Dealing with Harsh Truths

I re-read Jarry's play, Ubu Roi, after reading Ubu and the Truth Commission. There are many parallels between the two pieces, and not just the obvious ones. Taylor and Kentridge have structured their work on Jarry's structure, down to the number of acts and scenes. Even the scene at the end of each play is similar. It is interesting to me how modern Jarry's work appears to a contemporary reader. The issues he deals with are the same things we are still dealing with - political corruption, political murder, bribery, power. These are all issues dealt with in Taylor and Kentridge's play as well.

In preparation for writing my paper I read a lot of articles on ethnography and performance. I find this work to be an ethnographic performance of sorts. The authors are taking words from the transcripts of the hearings, and putting them into a dramatic structure. This gives the audience a new way of listening to and hearing things they may be aware of on the surface, but may be trying to forget about, or ignore. I read Turner's book From Ritual to Theater in my MFA course work, and it had a profound influence on the way I think about writing plays. I have had, in a little room in my brain, an idea of trying to write a documentary type of piece about the Phelps culture in Kansas. I'm not sure yet what form this would take, but I know it would definitely be a piece with media components, like Ubu and the Truth Commission. The idea of puppets is appealing as well - puppets distance the audience from some of the horrors of apartheid in Taylor and Kentridge's play, and also present some truths to the audience that are more effective than if they were spoken by an actor.

Once upon a time I wanted to be an anthropologist. I think playwrights can be anthropologists through the use of ethnography - listening to the stories and translating them into a form that audiences can relate to, but not diminish the power of the original stories. I also find that Taylor and Kentridge's piece does this as well. There are many ways of telling stories, and some stories are so horrific that the only way to tell them is through some kind of filtering device. Theatre works well for this. I think it may work better than film. Some things are best left to the imagination of the audience.

As we've been discussing the South African Truth Commission, I've also been thinking about other areas of the world where these types of bodies have been set up. I wonder about the effectiveness of the work. In Argentina the government set up a body to investigate the crimes of the government and the military during the so-called Dirty War. There seemed to be a reluctance on the part of the government, however, to punish former military and government personnel for their parts in the crimes committed against the people. If there is to be no accountability in the end, then what good is a truth commission of any type? I'm also not sure how much better a war crimes tribunal is. Do these types of activities really bring an end to the trauma suffered by ordinary people during civil unrest or war? These are questions I ask myself all the time, and there are no easy answers. Some days I'm not even sure if there are any answers, but I think we have to keep trying to find them.