Back in 1983, when I was fresh out of college and you could do such things while retaining a shred of hope that they might be effective, I sent an unsolicited cover letter and resume to Performing Arts Journal asking them to keep me in mind if any openings popped up. A few months later, lo and behold, Bonnie Marranca called me to invite me in for an interview, and thus began my year-long stay there as an editorial assistant. Nostalgia doesn’t become me, but I was delighted to be there as PAJ expanded its books program (during my tenure the first English-language collection of Heiner Müller plays emerged from their offices, along with several other fine books, among them a few volumes of the Wordplays series and Bonnie’s own Theatrewritings); in the past few years, I’ve continued to contribute to the journal off and on, delighted also to continue the association. And Bonnie remains a good friend.
Next month PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art will celebrate the publication of its 100th issue. In recognition of this, The Brooklyn Rail’s Patricia Milder spoke at length with Bonnie for the new issue of the newspaper. In this interview Bonnie discusses the origins of PAJ, the relationship among art, performance, and theatre, and many other things besides. The full interview can be found here; below a few excerpts:
Marranca: PAJ is an alternative to Performance Studies. That is really an academic discipline that grew out of NYU, largely under the influence of Richard Schechner, who is a theater director and scholar. I’m a writer. Admittedly, Performance Studies has overwhelmed the field, but many people like myself wish there were more alternatives. Dramatic literature and writing were pushed off to the side, and performance became fused with a kind of cultural studies. PAJ has always put the primacy of the artwork at the center of the journal. There are people who don’t like the great theoretical turn and all of the academic writing that has taken over the field. …
Rail: I want to turn to something you have written about in the past regarding performance and culture. What are your thoughts on the incredible popularity of performance these days and the mainstream idea that performance art is everywhere?
Marranca: It’s confusing because often the idea of the general population may not be connected to what we think of as the historical legacy of performance art, and the complexity that came out of that. I think people subliminally recognize that the artist is the last free person in society, and they just simply are caught up in the mystique. Now ordinary people want to be artists and artists want to be ordinary people. Part of being able to perform, all of the excessive spectatorship, is connected to this psychological condition. This subject was actually my Guggenheim Fellowship project, “The Theatricalization of American Culture,” in 1984. I didn’t work on it as a book, though I have continued over 25 years to write about performance in a way that is very different from the view of those who celebrate the turn to performance in culture. Philosophically, I don’t believe in today’s view of the self as a configuration of ever-changing roles.
I’m actually against the drive toward performance and what that has produced in culture now. I think it is detrimental to the development of a serious American culture. I recall that when I first entered the theater and we started PAJ, many people like myself valued complexity in performance. We didn’t want anything accessible. The idea was that you were supposed to be challenged by work — you may have to do research, you may not know the meaning of it. People are so afraid now. Especially as the education system is in decline there is a deep cultural anxiety: This accessibility that people talk about has to do with the fear of not understanding something, a misunderstanding about what is elitist or what is popular. Also, people are confused by the accessibility that they see in virtual space and the impossibility of capturing that in performance space.
Rail: All such big questions.
Marranca: The stakes are so high. … What critical problems interest you as an arts editor?
Rail: In terms of New York performance, it is a very small world and a very personal, or at least in-person world, and there is this culture of affirmation where everyone wants to support one another. So if you become someone that covers the field, I definitely see the impulse in writers to avoid actual criticism in favor of advocacy. I think it’s just as important for a critic to believe that they can be involved in the discussion as an independent entity, and not just as someone who is beholden to the artist’s ideas. That’s very important to me. I wouldn’t write otherwise; I don’t see the reason to. I think there is a push back from young writers more recently who are asserting creative or critical individual presence. The idea of good writing is even more important now. I hear a lot more about the craft of writing.
Marranca: In a way, you can’t wait for the art to happen. You have to take your own responsibility as a critic and find the subjects that you’re going to write about. All important critics have done this. You could make this drinking glass so interesting, of course, if you were Walter Benjamin or Roland Barthes. You could write about this tape recorder. Certainly, the critics that I admire or learn from or read have all been original voices in their field. In fact, why I am so against the theoretical turn is that all you have as a writer is your voice. You write because you really become attached to the work and you explore your thoughts. I love essay writing. I feel it’s so elegant when it is well done because you are really reading thinking, and I love that. Maybe that’s why I admire Gertrude Stein. But I’m happy to hear that you think, or know of people who are perhaps thinking, that we do need some new directions in critical writing.