The theatre as an examination of power: Combining political theory and theatre history

Theatre and politics are intrinsically connected. The art of politics is extremely theatrical and the art of theatre has always been infused with political relationships. This congruity stems from the fact that both fields of practice originate from the same fundamental source: power. Both arts are different expressions of the same concept. This can be seen in the shared theatrical/political focus on argument; both theatre and politics have the same goal - convincing people by leading them to certain conclusions. Both politics and theatre necessitate getting others to believe what one is saying. The performer requires his audience to believe in his character and the world he creates; the political actor requires his peers to trust in his decisions and delegate authority to him. In this way politics and theatre are both principally tools of persuasion, a function of the power one person has in relation to others. As I will define, power is inherent in all relationships between people, working in concert to create new things. While this is obvious in terms of government and authority, I will not be using the classical definitions of power pertaining to rule of one person over another, but rather what results when people cooperate. As an expression of power – theatre allows for experimentation in human relationships and an examination of society and the power relationships contained within it – the theatre can be a tool for illuminating what power structures exist now or arguing for which structures should exist. With this in mind, how could one harness the power of the theatre as a political instrument? Further, what politics are implied by different theories of performance and different theatrical techniques? That is the focus of this thesis. By revisiting theatre history with a view informed in political theory, I attempt to outline the changing power relationships implied by different theatrical movements throughout the development of Western theatre, from Ancient Egypt until today. By tracing these changes in theatrical practice, I identify the inherent examinations of power in these techniques, analyze them and develop a collection of working terms and conditions to apply to a new form of political theatre. After surveying the power relationships shown by previous theatrical genres, I suggest a movement of my own that embraces the theatre/politics connection and seeks to use theatre politically. The goal: a theatre technique that focuses on examining power with the purpose of educating/training citizens, safe political experimentation and increasing inter-societal dialogue. With these goals in mind, this method of theatre will seek to function as a place for power experimentation which should benefit the political processes of debate, dialogue and persuasion that are necessary for a democracy. I especially apply Hannah Arendt’s definition of power, Plato’s city/soul connection and Michel Foucault’s concepts of “governmentality,” the “technologies of the self” and Stoic “melete,” in order to lay the groundwork for examining the power inherent in these theatrical relationships. In the broadest sense I outline a theatre which will operate under a regime of democratic governmentality – examining and experimenting with power with the intent of political action. In my extensive research into theatrical techniques, I came upon many that would be useful in such a theatre, which I outline in my first chapter. These include Aristotelian catharsis, the Horatian concept of theatre that “delights and instructs,” the political calls to action of Bertolt Brecht and Augusto Boal and many others. My principal conclusion is that theatre is useful to examine the power relationships that exist in society between people and decide whether or not they should remain that way. Furthermore, the art of theatre itself is especially useful for exploring political problems because it creates a series of imagined circumstances, wherein the performers, creators and spectators of the piece can experiment with power arrangements and learn through them. One act of theatre can have a multitude of potential messages and discoveries as to the nature of power and society that are worth pursuing. Additionally, theatre can serve as an act of Stoic “melete” (which Foucault describes as meditation) which is a kind of thought-experiment where one experiments hypothetical situations with the goal of learning something about oneself and the validity of one’s beliefs. Theatre can fulfill this function by allowing participants to live through whatever power struggle can be imagined and learn something about power (and themselves) through the experience. The spectators of theatre also live vicariously through the performers and gain some knowledge as well. The primary conclusion I come to in my exploration of the potential of these theatrical techniques and methods is that a political theatre should fulfill a didactic and enlightening role – identifying political realities and essentially judging them, while simultaneously offering alternatives to current situations and experimenting in new arrangements of power. Rather than serve as mere entertainment, the theatre could be used as a political platform to take some of the uncertainty out of political science (which stems from the lack of a “laboratory” for the science) and bring the democratic citizen into a thoughtful engagement with their political life. As the purpose of art is to share ideas and initiate dialogue – the artist should have something to say to the audience, and I believe theatre is the most effective way to have that discussion. And as an art form solely focused upon the interactions of individuals – the theatre is well-equipped to deal with questions of politics, the most personal of subjects. Over the course of my research, I came to believe in the power of the theatre to shed light on society’s problems and participate in the attempt to solve them

The Distributional Effects of Value Added Tax in Ireland

In this paper we examine the distributional effects of Value Added Tax (VAT) in Ireland. Using the 2004/2005 Household Budget Survey, we assess the amount of VAT that households pay as a proportion of weekly disposable income. We measure VAT payments by equivalised income decile, households of different composition and different household sizes. The current system is highly regressive. With the use of a micro-simulation model we also estimate the impact of changing the VAT rate on certain groups of items and the associated change in revenue. We also consider how the imposition of a flat rate across all goods and services would affect households in different categories. The Irish Government has recently announced that it proposes to increase the standard rate of VAT to 22 per cent in 2013 and to 23 per cent in 2014. We examine the distributional implications of such increases. The general pattern of results shows that those hardest hit are households in the first income decile, households in rural areas, 6 person households and households containing a single adult with children.

