Theatre of Shame

So my avant-guard theatre professor gave us a take-home midterm that asked us to write a manifesto based on where we thought avant-guard theatre should go. So this is what I came up with.


In the past five years, since 9/11 approximately, our relationship with other human beings and our Earth has changed drastically. We have known about global warming for some time now, in the range of thirty years, and have slowly been making some environmental changes but none too drastic. Things like the Kioto Accord to lower CO and CO2 emissions, and the preservation of natural habitats have failed to launch. We are now approaching a critical time where we will be facing irreversible changes to our Earth that will lead to diminished water resources, diminished land mass and innumerable species of animals and humans alike will dies as a result. Some have claimed that water will become the new oil as a result of these effects. All of these realizations are being hidden away by the media and governments who are far more focused on telling us the current terror level we are at via cell-phone updates, what can cause cancer, and what virus is going to kill you even though you have a better chance of falling off the ladder you’re standing on than getting Sars.
The other realization we have to face is that oil is about to reach its peak in production which means that once that occurs our supply can only go downhill. This means increased political tension and the potential for a nuclear winter goes up. I think now more than ever we have to look to the future and I think this is where Avant-Guard theatre needs to start exploring. I am calling for a Theatre of Shame. What theatre needs to teach us is that we should be ashamed of ourselves as humans. We need to show just how despicable humans can be. There are no heroes in this theatre, everyone in the play represents a piece of human waste. The greatest thing these characters could do for the Earth is die. Audiences need to walk out of the theatre feeling terrible about themselves, because then and only then will people face a critical question: Do you want to see the continuation of the human race or would you prefer to give up and let us destroy the planet and ourselves at the same time. You can be your own personal anti-christ, or you can call for action and play God.
The Earth is a pot that is warming up and getting ready to eventually boil, and we need to decide if we want a future, or if we will just continue watching American Idol and pretend that the world is a wonderful place where an ordinary Sally Smith or Joe Kool can become America’s Next Top Model. Right now we live in a fantasy. People are too busy trying to feel good about their own lives popping Xanax to aid them through life because daddy has a new girlfriend who is your age. No one wants to look at the big picture. No wants to realize that genocide goes on everyday. The rainforests are becoming a massive woodchip pile, and people are dying for a natural resource that should have been replaced by now but isn’t because the people in charge own shares in oil and would go broke otherwise. So the American shells out billions of dollars to fight a war over oil instead of redirecting that money into finding alternate fuel sources. At the same time this is happening, the average western citizen gets upset at the guy who feels aids in Africa isn’t so bad because it keeps the population numbers down. Yet we vote for the guy who puts the leaders in charge of these countries who keep such epidemics going because they support western ideals and interests. We are all hypocrites who deserve nothing more than to see the horrible species that we are from characters on a stage who represent who we have become.
In the past avant-guard theatre has tried to issue manifestos that present new ways of looking at life and changing political structures for the better. However, the majority of people don’t listen. Only a small group of people buy into this life-changing idealism while the majority looks at them like a bunch of crazy people who get naked onstage. Most people in the 21st century laugh when they think about the orgies hippies used to have and the drugs they experimented with. Many of these hippies were once people who wanted revolution, and now they formed the institution (the following sentence was a lyric by Ben Folds in the song, ‘The Ascent of Stan’). The only way people are going to realize their downfall as human beings is to see themselves as the shameful, life-sucking individuals they are who are contributing in many ways to the problem. For example, Canadians are one of the worst countries in the world for wasting energy, we drive SUV’s because it suits our ‘lifestyle’. We also make very bad voting decision and allow our governments to be run by corporate scum. Theatre of Shame is meant to make Americans see why they shouldn’t have voted George W. Bush into the white house and why Canadians shouldn’t have voted Stephen Harper into parliament.
The Theatre of Shame will show people in present situations in which they indulge in media dramatizations and mindless TV, and absorb all the wasteful materials Western culture has for us to splurge on. It will show our hedonistic attitude toward life in which we care only for ourselves and our own personal lives. It will display horrible things that are going on around the world that our media and government hide from us. It will prove that we are the hypocrites that we refuse to see ourselves as.
The theatre of Shame will show future scenarios in which men and women are sent off to war to fight for the oil that makes their tanks move and heats their soup during ground warfare. It will show men and women going off to war to fight for the remaining fresh water resource the Earth has to offer. It will show a world without electricity and fast and convenient modes transportation in which people are forced to live in squander where first world countries become third world nightmares in which biker gangs and mafia control the remaining resources.
Every argument is two-sided. For example, God exists and God doesn’t exist. We can debate this for an infinite amount of time. The theatre of Shame is meant to shake the sheets. Avant-guard theatre has tried so hard to change the world, but perhaps we shouldn’t try and do that anymore. What we need to do is present people with a critical question. How much do they value their lives? Are they willing to change in order to maintain their lives? Is changing the world really worth it?
Suppose humans are just an evolutionary prototype. Perhaps we are a decent model but we are just a prototype and we have not achieved perfection and we are doomed to fail much the way the dinosaurs did. Suppose we are faced with the fact that the tragedy of mankind is the fact that we know we are not what we should be and that we do not deserve a place in the universe that created us. Perhaps it is a tragedy for us to be able to understand our own demise, unlike the dinosaurs whose brains were the size of peanuts.
Perhaps humans are the chosen race. Perhaps we will keep evolving and become better versions of ourselves. Perhaps our competitive nature will allow us to conquer the universe and gain control of it. Perhaps our abilities as nurturers will allow us to aid the universe and keep it beautiful. Perhaps we are eventually doomed, but what better do we have to do with our lives than to ensure that the world is a better place when we leave is than when we were brought into it. Perhaps maintaining life on Earth would be meaningless and a lot of work that we don’t want to do because it would be too much work.
It seems now more than ever that it is clear that the world is not a better place now than the day that I was born. Perhaps there is the occasional thing that has gotten better but it seems that the negatives are outweighing the positives. A history book only presents how we have gotten to where we are today, and usually with a bias towards the positive things we have achieved. We want to be able to pat ourselves on the back, this is our hedonistic nature. But suppose we don’t deserve a pat on the back, and I don’t think we do. Perhaps it will be a relief to people like me when the world blows up and all the ignorant people get their just desserts. Because right now it doesn’t seem like we deserve to continue our way of life. Our way of life is going to be challenged in the near future and no one seems to be prepared for it. No one at our current rate will be prepared for the future.
So I propose that the best way for us to be prepared to face the future is to be presented with scenarios we may have to face. Why is now not the right time to make things right? Why does it take a major crisis for someone to say something? What are we waiting for? Perhaps we just don’t care. And the theatre of shame challenges us to consider what we want out of life. It has taken too long. It is time to get informed. It is time to make your decision. Do you care? Are you willing to change? Choose now: Are you a destructionist or a constructionist?