Parece-me bem fixe!

Para quem não trabalhar e quiser fazer algo pelo meio ambiente!!

Aljustrel

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Good evening great thinkers of America (and beyond…hopefully…hopefully)!  I’ve always wanted to say that.  Anyway, in true American fashion, I wanted to debut my blog with a topic that is somewhat personal in nature; but that will be great pillow-talk for all of you loving couples that come by and read me today.  Let’s get into it, shall we?

Does “crossing the line” have varying degrees, based upon our gender?  Has “emotional cheating” become the new actual cheating in today’s TweetDeck, Facebook, Myspace, AdultFriendFinder, etc…world?  First, I believe that “crossing the line” does have varying degrees.  The way to avoid this would usually be to find out exactly where that proverbial “line in the sand” is drawn, and doing all you can to avoid letting your big toe land anywhere near it.  Remember that old kids…banter, step on a crack, break ya mama’s back? Avoid getting anywhere near it.  Of course this is easier said than done, believe me.  I have (a time or twelve) crossed a line that, in retrospect, totally wasn’t cool for me to cross.  I’ve had to make it up with all of the perfunctory and obligatory actions, ie; accepting fault and responsibility, promising to be a better person and walking on egg shells…etcetera, etcetera…but in the end, how much does that really help?  I’ve always been the kind of man who can seperate fact from fiction, yet eleven years into my relationship with the internet, I’m just now getting the message.

The cyberworld has left all of us vulnerable to spam, spyware and other annoying ‘bugs’ that ruin the experience.  It’s also given men and women yet another way to mess up relationships that they hold dear to them.  How many of you have received a nice little note from your significant other, asking:  ”Who is that person on your page?”; “Why is he/she being so friendly?”; “Why am I not in your top friends?”  These are just the basic questions du jour to expect when you go to that tidy little sign-up page, asking all of your information.  If anything, the advance of social networking sites has opened more people up to making dumb decisions, because even when you think it’s private, it really isn’t.  Passwords are guessed, pages are hacked, embarassing posts are listed, or blasted for the world to see.  All because of the written word.  See, back in our parents’ or grandparents’ day, people simply had to trust that their mate was…theirs. In this cyber world of today, a picture comment, a pm (private message) or the like, could get you into deep you-know-what with your significant other.  The issue hasn’t changed, as far as the indiscretion; but has our sensitivity changed?

With it being so easy to post something for the world to see, it seems to me that this is the sole reason why emotional cheating is the new (and apparently only) type of cheating today.  I’ve seen women take their men back on Maury after hearing a lie detector test that her husband/boyfriend totally failed.  You’ve seen men go to blows with each other on Jerry Springer over “Trailer Park Prizes”.  Emotional cheating, however, is more discreet in nature, and harder to pin down.  Maybe these are reasons why it’s such a detrement to relationships today.  When your partner is past just having urges to browse your page, whatever your cyber-closet has in it will be revealed in time.  It’s simply the idea that a person that lives in another place; that you may never see, let alone touch, is such a part of your virtual world that makes this a subject worthy of discussion.

The next time you’re on your favorite website and some shirtless, unfamiliar person wants to engage you in some online flirting, think about everything that’s beautiful about real life. Whether it’s your beautiful wife and kids; that new girlfriend/boyfriend who is starting to annoy you already…consider the fact that life, the real one, is only a microcosm of the life people percieve you to really be living.  And these social networking sites should actually do more to help bridge the gap between on-screen and under-the-sun.  Try throwing big parties in multiple places (not everybody lives in California!) that will help people meet, such as “meet and greets”.  That way the next time your woman asks you who “FillupFelicia70″ is, you can say:  ”Don’t you remember?  We had drinks with her just last week.”  And that’s the appropriate way to network.

Welcome to my blog.

Peace

By MICHAEL MACLEOD

A FAMILY has gone into hiding after a doting dad walking his dog was gunned down by a masked attacker.

Police are trying to find out why plumber Douglas Downing, 39, was targeted and refused to rule it out as a case of mistaken identity.

