Theatrical Responses to Wall Building: David Hare, Robert Schenkkan, Stacey Gregg
Theatrical Responses to Wall Building: David Hare, Robert Schenkkan, Stacey Gregg

Summary/Abstract: The article focuses on the communicative situation of the sociThis article examines how the issue of building walls in conflict zones has been addressed in the work of contemporary dramatists, focusing on three plays that differ both as regards the depicted geographical and political circumstances as well as the formal and aesthetic choices made by their authors. David Hare’s Wall (2009) discusses the separation barrier erected by Israel in the West Bank, and was performed by its author as a stage reading. Robert Schenkkan’s Building the Wall (2017) is a dystopian two-hander envisaging the impact of Donald Trump’s anti-immigration policies exemplified by the development of the “wall” along the U.S. – Mexico border. Finally, Stacey Gregg’s neo-expressionist drama Shibboleth (2015) centres around the building of yet another “peace wall” in post-Troubles Belfast. Analysing the plays in their respective socio-political contexts, the article considers theatre as a platform on which imaginative scenarios dealing with the impact of conflict on human interaction may be created and tested. It argues that like Chantal Mouffe in her plea for agonistic pluralism, the plays emphasise the crucial role of passions in supporting aggressive oppositional views, and ultimately assert the need to rejuvenate democracy by including extreme political positions in an agonistic debate. Within this framework, the article turns to the concept of performativity and its uses in discussions of theatre. It acknowledges the productivity of the concept as regards matters of form, convention and innovation; yet, it points out that similar affective impact may be achieved and an analogous political impulse communicated regardless of the kind of theatrical performativity that is at play. What is truly vital as regards contemporary political theatre, however, is its juxtaposition with what Jacques Derrida has termed “the originary performativity” which is inherent in “an injunction that comes from the wholly other” and bears potentially radical implications for future democracy.o-political double bind that generates politics of impasse. This is located outside the performativity of both agonism and deliberation. The impasse is neither a state of conflict nor of an agreement. Rather, it represents a state of inertia, whereby the amplification of sociopolitical forces causes them to weaken. Two cases of artistic research focusing on the performativity of the double-bind are presented. The Strachy (Fears) project explored the theme of art as a space that openly criticises social power relations, while being simultaneously dominated by the same types of power. The second project, Propojme se včera (Let’s Connect Yesterday), explored social rigidity in the face of a growing global polycrisis, of which society itself is the main instigator. Through artistic research, we explored whether it is possible to reverse communication based on self-destructive implosion and transform it into self-transgressing communication, making the invisible aspects of these social phenomena visible. The aim was not to ‘shoot the problem’ or escape it through art. Instead, we sought a performative reframing of the impasse that would transform the double bind into an affirmative and agonistic participation in social reality, with the potential to bring about social change.

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