A further thought, which might now count against the Platonic
objection, relates to our conception of democracy. Plato expresses his
views about theatre inThe Republic, which, as we have seen, is primarily a
discussion of politics. Ideal political activity, for Plato, is philosophically
informed and based on knowledge–but poets don’t know. Then again,
it’s not just the poets who don’t know what they’re talking about; it’sthe
people, too. Thus, citizens without any special training shouldn’thaveany
say in the running of the ideal city. Plato, then, is consistent in his view that
neither the people (in general) nor the poets should be able to influence
political affairs. However, if we now hold that democracy is legitimate –
that the general public, no matter how much or little they know, must
have a say–then the case for being suspicious of political theatre in this
sense looks a bit shaky. Why object to a playwright expressing political
views in a play text, and not object to that same playwright casting a valid
vote in a general election, or to her standing forpublic office, to be elected
by the very public whom, as a playwright, you feel she is liable to mislead?
Furthermore, this platonic criticism of political theatre does not neces-
sarily sit well with the initial objection, namely that plays should be
treating universal subjects and therefore should last through the ages. If
you hold the latter view, then that may well be because you think that
playwrights have something valuable to contribute to our thinking about
such matters. But the first, Platonic criticism was that playwrights
don’t know what they are talking about. If artists are supposed to deal
with‘eternal’themes, then presumably their knowledge and treatment of
such themes are open to the same criticisms as their treatment of political
affairs: what expertise do they have about either? Plato is consistent, it
seems, that they have none whatsoever. But the critic who claims that
plays should keep out of politics because they should be dealing with
eternal or universal themes presumably thinks that artists have something to
bring to the table with regard to such themes. And if an artist is permitted
to speak of eternal concerns, then why not of specific ones?
Finally, even if a relatively clear statement is conveyed, we should be
clear that predicting an audience’s response to it–how politically effective
it turns out to be–is a completely different matter. Whatever the intent
of Beaumarchais’The Marriage of Figaro–and he clearly intended to ruffle
a few feathers–the speech in which Figaro denounces the aristocracy as
lazy, conceited good-for-nothings was greeted with tumultuous applause
by the aristocrats who had waited overnight to see it. Given the date of
the performance (1784), they might have listened more carefully.^13
One might take a political play to be encoding or expressing a moral
principle or‘moral of the story’, which relates in some way to a con-
temporary political issue. Obviously, if this moral principle is one that
the author believes to be true and is trying to transmit through her play,
170 From the Stage to the World