Content and form
Artaud’s remark about‘lies and illusion’reminds us that, even at first
glance, there are two completely different ways in which theatre might be
said to be untruthful (or truthful): thefirst is through content; the second
is through form.^6 As for content (‘lies’): theatre might be untruthful
(or truthful) because it somehow makes false (or true) claims about how
the world is.^7 As for style (‘illusion’): theatre might be untruthful
because, in order to function, it depends upon some kind of illusion on
the part of the audience. These things are separate and independent of
one another. The focus in the case of content is on whether or not the
play makes true or false claims (we will discuss what this might mean);
this has nothing to do with the state of the audience. The focus, in the
case of form, is on what state is required of the audience in order for the
play to get going at all; this is independent of what the play is about,
what it claims about the world, what statements it makes and so on.
One could therefore imagine different complaints focusing on the different
elements. One way of thinking about Plato, for example, is that he com-
plains about the content of plays being false, whereas their mode of pre-
sentation in the theatre making their false content seem true: poets don’t
really know about carpentry, but when they write plays about carpenters
we take their claims seriously. The reverse seems to be the case in the
following aphorism from Kierkegaard’sEither/Or, in which the character
referred to as‘A’writes:
Afire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the
public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the
acclaim was even greater. I think that’s just how the world will come to an
end: to general applause from wits who believe it’s a joke.^8In terms of content, what the clown is saying is perfectly true. But the
form, the context of theatre is one in which he cannot be believed. What
is‘false’about theatre here is not that it makes false claims seem true, but
that it shuts out the possibility of recognising what is true and what is
false. This, I am suggesting, is a criticism aimed at the form of theatre,
not at the false claims made by individual plays. I propose, therefore, to
consider separately the questions of how truth relates to the content and
to the form of theatre.
Truth and content
When we watch things, we tend to learn from them. Sometimes we learn
about the particular things themselves; sometimes we generalise. So if
I watch a cat chasing a bird, I learn about that cat and that bird, perhaps
48 From the World to the Stage