Austerity and the Public Role of Drama: Performing Lives-in-Common

176 Pages·2019·1.86 MB·English

by  Victor Merriman

Austerity and the
Public Role of Drama
Performing
Lives-in-Common
Victor Merriman
Austerity and the Public Role of Drama
Victor Merriman
Austerity and the
Public Role of Drama
Performing Lives-in-Common
Victor Merriman
Edge Hill University
Ormskirk, Lancashire, UK
ISBN 978-3-030-03259-3 ISBN 978-3-030-03260-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03260-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018963554
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For Niamh, and our two wonderful boys, John and Fionn
Acknowledgements
In working towards this book, I have incurred a number of debts of grati-
tude. As will be apparent to the reader, my primary professional debt is to
my university, which has supported my research materially, from the
Colloquium on Performance and Domination (2013), through full produc-
tions of One Hour Theatre Company’s (OHTC) Half Measures (Tim
Prentki, 2016) and A Pound of Flesh (David Peimer, 2017), and rehearsed
readings of Lear in Brexitland (Prentki, 2017). Dr. John Cater, Vice-
Chancellor, Edge Hill University, has given personal encouragement at
every stage of the process, as have Professor George Talbot, PV-C Research,
Roy Bayfeld, Director of Corporate Communications, Phil Christopher,
Professor Kevern Verney, Professor Helen Newall, Dr. Barnaby King, Clare
Chandler, Professor Owen Evans,  Professor Mark McGovern, Professor
Claire Parkinson, Dr. Paddy Hoey, Dr. Tony Keating,  Carol Poole, and
Professor James Renton. The founding director of Edge Hill University’s
Institute for Public Policy and Professional Practice, Professor John
Diamond, and the institute’s Associate Director, Dr. Victoria Foster, enabled
conversations which enriched the argument as it developed. My collabora-
tors in OHTC, Professor David Peimer and Professor Tim Prentki, have
committed time, energy, expertise, and unfailing good humour to the task
of actually doing something to enable critical performance studies to emerge
as a practice as well as a conceptual feld. Visiting Professor Joe Farrell organ-
ised the memorable residency of Marina De Juli at Edge Hill University, and
Dr. Brian Desmond (University of Chester) collaborated in hosting a stimu-
lating series of events around Mario Pirovano’s production of Francis, the
Holy Jester. Brendon Burns, Course Director, BA (Hons) Community and
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Applied Drama, Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts, generously made
his unpublished work on facilitating democratic dialogue available to me.
Dr. Anni Raw (University of Newcastle) kindly offered access to her unpub-
lished PhD research. Dr. Eva Urban invited me to give a keynote address at
Whither Political Theatre? (St. John’s College, Cambridge, 2014), the
research for which informs a number of this book’s arguments. Chapter 2
draws on research presented in public lectures at Edge Hill University’s
Festival of Ideas (2017) and the Institute of Technology, Tallaght, Co.
Dublin (2018), and a keynote address, invited by Professor Vini Lander, at
Edge Hill’s Annual Conference on Research in Education (2017). A version
of Chap. 3 appeared in Kritika Kultura 20/21, and I am grateful to editors
and production colleagues at the University of Ateneo de Manila for ongo-
ing collaboration. I thank Dr. Terry Phillips and the members of the Irish
Studies Research Group, Liverpool Hope University, for providing a wel-
coming research forum. Conversations and intellectual collaborations with
Professor Jen Harvie, Professor David Lloyd, Professor Hélène Lecossois,
Dr. Eamon Maher, Professor Michael McKinnie, Professor Malcolm Miles,
Professor Jim Moran, Dr. Eugene O’Brien, Dr. Liam O’Callaghan, Dr. Nat
O’Connor, Danny Payne, Professor Jenny Pearce, Professor Lionel
Pilkington, Professor Alan Read, Professor Gerry Smyth, Hilary Wainwright,
and Professor David Whyte have helped to shape the work. Inspiration and
creative nourishment along the way has come from theatre-makers, includ-
ing Abdelfattah Abusrour, Paula Currie,  Jim Nolan, Bill Talen, Mario
Pirovano, Marina de Juli, Tom Hall, and Dr. Andrew Sherlock. Tomas René
and Vicky Bates, my editors at Palgrave Macmillan, commissioned percep-
tive anonymous peer reviewers, and facilitated the writing and production
process with great professionalism. OHTC’s work would not have been
possible without the commitment of actors acknowledged in the text, and
the technical support of Edge Hill University’s production team, including
Dave Praties, Dave Forrest, Murray Smoker, Pete Restall, and Dawn
Summerlin. I am especially grateful for the inspiration, encouragement, and
friendship of Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland, who has used his
offce to champion democracy-building towards a fourishing society.
Academic work is made possible in no small measure by sheer good
fortune; we are lucky in our friendships, the encouragement they provide,
and the connections—frequently unexpected—that they enable. Step by
step, conversation by conversation, we construct better cognitive maps, to
shape and serve our projects until they evolve into more developed ver-
sions. Finally, my greatest debt of all is to Niamh, John, and Fionn, who
make life worth living.
contents
Part I N eo-liberalism’s Political and Moral Economic
Project: The End of Public Life? 1
1 I ntroduction: Austerity and Drama’s Public Role 3
2 T he Public World: An Idea Under Pressure 11
3 D rama in Public Worlds 45
Part II P erformance, the Academy, and the Politics of
Austerity 63
4 D rama Worlds As Public Worlds 65
5 C onfronting Corporate Neo-liberalism in Jim Nolan’s
Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye (2016) 85
6 ( Re)Public Worlds: Drama As Ethical Encounter 101
ix
x CONTENTS
7 B eyond Deficit Culture: Conceptualising Collectives 127
8 B eyond Repair: A Critical Performance Manifesto 141
I ndex 169
PART I
Neo-liberalism’s Political and Moral
Economic Project: The End of Public
Life?