“Sometimes I mean things so much I have to act”: Theatrical acting and democracy

Abstract

Consider political campaigning today. Many, including those inside the arena, have noted its overt theatricality and spectacular nature. "It's like going to the circus: You have acrobats and clowns and dancing bears" (Cruz quoted in Mascaro, 2016). This confirms the view of many contemporary democratic theorists that the political arena has become a place for spectacle and entertainment as opposed to critical public debate (see, for example, Bottici, 2014;Green, 2010; Urbinati, 2014, especially chapter 4). This situation has only worsened since 1962, when Habermas described the decline of the vibrant public sphere of the 1700s. According to Habermas, the expansion of capitalism eroded public-private distinctions and once-active voters became passive consumers dedicated to personal consumption and private interests rather than to a dynamic democratic polity. On the one side of the dichotomy is the theatrical representation of public officials; on the other, rational democratic debate (Habermas, 1989). Habermas speaks with disdain of "the staged and manipulative effectiveness of a publicity aimed at rendering the broad population … infectiously ready for acclamation" (Habermas, 1989, p. 211, The public only exists-is passively "brought in"-to applaud mindlessly this staged publicity. Habermas here registers his anti-theatricalism. The theater and its tricks remain beyond the pale of rational public discourse. Later, he will amend his views. In Between Facts and Norms, in 1992, he argues that new social movements and subcultures can dramatize relevant social problems and certain experiences-such as the experiences of oppressed or marginalized groups-can find expression in artistic forms of discourse that can have resonance in the more centralized, formal public sphere. He even gives as an example of arranged publics: "theater performances" right alongside "rock concerts," syntactically giving them equal weight (Habermas, 1996, p. 374).Theater, however, deserves consideration as separate from other artistic discourses for its educational value in a democratic society, not for the influence theater has on audiences but rather on actors themselves. Insofar as theater is just another forum for the use of expressive language that can capture personal sufferings and generate new awareness of political issues to place on the agenda, it is not very different from literature (but see Ajello, 2014). If it is true that successful political candidates today are "experts in communication," that is, "persons who have a better command of the techniques of media communication than others," then one solution is to broaden these techniques-to promote and embrace theatricality in the public sphere for all (Manin, 1997, p. 220). If[c]ontemporary representative democracy faces … a decline of electoral and political participation to which corresponds the growth of the aesthetic and theatrical function of the public, a voyeuristic machine that serves to gratify people's longing for political spectacle (Urbinati, 2014, p. 226