An Estimate of the Value of Lost Load for Ireland. ESRI WP357. October 2010

This paper estimates the value of short term lost load in the all island electricity market which includes the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The value of lost load, also known as the value of security of electricity supply, is inferred using a production function approach. Detailed electricity use data for the Republic of Ireland allows us to estimate the value of lost load by time of day, time of week and type of user. We find that the value of lost load is highest in the residential sector in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Our results can be used to advise policy decisions in the case of supply outages and to encourage optimum supply security. In the context of this study short term is taken to be a matter of hours rather than days or weeks

Minimal Important Difference (MID) of the Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI): Results from patients with chronic idiopathic urticaria

BACKGROUND: The Dermatology Quality Life Index (DLQI) has seen widespread use as a health-related quality of life measure for a variety of dermatological diseases. The purpose of this study was to estimate the minimal important difference (MID) on the DLQI for patients with chronic idiopathic urticaria (CIU). METHODS: Data from 2 Phase III clinical trials of patients (N = 476 for Study A; N = 468 for Study B) with CIU were analyzed separately to estimate the MID for the DLQI for these populations. Both distributional based and anchor based approaches were used for deriving estimates. The anchor based approach relied upon patient self assessments of pruritus severity; the distributional based approaches relied upon estimating the standard error of measurement, as well as one-half the standard deviation of the DLQI from each study. RESULTS: The distributional approaches resulted in estimates of MID ranging from 2.24 to 3.10 for the two studies. The anchor based approach resulted in estimates of 3.21 and 2.97 for the two studies. CONCLUSION: An MID for the DLQI in the range of 2.24 to 3.10 is recommended in interpreting results for patients with CIU

The Distributional Effects of Value Added Tax in Ireland. ESRI WP366. December 2010

In this paper we examine the distributional effects of Value Added Tax (VAT) in Ireland. Using the 2004/2005 Household Budget Survey, we assess the amount of VAT that households pay as a proportion of weekly disposable income. We measure VAT payments by equivalised income decile, households of different composition and different household sizes. The current system is highly regressive. With the use of a micro-simulation model we also estimate the impact of changing the VAT rate on certain groups of items and the associated change in revenue. We also consider how the imposition of a flat rate across all goods and services would affect households in different categories. The Irish Government has recently announced that it proposes to increase the standard rate of VAT to 22% in 2013 and to 23% in 2014. We examine the distributional implications of such increases. The general pattern of results shows that those hardest hit are households in the first income decile, households in rural areas, 6 person households and households containing a single adult with children

Determinants of Vegetarianism and Partial Vegetarianism in the United Kingdom. ESRI WP360. November 2010

Vegetarianism is increasing in the western world. Anecdotally, this trend can be attributed to heightened health, environmental and animal welfare concerns. In this paper we investigate the factors associated with vegetarianism among adults and children in the UK. Using the 2008 Health Survey for England, we use a logit model to assess the relationship between vegetarianism and the socioeconomic and personal characteristics of the respondents. We also analyse the factors associated with varying levels of meat consumption using an ordered logit model. This paper adds to the existing literature as it is the first paper to estimate the determinants of vegetarianism using a large dataset containing individual level consumption data

Superintelligence and Mental Anxiety from Mary Shelley to Ted Chiang

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is one of the earliest depictions of augmented intelligence; within the creature, we witness a very human intelligence that bases its understanding of the world on the convergence of human senses and human thought, yet one that presents these concepts in the uncanny shade of the doppelganger. In this portrayal, there is an anxiety that creeps in to the creature’s understanding of the world and its own subjectivity. It is based on language acquisition and knowledge. Once the creature becomes not only sentient, but intelligent, he begins to feel the existential weight of reality in a way that prefigures characters in subsequent Science Fiction, as well as presciently acknowledging recent pathological and scientific studies into the connection between mental health and intellect

‘With, all down darkness wide, his wading light?’: Light and Dark in Gerard Manley Hopkins’s ‘The Candle Indoors’ and ‘The Lantern out of Doors’

Gerard Manley Hopkins was a poet inspired by, and very much interested in, processes of light and vision. Within his works he presents a flexible structure of metaphor that is based on the relationship between light and dark. These interchangeable elements come to symbolise Hopkins’s spirituality and religion, as well as the challenges his beliefs were subjected to, while also outlining a very nuanced interest in perception and the principles of sight. Dennis Sobolev identifies what he terms ‘the split world’ of Hopkins as he explores the ‘semiotic phenomenology’ of his writing: ‘To put it briefly “semiotic phenomenology” as it is understood here–proceeds from the grounds that are transcendent to the distinction between the subject and the object, the physical and the imaginary, nature and culture, or any other metaphysical distinctions of the “kind”’ (Sobolev 2011: 4). What Sobolev suggests is the dichotomous liminality of Hopkins’s ideas and poetry. The most prominent example of this may well be Hopkins’s own notion of the ‘inscape’: the term, itself a portmanteau of words connoting the inner being (in, inside, interior) and the outer experience (scape, landscape, escape), attempts to address what Hopkins saw as reconcilable differences between the inner character or ‘essence’ of something and the object itself (Philips 2009: xx). Also, his use of the term ‘instress’ crosses similar binaries, as it is most commonly associated with the impression, or feeling, something may relate to the careful observer

The Potential for Segmentation of the Retail Market for Electricity in Ireland. ESRI WP433. April 2012

We estimate the gross margin that is earned from the supply of electricity to households in Ireland. Using half hourly electricity demand data, the system marginal price (also called the wholesale price) and the retail price of electricity, we analyse how the gross margin varies across customers with different characteristics. The wholesale price varies throughout the day, thus, the time at which electricity is used affects the gross margin. The main factor in determining gross margin, however, is demand. The highest gross margins are earned from supplying customers that have the following characteristics: being aged between 46 and 55, having a household income of at least €75,000 per annum, being self–employed, having a third level education, having a professional or managerial occupation, living in a household with 7 or more people, living in a detached house, having at least 5 bedrooms or being a mortgage holder. An OLS regression shows that gross margin is partly explained by the energy conservation measures which are present in a household, the number of household members, the number of bedrooms, income, age, occupation and accommodation type