Mr Downing (Pictured), of Willowbrae, Edinburgh was still recovering in hospital tonight, and relatives were looking after his house.

They insisted the shooting was aimed at the wrong man.

One relative, who wouldn’t be named, said: “The family have moved away from here just now, which is understandable considering what happened.

“Dougie is doing okay but he and the family are very shaken up.

“It’s outrageous that someone is running about with a gun in an area like this, with a school so close by.

“It’s definitely a case of mistaken identity. Dougie is a family man and never had any trouble. Everyone is okay, just very shaken up.

“The police have warned us to be careful about what we say, so I can’t say much more than that.”

Bullet holes are still visible in the living room window and blood spatter was cleaned off the outside of the house after forensics completed their investigations.

The hitman lay in wait for the dad of two to return from walking his dog in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

Mr Downing was about to open his front door when somebody opened fire with a shotgun, striking him once in the lower body area and missing with a second round.

The gunman then fled into the dark, leaving Mr Downing in agony in his garden at Paisley Drive, where his partner Carol McEvoy had been inside with their two children – Luis, eight and Cameron, nine.

Shocked neighbours and Carol hurried to the stricken plumber’s aid as police and paramedics were called to the scene.

CCTV

The plumber was rushed by ambulance to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary where he surgeons operated on wounds, said to be around his waist.

Police are scouring CCTV tapes of surrounding streets in a bid to find a silver car which was spotted screeching away from nearby Meadowfield Drive.

The officer leading the hunt said there was no doubt that Mr Downing was the intended target, but said he had no clear connections with gangs, drugs or other criminal activity and seemed to be nothing but a respectable parent.

Detective Superintendent Alan Jones said: “It was around 12.40am when the victim was walking home from Willowbrae Road with his Collie dog.

“He was in his garden when he heard rustling behind him. A shotgun was then discharged twice injuring the victim.

“He has no links to anything untoward. He is a well-respected family man.

“This has been a purposeful attack – he has been targeted. However we can find no motive for the attack at this stage.

“Something like this has never happened around here in my 27 years of service and I want to reassure local residents that we are doing everything we can.”

By LAUREN CROOKS

A SHOTGUN toting hit-man blasted a doting dad of two in his own garden after lying in wait for him to return home from giving his dog its last walk of the night.

Douglas Downing, 39, from Willowbrae in Edinburgh, was reaching his front door when a masked gunman opened fire – striking him once in the lower body area – before missing with a second burst of gunfire and fleeing into the dark.

The stray cartridge smashed through a ground floor window of the well tended terraced property on Paisley Drive where his partner Carol McEvoy, originally from Coatbridge in Lanarkshire, had been with their two children – Luis eight and Cameron, nine – at the time.

Shocked neighbours and Carol are understood to have rushed to the stricken plumber’s aid as police and paramedics were called to the scene. It’s understood the pet dog escaped injury.

A silver car parked in nearby Meadowfield Drive was understood to have been spotted screeching away from the area at speed and is now subject to intense police attention as they step up their hunt for the mystery gunman.

An ambulance ferried the stricken dad to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary where he underwent surgery to his wounds cited by different sources as being either his stomach area or groin. Detectives were unwilling to confirm precisely the nature of his injuries today.

Officers leading the hunt say they are in no doubt that Mr Downing was the intended target – but said he had no obvious connections with gangs, drugs or other criminal activity and seemed to be nothing but a respectable parent.

The normally quiet suburban street near Parsons Green Primary School was abuzz with activity all day yesterday as forensic experts dressed in white coveralls and cap wearing search teams combed every inch of the area for clues.

Blood

Blood spatter was clearly visible against the light coloured walls of the home as the morning mist lifted, Mr Downing’s works van still parked in its usual spot as police erected huge barriers at both ends of the street to seal off the view.

Brightly coloured markers were laid on the ground by the search team hunting for clues as white suited forensic experts combed the area.

Last night officers described the attack as “lethal and life-threatening” and said that while they could never rule out a case of mistaken identity, they were satisfied that Mr Downing was deliberately targeted.

Speaking at the scene Detective Superintendent Alan Jones said: “It was around 12.40am when he victim was walking home from Willowbrae Road with his Collie dog.

