Utopia in Performance, frankly, was an interesting read but there were many moments I could not find myself connecting with. I completely agree with Dolan in that performance becomes a statement that then exists in a space with an audience that feels and reacts, but she attaches this to the “what if” quality of a work but most works I have responded to, and watched people also respond were not pieces of what if but pieces of “here is the reality we live in” in some sort of way. I get that this could connect to the what if in certain situations.
It is also confusing when she mentions the meaning of utopia in terms of performance that is experimental and changing the way of the work, the way we exist in the world, and the way we respond to politics, but performances that are utopic, at least in the sense that I think of utopia where problems have been solved and people are happy are what we usually assume to be spectacles that are empty. Then I wondered, is she talking about the utopia of everything that is real and critical safely happening in one space. But then that is what all performance creates and connecting the sense of safety of a space of performance mostly to experimental and non-traditional performance than does not make sense.
I have seen plenty of theater that was “experimental” that did not explore themes of politics and the changing world, and I have seen many traditional shows that did exactly what Dolan’s talking about Playwright’s Horizon’s This Flat Earth, Broadway’s The Band’s Visit, and the list goes on. This confusion maybe because we only had the introduction and the first chapter, but something about her connecting 9/11 with the landscape of theater today.
Theater in its roots wanted to make people think about their lives and consider emotions and interpersonal connections, but in this postmodern world where theater isn’t the only way to tell stories to a public, shouldn’t we be rethinking these notions? Shouldn’t it be the artists choice to not spell out their meaning within the show but just let it exist as a piece of performance?
The other side of this is that Dolan assumes audiences are not aware of their experiences unless they are theater makers like Dolan herself. Her entire thesis seems to be on the fact that for performance to affect people, the people need to know exactly why they are being affected by and what they should be thinking and feeling. Which simply is absurd as an idea, we as theater makers need to trust that audiences make the choices to see our materials because they want to feel something. Audiences are smarter than needing to be spoon fed information, they are capable of feeling and understanding all kinds of materials.
Utopian performatives should not have to exist outside of the theater, their effect of course continues after the performance is done, but this shouldn’t be a burden on the performance maker and especially not anything indicating the quality of the work created.