Arts & International Affairs: Volume 2, Number 2 | Page 85

to profoundly witness not only a powerful event or narrative, but to truly
witness each other across our differences?
In his iconic essay “The Street Scene,” Brecht uses the traffic accident as a
foundational model for epic theater, in which the performer demonstrates
in detail what he or she has just witnessed (����). It is this shift, from a
bystander to an engaged witness who is compelled in some way to take the
stage and to grapple with what has transpired, where the dimensions of
witnessing as an ethically and politically-engaged embodied act of making
meaning come to life. Here, responsibility ceases to rest solely with the
performer; rather, it becomes part of the complex, diffuse, and powerful
social function of engaged performance. Much of the urgent promise that
performance holds in these challenging times is as a catalyst for genuine
and new acts of witnessing, and of being witnessed, in the mutual presence
of those whom we may have passed by, whether by choice, habit, or because
we have not yet been afforded the opportunity to connect.
References
Boal, Augusto. (����) Theatre of the Oppressed. New York: Theatre
Communications Group.
Brecht, Bertolt. (����) Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic, ed.
and trans. by John Willett. London: Methuen.
Gardner, Lyn. (����). Nirbhaya Edinburgh Festival Review. The Guardian,
August �.
Martin, Carol. (����). Theatre of the Real. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.
Oxford English Dictionary Online https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/
definition/theatre
Piscator, Erwin. (����). The Political Theatre: A History 1914–1929. New York:
Avon.
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