates and angers me.) When we look at people or theatre from other countries, it may be productive to ask what their relationship is to the country we are expecting them to represent. Do they consider themselves patriotic? Ex-patriate? What's the difference between being an ex-patriot and part of a "diasporic" population?

In the same vein: what is the relationship of the people or performance practices to tradition? The question of tradition and innovation seems central to what we are trying to study here, since a lot of times people define their identities according to allegiance or resistance to a certain kind of tradition. How do people change or adapt old ways of doing things? Do they reject tradition entirely? Do they revise it? (***For any of you interested in these questions: Raymond Williams theorizes these ideas using the terms dominant, residual and emergent in Marxism and Literature.)

Also, consider the relationship to history and time -- this is related to Sarah's point in class the other day. How long does it take for "tradition" to take hold? Over the course of history, what has changed that affects whether something is at the margins of a culture or at its center? How long has it been since those changes -- wars, revolutions, intellectual or scientific discoveries, introduction of new technology, systems of government or economics, etc. -- began or took place? (And, equally as important -- how are time and history represented in the content and form of performance and theatre?)

Finally, Anna Deavere Smith points out the importance of recognizing the multiplicity of voices in America, but the idea of human "unity" also seems very significant. How do these plays or performances deal with the idea of borders and either crossing them or living within them? How does hybridity or multiplicity figure into the work we are studying? Or is there a tension between two forces -- a binary opposition -- that creates the conflict in a play or performance?

I'm sure there will be more questions and thoughts to address after tomorrow's class, so more soon ...