“He was in his garden when he heard rustling behind him. A shotgun was then discharged twice injuring the victim.

“He has no links to anything untoward. He is a well-respected family man.

“This has been a purposeful attack – he has been targeted. However we can find no motive for the attack at this stage.”

Speeding

He said the only detail available about the gunman was that he was was dressed all in black and covering his face with a balaclava or ski-mask.

Police said a silver vehicle was scene speeding away from the area at nearby Meadowfield Drive around the time of the attack.

They believe it could be connected.

DS Jones added that the incident was “highly unusual” for the area.

He added: “Something like this has never happened around here in my 27 years of service and I want to reassure local residents that we are doing everything we can.”

Worried residents huddled in small groups outside the gates of Parsons Green Primary School a few seconds walk from the scene.

The road to the main entrance was sealed off by police as the investigation continues through the day.

One grandmother, Margaret Smith, 59, who has three grandchildren at the school – Arron, seven, Taylor, five and Eilidh, five, – said: “I was really shocked and scared when I found out what had happened.

“I thought the police would have closed off the school today given there is a gunman on the loose.”

Scary

“I know the guy involved – it’s a terrible thing to have happened.”

Another tradesman, who asked not to be name, added: “You never get this sort of thing here, not in Edinburgh -in the West maybe but not here.

“It’s scary.”

Some residents of Paisley Drive were asked to vacate their properties while forensics examined the street.

Other shocked neighbours stood outside their homes waiting for news.

Martin Ivinson who lives a few doors down from from Mr Downing said: “I was asleep at the time and didn’t hear a thing – I was just woken up by the police.

“He is a family man and I can’t think why he would be targeted. And if it was just a random attack and not personal then that’s even more scary.”

Doreen Tait, 57, said she heard gunshots from her home behind Mr Downing’s.

She said: “I was woken up by two loud gunshots – my dog was going wild.”

“I didn’t think anything of it because I didn’t realise it was close to home. It’s really quite scary, nothing like this has happened around here before.”

Another neighbour, Gregor Todd, 44, added: “The guy’s windows have been smashed in.

“It doesn’t look like this was a random shooting.”

Mr Downing’s next door neighbour, who did not want to be named, said: “He got shot around midnight – I heard some commotion.

“He was shot in the groin.”

A neighbour on the other side of the Mr Downing’s home, who also refused to be named, said that he was recovering in hospital.

He said: “I’ve heard that he is doing OK in hospital, which is a big relief.

“But it’s still scary to think that this can happen to such a normal guy.

“This is a total bolt from the blue – Douglas is very nice man and we didn’t expect this at all.”

Mr Downing’s employer, plumbing firm Boland Jarrett, were unavailable for comment on the incident.

A receptionist said only: “I’m sorry – we’re not allowed to say anything at this time.”

The road remained sealed off last night as police appealed for information and continued door to door inquiries.

Drunk as Fuck – adjective, referencing another’s level of intoxication. synonym – stupid drunk, getting the spins, fucked up, blasted, destroyed, blitzed, bombed, clobbered, cockeyed, hammered, inebriated, juiced, liquored-up, obliterated, plastered, ripped, raging, roaring, sloshed, smashed, under-the-table, wasted.

Drunk as Fuck + Vehicle = DUI Mug Shot.

(druhngk az fuk) Origin – 12th century AD – when the first distilled spirits were released on the unwitting female populace.

Drunk as Fuck refers to the specific moment when a potential sexual partner ingests an excess amount of alcohol, leaving their judgment impaired, decreasing their ability to perceive your physical, social, and psychological shortcomings and creating an opportunity for you to get laid.

For some, these moments are exceptionally rare – requiring a massive quantity of spirits to overcome their  inadequacies. For others, drunk as fuck represents a cue – a sign that action is now required – and symbolizes the beginning of a one-night long relationship, typically ending with a hit-and-run escape post coitus.

"I'm smiling because she's drunk as fuck and ready to go!"

