The answer I
would give to this question is: No. In no shape or form does the parallel
between theatre and politics diminish the seriousness and significance of
politics. In fact quite the opposite is true. Machiavelli is best known as the
writer of what has been described as “a handbook for tyrants”. It is quite well
known that Machiavelli served about thirteen years in ambassadorial and
military roles during the Florentine Republic. What isn’t often mentioned or
apparently all that well known in our time of Machiavelli, is that he was also
a dramatist and a poet of high repute and that his fame as a political
pragmatist that eclipsed his contemporary fame as a dramatist came posthumously.
At the time Machiavelli was writing plays he was also engaging in and
witnessing precisely the behaviour that provided the material he deals with as
subject matter that he quotes at length and uses as examples in “The Prince”.
My point in stating this is that Machiavelli did not see a functional
difference between politics and theatre. And it can be argued that neither have
a lot of other people before and since Machiavelli, with the Athenians
Aristophanes and Aeschylus, the Romans Petronius, Seneca and Lucius Apuleius
and the American Graham Green all writing intensely political pieces of theatre[1].
Towards the
end of his life, after he had served his beloved Florence as a diplomat,
militia commander and politician, Machiavelli wrote the comedy “La Mandragola”: “The Mandrake”. At least one writer is of
the opinion that in “The Mandrake”, Machiavelli explored much the same ethical
and political territory as he did in his seminal treatise “The Prince”, albeit
in a decidedly different manner[2]
with an exploration of Virtù and Fortuna
being central themes in both works[3].
“The Mandrake”, I believe served to wet the Florentine intellectual appetite
for Machiavelli’s masterpiece. We must remember that Machiavelli wrote almost
as many works of fiction and plays, (nine of them), as he did political
manuals, histories and commentaries, (fourteen of them). There may be no
coincidence in the timing between the performance of “The Mandrake” and the
publication of “The Prince”. And that “The Mandrake” was released and performed
before “The Prince” was printed and long before it gained its reputation and
notoriety and indeed could well have served as an primer of sorts for the more
serious and intellectually drier “The Prince”. Machiavelli had other political
works published before both “The Mandrake” and “The Prince”, and none of them
achieved the heights of popularity and relevance of these two works. Machiavelli
was already known and indeed famous as a dramatist and historian and it
certainly would have been common knowledge that he had written something both
different, and to use a modern metaphor “game changing”, he had after all been
effectively workshopping “The Prince” with his friends for a generation. The
release of two works with such similar themes so close together and not have it
planned, to me, to almost beggar belief.
Modern
authors such as Michael Kirby in his essay “On Political Theatre”[4]
agree with Machiavelli. Kirby
establishes clear connections between political theatre and politics itself in
Stalin’s Soviet Union and Nazi Germany when theatre was very much an approved
and indeed central method of political expression, propaganda and indoctrination
by both regimes. Kirby goes onto discuss
the protest movement of the Vietnam Era in the United States and the
significant role that theatre played in it. To quote Kirby: “Art does
change the way people think, and new ways of thinking may eventually cause
changes in laws and government.” And theatre is
undeniably art. To quote Kirby further: “John Houseman ascribed a
"seminal effect" to theatre…the theatre audience was relatively
small, the impact of theatre as a medium was somehow greater and more powerful
than other media.” And Kirby and Houseman are far
from being alone, with Tara Bracco in her article “The Power of Political
Theatre” which appeared in The Brooklyn Rail in September 2008 discussing the
depth of impact that political theatre has when it comes to discussing
political issues of the day. The single most compelling paragraph in the
article, and one that is, I believe, utterly relevant to Machiavelli is (my
emphasis):
“Unlike
film or television where it is too easy to hit the mute button, theatre
requires the audience to come face to face with its characters. Theatre
shows the depths of these characters, their circumstances, and what motivates
them to take specific actions. I never understood the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict until I saw the plays Golda’s Balcony and My Name Is Rachel
Corrie. My history books just presented factual events and outcomes. These
two plays showed the human elements driving this conflict and why tensions
exist.”
Machiavelli
saw and indeed deliberately used the immediacy and impact of theatre to make
political comment. Whilst “The Mandrake” is a comedy, it still discusses Virtù
and that makes it political, because according to Kirby and Bracco all theatre is inherently political.
Theatre can be used as a tool for conveying ideas and opinions in ways that
books cannot. We have all experienced the fundamental difference between
reading about something and actually seeing it. With theatre we get to see what
is on the page, we have our comfortable distance removed. The purpose of
theatre, Kirby and Bracco argue, is to make us think and that is exactly what
Machiavelli wants us to do. Machiavelli wants us to struggle, to think, to
discuss. Go to a performance of theatre and after the performance you will see groups
of people discussing the performance, Machiavelli knew about and relied on this
phenomena in order to promote the spread and acceptance of his ideas. Politics
is known to occur in just such groups, which is why totalitarian regimes such
as the USSR, Communist China and Nazi Germany all controlled and used theatre[5].
