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Direct Action, Dramatic Action: Theatre and Situationist Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2009

Graham White
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Abstract

In exploring the relationship between situationist theory and theatre in the period of the ‘counter-culture’ in Britain, the following article seeks to provide an account of the ‘spectacularization’ of political action through the language and forms of drama. The relatively neglected work of Raoul Vaneigem is examined for its treatment of theatricality as one of the organizing discourses of the spectacle, and the suggestion that ‘drama’ is a constant choreographic presence in the social world is explored alongside related ideas concerning the dramatization of everyday life in the work of Raymond Williams and Aida Hozic. Attempts to ‘disrupt the spectacle’ through political action during the period of the counter-culture are discussed in relation to this material. Graham White is Lecturer in English at King's College, University of London, and has been Literary Manager of the Finborough Theatre since 1990.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Theatre Quarterly , Volume 9 , Issue 36 , November 1993 , pp. 329 - 340
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

Notes and References

1. See Debord and Wolman, ‘Methods of Détournement’ p. 8–13, and the anonymous ‘Détournement as Negation and Prelude’, Internationale Situationniste, No. 3 (1959), p. 55, in Knabb, K., ed., Situationist International Anthology (Berkeley: Bureau of Public Secrets, 1981).Google Scholar

2. See Debord, G., ‘Theory of the Dérive’, Internationale Situationniste, No. 2 (1958), in Knabb, op. cit, p. 50–4.Google Scholar

3. See Knabb, op cit. Other coherent explanations are provided in Plant's book, and an earlier English translation of I. S. material is available in Gray, Christopher, ed., Leaving the Twentieth Century: the Incomplete Work of the Situationist International (London: Free Fall Publications, 1974).Google Scholar

4. Debord, G., The Society of the Spectacle (Exeter: Rebel Press/Aim Publications, 1987), para. 17.Google Scholar

5. The full title is On the Poverty of Student Life Considered in its Economic, Political, Psychological, Sexual and Particularly Intellectual Aspects and a Modest Proposal for its Remedy, by Members of the Internationale Situationniste and Students of Strasbourg.

6. Vaneigem, R., The Revolution of Everyday Life, trans Nicholson-Smith, D. (London: Left Bank Books, Rebel Press, 1983), p. 95.Google Scholar

7. Ibid., p. 94.

8. Ibid., p. 95.

9. Ibid., p. 95.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid., p. 96.

12. Ibid.

13. Ibid., p. 97.

14. Williams, R., ‘Drama in a Dramatized Society’, in Writing in Society (London: Verso, 1983).Google Scholar

15. Ibid., p. 12.

16. Ibid., p. 13.

17. Hozic, A., ‘The Inverted World of Spectacle: Social and Political Responses to Terrorism’, in Orr, J. and Klaic, D., eds., Terrorism and Modern Drama (Edinburgh University Press, 1990), p. 66.Google Scholar

18. Debord, op. cit., para 8.

19. Carr, G., The Angry Brigade (London: Gollancz, 1973).Google Scholar

20. Ibid., p. 70.

21. Anonymous quotation in Wandor, M., The Body Politic: Writings from the Women's Liberation Movement in Britain, 1969–1972 (London: Stage One, 1972), p. 254–5.Google Scholar

22. Frendz, ‘Women's Issue’, No. 30 (4 June 1971), Harvester Primary Social Sources, Brighton.

23. Fountain, N., Underground (London: Commedia, 1988), p. 141.Google Scholar

24. Hozic, op. cit., p. 72.

25. Christie, S., The Christie File (Orkney: Cienfugos Press, 1980), p. 328.Google Scholar

26. The Sun, London, 7 December 1972.

27. Daily Mail, London, 7 December 1972.

28. Daily Express, London, 7 December 1972.

29. S. Greenhalgh, ‘The Bomb in the Baby Carriage: Women and Terrorism in Contemporary Drama’, in Orr and Klaic, eds., op. cit.

30. Ibid., p. 161.