2. To be so intoxicated that basic functions – speech, motor control, cognition, visual recognition, spatial awareness, and balance – are completely impaired. Drunk as Fuck people have a soft spot for greasy meals in the middle of the night, especially from late-night dives, or national chains specializing in comfort foods.

"Kareoke is much more enjoyable when you're drunk as fuck. So is pretending to play guitar!"

MTV’s new show 16 and Pregnant makes me think of McDowell High School, home of the Titans Pregnant Teens! Yup, MHS is definitely #1 in that field. It’s almost ridiculous, but when you think about it, it is no laughing matter, it’s sad.  I’ve began to wonder if they sell condoms here (I’ll check that out and write a follow up). I’m sure they do it has to be a law somewhere. Perhaps, they should put birth control in the milk, and water fountains. Oh right! This is McDowell, NC the people here are uber “conservative.”  They don’t believe in premarital sex. They don’t believe in contraception. They don’t believe in abortion. They don’t believe in interracial relationships. (I heard they were pretty upset when Obama won I wasn’t here, but I’ll save that for another post.) This explains why so many young girls are pregnant, why half of them are pregnant with biracial kids, why the parents of the unborn child have nothing but love to offer their kids. That’s not to say that love is important, but you can’t buy diapers with love, love doesn’t put food on the table, love provides no income.

I’m not condemning those teens who are pregnant. I am not heartless I have compassion for them. However,  I’m not the one who will tell a pregnant teen she looks cute. What’s cute about a kid being pregnant? What’s cute about broken dreams? WHAT IS CUTE ABOUT THAT?

Out of work actor Jon Voight blasted President Obama at the Republican congressional fundraiser dinner at the Washington Convention Center on Monday (June in Washington D.C. Here are snippets from the 70-year-old actor’s fiery speech:

“Are we supposed to sitting and waiting, watching for the possibility of a new Holocaust? Who’s going to take the responsibility to keep America, I mean Israel, safe. I’ll tell you why this really scares the hell out of me. Everything Obama has recommended has turned out to be disastrous.

“It saddens me greatly to think we were the great powerful good in the world. We as Americans knew America to be strong. We were the liberators of the entire world. We are becoming a weak nation.

“Obama really thinks he is a soft-spoken Julius Caesar. He think he’s going to conquer the world with his soft-spoken sweet talk and really think he’s going to bring all of the enemies of the world into a little playground, where they’ll swing each other back and forth.

“We and we alone are the right frame of mind to free this nation from this Obama oppression. Let’s give thanks to [Republicans] for not giving up and staying the course to bring an end to thisfalse prophet, Obama.”

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Eu só digo uma coisa:

1º Concerto (há um ano atrás), fui-me afastando do palco ao longo do concerto (talvez por ser em espaço coberto, não conseguia estar junto ao palco)…

2º Concerto (ontem), simplesmente fantástico, o oposto, vibrei com o espectáculo de luzes, som, tudo perfeito. Sempre colado ao palco!

Sensacional, obrigado Blasted Mechanism.

Vocês são originais em palco!

O ambiente estava fantástico: tendas espectaculares, luzes, o tempo estava excelente, mesmo depois de uma tarde com chuva forte…

E mais… a única coisa que posso dizer é que se de facto não tivesse ido, ter-me-ia arrependido, daí ter arrancado 1hora e meia antes para as Sete Cidades (sítio que detesto)… lol

Fotos de Gonçalo Sá

Blasted Empire!

Depois de uma tarde ranhosa, com chuva forte… estamos agora com bom tempo novamente.

E claro, vou logo para os Império.

E sim… agora, faça chuva, ou o raio que parta… eu vou ao concerto.

O ano passado, na semana académica assisti ao PRIMEIRO concerto deles… e fiquei fascinado!

Ouvi falar durante bastante tempo desta banda, mas o ano passado foi a primeira vez a ouvi-los.

ADOREI!

We see Simone Weil’s vision of torture, the prisoners awaiting torture and certain death in the street …

DL: it’s a fairly classical torture scene -

CW: I’ll say!

[sympathy for knees is raised as a locus of both suffering and politics]

DL: Blasted is the other big hit of last year, along with Black Watch.

