David Osipovitch

The University of Iowa College of Law

Dangerous Theater: The Value and Moral Underpinnings of Theatrical Performance

Two recent attempts to think about the relation between art and morality, known as “ethicism” and “moderate moralism,” both proceed from the premise that a work of art needs certain responses from an audience in order to be successful, and that in some cases an artwork will not succeed on it owns terms due to the presence of a moral defect. Both of these views fail. Ethicism fails because of its dependence on the deeply problematic idea that feelings and attitudes directed towards aesthetic objects are susceptible to the same moral assessments as those directed toward real objects. Moderate moralism fails because it cannot establish a necessary connection between moral and aesthetic defects in the same work of art, or show that the two should ever be conceived of as the same defect. But if we look at these two failures closely, we can see that they are in fact the very same failure. Both moderate moralism and ethicism are insensible to the fact that judgments made within the context of art are fundamentally different from judgments made in the real world. By the same token, they are both insensible to the fact that moral judgments require a relation to reality that is unavailable within the context of narrative art.

In this paper, I argue for a different kind of moralism – a “structural” moralism – that I believe describes the relationship between morality and one particular form of art: the art of theatrical performance. Theatrical performances are morally dangerous, not with respect to their content (narrative or otherwise) but with respect to the structural conditions under which they take place. The danger exists for both performers and audience members, though in different ways. However, the very possibility of moral danger inherent in the structure of theatrical performances is also the ground of what makes theatrical performances morally and aesthetically valuable.

Theatrical performances are valuable because they are ways for human beings to interact and communicate with each other as bodies through the pretense of live enactment, which engages both performers and audience members in a communal activity.  There is both danger (i.e. the potential for harm) and value (i.e. the potential for benefit) to this activity. The danger exists on both sides of the proverbial footlights: it lies in the possibility that audiences will be deceived or coerced, and in the possibility that actors will be misidentified as their characters. The value lies in the possibility that a community, however temporary, will form between the two groups and that this community will enable its members to experience life outside their own view points. The foundation of such a community, if it is to form, is a certain kind of trust. It is through this trust that the moral and theatrical are connected.