Table Of ContentTheatricality, Dark Tourism and Ethical Spectatorship
Theatricality, Dark Tourism
and Ethical Spectatorship
Absent Others
Emma Willis
© Emma Willis 2014
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014978-1-137-32264-7
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DOI 10.1057/9781137322654
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For the ‘absent others’ to whom this book responds
Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgements xi
Notes for the Traveller: Introduction to
the Journey Ahead 1
A small act, a question 2
Evolution of memory 4
Itinerary 9
Otherwise 16
1 Landscapes of Aftermath 17
Dark tourism: a peculiar entertainment 18
Tourism and theatrical affect 30
Pilgrim, witness, bystander, observer: the roles
of the spectator 35
Ethics and ‘the inter-human drama’ 43
2 Performing Museums and Memorial Bodies:
Theatre in the Shadows of the Crematoria 56
Sachsenhausen, Auschwitz, Dachau: a personal journey 57
Theatre of the void 68
Theatrical affect and the presence of the dead 75
Akropolis and ethical memory: the role of the audience 86
3 Vietnam: ‘Not the bullshit story in the Lonely Planet’ 101
Doing the twist in this dirty little war 102
Cu Chi: ‘Vietnam’s answer to Disneyland’ 110
Meta-theatre 120
Curtain call 127
4 ‘Here was the place’: (Re)Performing Khmer Rouge
Archives of Violence 129
Facing the past: Tuol Sleng and Choeung Ek 130
Catherine Filloux’s Photographs from S-21 143
Broken face: Rithy Panh’s S21: Khmer Rouge Killing Machine 150
Demonstrations of difficulty 158
vii
viii Contents
5 Lost in Our Own Land: Re-Enacting Colonial Violence 161
Setting the scene 163
The performance 168
Memorials of dissent 179
6 ‘The world watched’: Witnessing Genocide 188
Maria Kizito: understanding the connectedness
of the world 190
Murambi: the affect of the dead 200
Finally 210
7 Phantom Speak 215
Works Cited 221
Index 231
List of Illustrations
0.1 Dark Tourists, Wellington, New Zealand, 2008 (Photograph:
Philip Merry, courtesy of Rifleman Productions) 5
0.2 Dark Tourists, Wellington, New Zealand, 2008 (Photograph:
Philip Merry, courtesy of Rifleman Productions) 7
1.1 Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington DC, 2012
(Photograph: Emma Willis) 22
1.2 ‘Killing Tree’, Choeung Ek, Cambodia, 2008 (Photograph:
Emma Willis) 22
1.3 Dark Tourists, Wellington, New Zealand, 2008 (Photograph:
Philip Merry, courtesy of Rifleman Productions) 47
1.4 A tourist views Ai Weiwei’s Names of the Student Earthquake
Victims Found by the Citizens’ Investigation, Hirshhorn
Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC, 2012
(Photograph: Emma Willis) 54
2.1 Tourists at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland, 2007
(Photograph: Emma Willis) 62
2.2 Tourists at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland, 2007
(Photograph: Emma Willis) 62
2.3 Tourists at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland, 2007
(Photograph: Emma Willis) 63
2.4 Tourists at Dachau, Germany, 2010
(Photograph: Emma Willis) 65
2.5 Tourists at Dachau, Germany, 2010
(Photograph: Emma Willis) 66
2.6 Tourists at Dachau, Germany, 2010
(Photograph: Emma Willis) 66
2.7 Artur Z˙mijewski, 80064, 2004 (Still image courtesy
of the artist, Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw, and
Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich) 81
3.1 War Remnants Museum, Vietnam, 2008
(Photograph: Emma Willis) 109
3.2 Cu Chi Tunnels, Vietnam, 2008 (Photograph: Emma Willis) 111
ix
x List of Illustrations
3.3 Cu Chi Tunnels, Vietnam, 2008
(Photograph: Emma Willis) 114
3.4 Cu Chi Tunnels, Vietnam, 2008
(Photograph: Emma Willis) 116
3.5 We Are Proud to Present… by Jackie Sibblies Drury.
Director: Eric Ting. Actors, L–R: Jimmy Davis,
Phillip James Brannon, Lauren Blumenfeld, Erin Gann
(under Lauren’s arm), Grantham Coleman. Soho Rep,
New York, 2012 (Photograph: Julieta Cervantes) 125
4.1 Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide, Cambodia, 2008
(Photograph: Emma Willis) 134
4.2 Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide, Cambodia, 2008
(Photograph: Emma Willis) 134
4.3 Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide, Cambodia, 2008
(Photograph: Emma Willis) 135
4.4 Choeung Ek, Cambodia, 2008 (Photograph: Emma Willis) 140
4.5 Choeung Ek, Cambodia, 2008 (Photograph: Emma Willis) 142
4.6 Photographs from S-21 by Catherine Filloux. Director:
Thenn Nan Doeun. Actors: Roeun Narith and Morm Sokly.
Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 2001 (Photograph: Mak Remissa,
courtesy of Asia Motion) 145
4.7 Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide, Cambodia, 2008
(Photograph: Emma Willis) 153
5.1 Lost in Our Own Land, performed in Christchurch,
New Zealand, 2008 (Photograph: Emma Willis) 172
5.2 Lost in Our Own Land, performed in Christchurch,
New Zealand, 2008 (Photograph: Emma Willis) 173
5.3 Lost in Our Own Land, performed in Christchurch,
New Zealand, 2008 (Photograph: Emma Willis) 177
6.1 Maria Kizito by Erik Ehn. Director: Emily Mendelsohn.
Actor: Esther Tebandeke. La MaMa, New York, 2012
(Photograph: John Eckert) 192
6.2 Kigali Genocide Memorial, Rwanda, 2013 (Photograph:
Emma Willis) 203
7.1 Peter Weiss’s The Investigation at Staatstheater, Nuremberg
(Congress Hall, Nazi party rally grounds), June 2009,
awarded the Nuremberg Theatre Award in October 2010,
director: Kathrin Mädler (Photograph: Marion Buehrle) 216
Acknowledgements
This book builds upon the fine work done in the areas of theatre and
ethics, and theatrical spectatorship cited throughout the following
pages. I would like to begin by acknowledging those scholars whose
thinking inspired and challenged my own. Some of those same writers
also led me to the work of Emmanuel Levinas. His philosophy has been
invaluable as a provocation to both think otherwise and of the other.
Within the book I have also ventured into a terrain that is new to me –
tourism studies, in particular the emergent field of dark tourism – and
I acknowledge those writers cited for their thoughtful analysis, which
I have drawn upon in expanding the theatrical perspective.
I gratefully acknowledge the support, guidance and encouragement
of the various readers of this project in its entirety at its different stages
of life: Murray Edmond, Tom Bishop, Megan Evans, Sophie Nield
and Helena Grehan. I would particularly like to thank Murray and
Tom for their tireless and generous support of the project in its early
stages. I would also like to thank the readers of sections of the book
at various times: Jared Wells, Amber McWilliams, Kerryn Olsen, Evija
Trofimova, Kirby-Jane Hallum, Maria Prozesky, Rand Hazou and Grant
Bollmer. I also gratefully acknowledge the financial assistance of Massey
University, Education New Zealand and the University of Auckland in
providing research resources.
The seed for this project came from an earlier creative work that
inspired it. I would especially like to thank Malia Johnston, my partner
in making Dark Tourists, and all of the creative team involved includ-
ing: Eden Mulholland, Paul Young, Peter Daube, Sean MacDonald, Julia
Milsom, Clare Lissaman, Mia Blake, Paora Taurima, Sally Stockwell,
Paula van Beek, Martyn Roberts, Vanda Karolczak, Michele Powles,
Rachel Atkinson, Sian Tucker and Philip Merry. I would also like to
thank Creative New Zealand, Auckland Arts Festival and the New
Zealand Fringe Festival for their support.
Further warm thanks to those who have spoken with me about their
work, including: Catherine Filloux, Erik Ehn, Carol Karemera, Emily
Mendelsohn and Mike Tamaki.
An earlier version of Chapter 4, ‘“Here was the place”: (Re)Performing
Khmer Rouge Archives of Violence’, was published in 2013 in Performing
Archives/Archives of Performance (ed. Gunhild Borggreen and Rune Gade)
xi