W11: how is political theatre different from political theatre?

DL: more importantly, how is the situation of being in a theatre political, period?

[précis of Blasted by Señor Krupp ...]

DL: Blasted considers the audience as a mass, as a body – and it considers that classic off-stage dramaturgy isn’t enough.  it’s a different – more adversarial – take on the audience

SS: I liked it, but it didn’t fuck me up.  I spent more time thinking about what a cool thing it was to be pulled off onstage than on the larger political impact

K: (to DL) why do you get frustrated with that response?  why isn’t that a reasonable response to violence?

DL: I have huge questions about – on one hand I think it’s sophomoric, but on the other, Kane had real political aims

W3: I had read it before, and it did fuck me up royally – both seeing it and having it in my head afterwards.  maybe it’s just being sensitized by Tarantino movies, but seeing it on stage does make it much more vivid – it seems like we’re going through it as a culture

MD: I thought it was a tremendous production.  and though it did make the audience aware of their bodies, I don’t think it’s the only play to do that – other plays don’t reduce people to eyeballs.  there’s something that happens in a live space that’s fundamentally different from watching a film

DL: okay, but if you’re shattered by that play, is that what we want?

MD: who’s that “we?”  sarah kane?

DL: but in a play like Blasted there’s a difference stance toward the audience.  is there a difference with regard to that experience than another, less aggressive, less adversarial sort of play? There are a lot of different approaches – a Brechtian one where you want people to think critically, there’s a Blasted one where you leave people shell-shocked – many others – it says a lot about how you think of those people.

W12: now that there’s so much media available to people,  it’s not enough to just put it out there.  there’s a duty to make sure that people see it beyond a limited audience.  people should do what they expect their audience to do.  also, who knows what an audience has been through?

DL: but that’s the Weil thing again – who of us are going to fight in Spain?

W1: what are your responsibilities in showing graphic events on stage, such as rape – especially when there’s a chance there are rape victims in the audience?  but also, I don’t know if you can put the burden of audience interest on the artists – that doesn’t seem entirely fair.

DL: do you have to be an activist or do you have to perform and write?

W7: how often do shows paper the house?  it’s very hard to get anyone to come to the theatre, especially political theatre.

M7: it might be that the job of communicating is less of an issue now – it’s not enough to isolate a cause, because the laundry list of causes seems virtually endless …

PL: but what does theatre do well?  for some of these questions theatre isn’t the right vehicle.  it’s fantastic for conveying an in-body experience, but not for everything else -

Damn!

The kneeling foursome.

I can’t remember–did Weil write this scene? Or did Gordon? How on earth did she envision such violence? Gordon has adapted it.

Scene is over. DL introduce Blasted/Artaud….Jon’s rundown on Blasted.

The bottles on the table are half empty.

Comments on Blasted:

It was not a theater where you could get up and walk around, the eyeball eating of Blasted, the references to Bosnia. This is not enough! The horrors of war–so Sarah Kane–she shot them?

Jess watched Blasted–people walked out of Blasted. She watched. 

To throw shit at the audience as a way to activate the audience–Molly’s critique of this supercilious and boring perspective.

Theater as a question of bodies.

What good is that? That masochism. To make people pull a lever for democrats. Molly is heartfelt.

Grand Guignol. When does it stop being fun and start being political theater?

What about catharsis? Nietzsche…

Zachary starts up–he speaks! He talks about the bewilderment of going to Blasted. Zachary talks about the programmatic nature of the Kane play’s justification–it did not activate him. He had respect for the actors. He felt put off by the experience. 

There was a content expectation–were we paying, at Blasted, to be induced to vomit?

The beautiful foreigner felt that her body was invaded through the state, by watching Blasted.

Someone says–then, why not go to a therapist?

She says here, in the US, she feels people do not feel “it,” she wants to feel her role in it.

DL seems to cotton to the idea of the woman being penetrated by the shock of Blasted. Did you feel empathy or disabled, able to act?

Molly says that the beautiful foreigner sounds like Simone Weil. You felt like you were at war–you felt the pain of others. It is obscure as to whether Molly means this as a compliment.