In the
present we have television and the Internet supplanting live theatre as the
dominant vehicle for political theatre. There is no doubt in my mind at least,
that live political theatre is still very much possessed of impact and that the
move from a physical theatre to an electronic one, is marginal with identical
outcomes occurring from both forms of political media. In 1998 Warren Beaty made a movie titled
“Bullworth”. I happen to view “Bullworth” as a first rate piece of political
theatre. “Bullworth” which has an American senator of the same name as a
central character and explores such themes as political honesty, accountability
and the power of minorities, of what would be possible if conventional
restraints of having to make compromises and satisfy vested interests were set
aside. In the course of researching this essay I have learnt that President
Obama has expressed a longing to “go Bullworth”[6].
Obama has expressed a longing to be able to say and do the sort of things that
Warren Beaty as Bullworth says and does, and to be utterly candid and
uncompromising in his dealing with people.
As political
theatre, Bullworth raises the important questions of politically reliable
constituencies and why is it that politicians cannot be more honest and
transparent. Once again we are being asked to think by an absent interrogator
via the medium of theatre. Without giving too much of the plot away, the reason
why Bullworth can be candid in ways that Obama clearly cannot, no matter how
much he might wish to, is because he has taken a contract out on himself which
has to be fulfilled within three days, thus with no future Bullworth can be
honest in ways impossible for others. “Bullworth” has always left me smiling at
the honesty inherent in it. Warren Beaty who is both the Director and Leading
Actor in “Bullworth” takes us to a place we are never going to go and then
expresses recognisable political truths. An example being: at one point Bullworth
during the course of the weekend, is asked by African American voters who have
habitually voted Democrat why after the race riots in Los Angeles in 1991 “Why nothing ever happened after Bush &
Clinton both visited in the aftermath of the riots?” The reply is both
brutally honest and politically accurate: “Like
you guys are ever going to vote Republican. Or pay for 30 second spots during
elections[7].”
The point made, is that the African Americans by being politically dependable,
have rendered themselves powerless.
Machiavelli
has successfully blurred the difference between stage and politics and
effectively reached out across the centuries. We watch, we engage with the
subject, we think and then, if the play write is successful, we have our
political assumptions changed or at the very least opened to intelligent
questioning. Likewise with the recent and incredibly successful series “House
of Cards”, which explores the rise of American congressman Francis Underwood
can be seen as political theatre, in that it seeks to portray a version of
events that take place in the American Congress. Whether House of Cards is
accurate has been the subject of much debate online. What is clear though is
that it has caused abundant thinking to happen with a search of “analysis of
House of Cards” producing 27 400 results. The questions raised in myself and
others by the actions of the clearly Machiavellian central character, Francis
Underwood, is whether power corrupts or whether you need
to be inherently corrupt in order to seek power? Even the morals of Machiavelli
as expressed by Underwood in the House of Cards are being opened up to
questioning. Once again we are engaging in politics and political questioning
via the medium of the stage.
Another answer to the question of
Machiavelli’s approach to politics. Is to be found in the phrase often attributed
to Machiavelli “the end justifies the means”, but almost certainly by the Roman
writer Ovid or the phrase by Leon Trotsky: “The end may justify the means as
long as there is something that justifies the end[8].”
And it is accepted that for Machiavelli, all means justify the end. Theatre as
a medium of political instruction is, for Machiavelli, simply another means to his end, which is the acquisition and preservation of power.
In reading “The Prince” I have
very much gained the impression that Machiavelli simply did not care how his
student learnt the lessons contained within it, what mattered to him is that
the lessons were learned. There is a certain deep psychological wisdom in
viewing politics as theatre in that it provides a buffer between the, at times,
messy consequences of politics and the perpetrator of politics. In viewing
events unfolding around ourselves as being nothing more than the play of
appearances, masks, actors and emotions we build ourselves a sanctuary of
sorts. In this Machiavelli shows himself to be a deeply attentive student of
human nature. He also in my opinion displays an affection for his student. I
think it matters to Machiavelli that whilst his opinions and teachings are
amoral, that there is no undue harm done to his student. Everyone else, however
is fair game.
So to
conclude. No, I don’t think that Machiavelli’s view of there being parallels
between politics and theatre lessens the impact of politics at all, if anything
it enhances it. Machiavelli made intelligent use of the tools at hand which
included the theatre as a means of exploring and expressing his political
theories. This is totally in line with the pragmatism so clearly evident
throughout The Prince. At the very least, Machiavelli knew that the use of
theatrical parallels would sustain the interest of an audience due to the
central position occupied by theatre in the level of society that Machiavelli
was writing for. I think it is accepted enough to not need referencing that the
upper classes have for the majority of history attended and patronised the
theatre. Thus the use of theatrical and political parallels and the view that
theatre and politics were the same creature wearing different guises, in no way
reduces the impact or importance of politics.
Finis
[1]
Petronius “The Satyricon. Aeschylus: The Oresteia. Aristophanes: The Knights
& The Assembly. Lucius Apuleius: The Golden Ass. Graham Green: The Quiet
American.
[2] http://www.enotes.com/topics/niccolo-machiavelli/critical-essays/niccolo-machiavelli
[3] http://www.emachiavelli.com/Machiavellian%20Rhetoric.htm
[4] Kirby. M
“On Political Theatre” The Drama Review.
Volume 19 1975
[5] Kirby. M
“On Political Theatre” The Drama Review.
Volume 19 1975
[6] http://theweek.com/article/index/244319/what-it-would-mean-if-obama-goes-bulworth
[7] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118798/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2
[8] http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/l/leontrotsk154770.html
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