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In his next theoretical move, McKenzie (2001) draws comparisons from each of these three fields, noting how the metaphor of theatre can be found in each one, although used in different ways (as scripted narrative, as theatricality, as self-reflection, as social criticism and/or action). More importantly, he sees the notion of challenge to be at the core of performance, however and wherever it may be used and found. The challenges of social efficacy, organizational efficiency and technological effectiveness are global, transnational challenges that must be faced and met with success or failure on all of our parts. The threads McKenzie pulls between and among these disparate fields of performance lead him to “a speculative analogy” (p. 176):
Performance will be to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries
What discipline was to the eighteenth and nineteenth:
An onto-historical formation of power and knowledge.
(p. 176, bold original)
My interest in McKenzie’s general theory of performance, which he names “perfumance” (pp. 203ff.), lies in its relevance to curriculum and pedagogy within this study. If McKenzie is right, and I think he is (echoing Schechner’s [2000a] response), his voice is a strong cry for a seismic-level shift in education. If young people can learn to perceive and interpret the world, and themselves within it, as an interconnected series of performers, spectators, and performances at multiple levels of society, is there then a possibility for them to gain more agency to resist the powerful forces that push them to perform for military-industrial, consumerist, and technocratic ends? While the curriculum conceived in this present study is focused, quite intentionally, on cultural forms of performance, it is greatly inspired by the creative and provocative theorizing found in McKenzie’s text.
Audience Studies and the Absent Theatregoer
The field of audience studies also helps me to paint the backdrop of the chapters to follow.