Yes, she also felt the pain of the person sitting next to her.

But why would you want to feel at war? Molly is deft with her edge. 

Because we are at war!

It’s red blood!

We need the theater….so we can feel things.But I wonder, do we really have to feel everything, all at once, for it to be real? Isn’t numbness also a feeling?

Thank God–the hand signal has passed! The discussion, while fascinating, and while evolving somewhere interesting, is still somehow strangely exhausting. I am aware, as Audience, that I want someone else to control the form, to give my brain and my flying fingers a break, as much as I have Radical Empathy for the discussion. Only the Director’s resumption of his directive role, and his Hand Signal–the unbreaking of the hierarchical frame between performance and audience–can relieve me of the strain of trying to control what I cannot control. 

I’m a journalist–so what would make her not get that feeling from journalism? The journalist is acting as therapist to the beautiful foreigner–we are very concerned about how the beautiful woman feels. How can we help her feel?

Fascinating to think how far-reaching the triumph of the therapeutic has penetrated–even to the journalist.

The Times reports on it, but we do not feel it, I do not feel it, even when I see the images. I had to see the images from other journals–Finland, Czech, Germany, all the languages I speak, beautiful incognita continues. 

Why not Al-Jazeera. The journalist’s rejoinder. Hmm, maybe not so interested in being Beauty’s therapist after all…

Clearly more refined people don’t all feel it the same way, the subtext here.

Bearded man also weighs in about how some people feel some things, some don’t.

Gaza Woman is about to speak: let her!

The bearded man returns, though

–what do the people in power think? How do they notice us? How do we get power to pay attention to us? How do we get to them? Ask them to-make them–read our blogs? How can we act like those people? The people with power are different from us.

Ah yes, as the Beautiful Foreigner is different from us, too. Ukepay.

Gaza speaks–the value of feeling the presence of the Other sitting next to you.

The purpose of political theater is to go into a room with people who think like you and who are experiencing it with you..

Religion is political theater! There are even envelopes there so that we can give money if we are moved, like a Caryl Churchill play!

But religion does that through guilt. Has guilt come up at all in relation to this experience. Do we look at these images for purposes of suffering? Apprenticeship to suffering? Guilt? 

DL rephrases: people go to see political theater out of guilt or to experience the pleasure of guilt and the pleasure of safety. A psychological and emotional and ethical double bind.

The conversation evolves: guilt and action. What kind of action does guilt inspire?

Guilt can inspire a sense of connection: Guilt has caused something. Can bad faith be useful? Can guilt cause the good?

We speak of layers of guilt. Who came here because they felt guilty–does it influence production as well as spectatorship?

What about form?

What about morality? Linda invokes Simone–they are on a first name basis, but she has sentimentalized Weil’s life. (No, she was not a political martyr! She was a very ill, hysterical, bright, tortured woman.It is we who want to shortcut through this and adopt her as an easy-bake do-it-yourself create your own political martyr. Read the Cahiers before you invoke sweeping claims like this about Weil!)

Elizabeth want s to talk about duty, and how it motivates us as a concept–the citizenship issue, as particular to Americans. A journalist is not a stenographer.

We move to discussions of what’s the difference. You feel something, but rarely do we ever feel empathy. If you see someone suffering, you feel waves of feeling, but you do not feel empathy. The empathy is an effect (or is an erasure) by virtue of form. 

Disempowering rituals?

You are disempowered by paying money to theater.

What about to therapists. Are we disempowered by paying money to therapists? Are we disempowered by paying money for nourishing food? For iPods? Would barter be any better?

The question arises: Is Weil a journalist? The life gets in the way of the work: she can’t get out of her own way in order to write a better play–but who cares, when it is her commitment which was important. Makes me think of Hitler’s paintings.

*

Molly’s swain interjects: Can we talk about the scene we saw? (Many minutes ago now…)

And, in another radical move tonight–David allows us to swerve backwards in the discussion, another first–he is openly transgressing the predictions made earlier about the patterns of his own directorial behavior.

The word “waterboard” was used to make us feel implicated, guilty. We are Venice.

What if there were a scene where torture is needed (what does he mean?) 24. A few people raise their hands as having seen 24, violence. 

Can we please get a nuanced view of torture, asks the general from West Point.

This conversation could go on and on, and could continue to engage and amuse and challenge us–it feels as if, tonight, there is so much to explore. Many of the forms constraints have been disregarded, and the organism, the polis of this room, has been able to populate itself with a richness of ideas. This is the point at which we could continue, for another few hours–what would happen if we were allowed to do that? What would this conversation become? Would all of us speak? Would I forget to write?

The spectacle of mercenaries chained together, awaiting torture and death …

DL: in a retrograde, conventional way it’s a great scene – through basic stage mechanisms, you feel bad for these guys who, earlier, you knew to be killers.  one of the things that theatre has going for it is that you are in the same space, that it’s an atomized experience as opposed to tv – and even negatively, the comment that nothing makes you more ready to scream than something like Impressionism on Broadway.

[the examples of Black Watch and then Blasted, the latter of which is described by Mr. Krupp ...]

W8 makes the comparison between the lives and afflictions of Sarah Kane and Simone Weil …

W10: for an American audience, do they know how to do anything other than throw up or give money?  is the problem more with an audience that can’t imagine any other course of action?

DL: if you’re an artist, where do you situate yourself on the spectrum of direct action?

W8: what about theatre that isn’t explicitly political?  what about just art or just dance – what’s the problem with regard to theatre?

DL: when people say political theatre or political art – is it anything more than a marketing ploy?

W1: also, giving money or puking – it’s an ejaculatory vision of response, it seems really limited

MJ: yes, there’s a whole range of reactions that are intensely human that we should allow for – the act of compassion at the end of Blasted, for example

W10: there’s a category of response that’s also not about you or your feelings, but about whether the kid in Bosnia might be able to pull himself together – that the object of your attention is still there, despite your reaction

M1: certainly it can all be an excuse

MJ: or that you tell yourself that merely feeling something is the equivalent of a political act …

Blasted as an epitome of a kind of intimate theatre, which ends up raising a range of new political questions with regard to Black Watch – in a sense it’s Artaud to Brecht … does it seem like this is a way of really digging into what theatre can do?

CW: even though there’s a lot of disagreement about what people thought about it

Emilia: It’s also just thing kind of work that defines – and creates – a notion of community, which is in turn feeding into political impact

W1/Tara: isn’t it like journalism?  what’s the difference between this theatre and what I would find in a journalistic account?  the description of these pieces as “realistic” just makes me wonder what the intent is.

CW: a lot of documentary theatre is actually really more complicated – both in terms of synthesis, but also in terms of actual art – there’s music, there’s a complicated narrative.  the story of The Civilians’ Brooklyn at Eye Level and the way it did actually bring together a really large and conflicted community.

M10: when we say something is political theatre, what are we hoping to get out of it?  this isn’t 1969 – what would we imagine a real political theatre to be?

DL: isn’t this Weil’s whole issue?  All of this is geared to making people aware of an injustice – can you actually make people aware of it in a way that takes their awareness to a new level, to action?

W3: as opposed to Sarah Kane, who’s a British moralist.

DL: when you see someone doing performance art, you may be stunned or impressed, but you don’t usually feel empathy.  but the same “events” on stage move you in a different way.  Can we compare, for example, Dustin Hoffman’s method acting for Marathon Man to Weil’s attempt to work in factories to raise her own awareness.

W5: but I think she’s doing that work for her own soul, not for a performance

Emilia: there’s no one-size-fits-all for political theatre – I’m happy if there’s an epiphany of “O I didn’t realize that” – a slight change is enough, it doesn’t have to be someone going out and setting bombs or staging protests.

W1: it’s about whether something’s persuasive.

M8: but it seems like the Civilians show is about showing a broad view, not persuading people

M4: and also, the Exonerated was also only part of a large communal campaign to change the death penalty – a piece of theatre also exists in an environment.  it doesn’t have to decide whether it’s fictional or real.

DL: or maybe it does …