Composite Scenes

I call 'composite' scenes those where several
characters are occupied with something, while
other characters are engaged with something different,
or with the same thing, but separately.

Diderot, Discourse on Dramatic Poetry

Diderot Did Decline Democratic Dramatic Discussion

As it happens, I am off the Happy Pills again. I am experiencing considerable friction within my nervous system. I'd like to apologise to the lovely and patient people who share my workspace at the CCA, and the duty managers who have had to put up with a higher level of distraction than usual from this hairy little bloke in the suit who seems to have lost his keys again.

I am in a real temper today. I was looking on Twitter to find somebody to flame, but the always intriguing @thejennawatt diverted me. Instead, I am going to have a go at Diderot.

The ever growing list of UK theatres where I can't afford to see shows is growing ever longer.

— Jenna Watt (@thejennawatt) April 8, 2016

It's ironic: Watt makes theatre, but she can't afford to see as much as she'd like. My research into the history of theatre allows me to pretend I have a long-dead culprit. When Diderot challenged the status quo of pre-revolutionary France, he advocated a bourgeois theatre. In the following centuries, architects, playwrights, companies and philosophers followed his lead, culminating in that day when Wagner turned off the lights in the auditorium, and forced audiences to make a pilgrimage to see his latest epic cycle. Basically, it got expensive to keep the riff-raff out, the kind of people that used to go to the Globe to have sex with a prostitute, shout at actors and occasionally listen to Shakespeare's poetry.

Of course, it is really Aristotle's fault (he did say that tragedy was for a noble class who had time and money), and a by-product of capitalism - oh, and the replacement of live theatre by the cinema, then television, then the internet, leaving what used to be the top entertainment as an esoteric taste.

Speaking as someone who decided that romantic opera is the pinnacle of live theatre, and is preparing to take his place with the Werthers Original set, I am worried that Jenna Watt has spotted the massive problem with any research into theatre. It has become expensive, exclusive and the means of production have shifted it beyond the financial reach of many people. This removes it from the public sphere what Habermas talks about - no good being part of public debate if only the rich can afford to see it - and the political content of works like Iphigenia in Splott is belied by the price of the ticket. For  rough guide, if the class of characters that a play is about can't get a ticket, it's not serious about them. 

It doesn't solve the problem entirely, but when Scottish Opera are offering bargain tickets to students (do they still do that?), or Buzzcut is pay-what-you-like, maybe the directors of the theatres could, like, offer cheap seats at the last minute, or go out into the street and give away any tickets that are left half an hour before the show? I know that last suggestion would cause problems. 

Anyway, access to culture might not be a human right, but I think it is part of a democratic society. I'll get around to that some day. I've got withdrawal symptoms to enjoy. In the meantime: I try not to forget that there is an economic dimension to Watt's question, and probably a class one, too. That neoliberal mantra about choice is a right load of hot air when that choice depends on how much spare change you've got.

Hmm -Art? A good thing? You are kidding, right?

Thanks to some half-baked reading about Diderot and the Quarrel Between the Ancient and the Moderns, I have become suspicious of Art. To continue the ridiculous simile introduced by King Tynan of BDSM, if theatre is my lover, it's like finding out that she has a job in marketing for UKIP.

The QBtAatA revolved around methods to assess art - whether, following Aristotle's guidelines, it was better to imitate classical sources (The Ancients), or strive after contemporary styling. Diderot, editor of the Encyclopedia was a Modern. He won, in the end. His influence on Saint Lessing, who coined the word dramaturgy, and Comrade Brecht, makes Diderot the Man. All that relevant theatre - that's his fault.

However, what the Ancients and Moderns shared was a conviction that theatre had a cultural importance, that the kind of plays that are produced reflect and support the values of society. This ought to be a straight 101 course in the Sociology of Theatre - Marx, for example, identifies the economic base (the political system, more or less) as defining the superstructure (culture and that).

Crites view on ancient and modern dramatist from Department of English

The Ancients did far more than claim Greek Tragedy as the Best Tragedy. They recognised that its order (reduced to Aristotle's Unities) reflected a Universal Order, that respect for tradition discouraged revolutionary thought. Happening just before The Enlightenment  (or, perhaps more accurately, as an early skirmish that kicked the whole thing off).

They were unapologetic about theatre as propaganda: equally, by the time Diderot got around to writing long justifications of his tedious scripts, he realised that a bourgeois theatre, with a new format known latterly as dram, could encourage different ways of thinking. His plays, which have never been satisfactorily integrated into canon, addressed matters like 'the role of the father'. All worthy issue plays owe their genesis to Diderot's dialogues. Plays dealing with wider, existentialist themes could owe as much to Greek Tragedy.

Of course, the two terms of the ruckus have never been that clear: Euripides was dealing with Athenian politics in The Trojan Women, and Beckett's Endgame speaks to cold-war paranoia, yet both are Aristotlean in format. As Diderot was smart enough t notice, theorists make labels after artists make work. Yet The Quarrel did have Racine storming out of the Academie Francaise when Perrault read a paper about how great the modern age is. Lines were drawn. Corneille's Le Cid, for example, was declared naughty by the Acadamie for not following Aristotle in its structure, even if audiences loved it. 

What is Theatre for, eh?

An idea that comes up again and again - especially when I interview Andy Arnold - is that theatre has a special place for the discussion of public concerns. Whether this existed in the earliest days of staged performance, I can't say (if it did, the Athenians of the fifth century had a few issues with patricide and mother-fucking). Of course, I think Diderot started it off. 

His writing on theatre - especially when he tries to explain why his plays are quite good, actually - emphasises the important of reflecting the worries of society. He invented a new genre, known as the drame, to make this point.

Even Kenneth 'Whiplash' Tynan, patron saint of critics and swearing on TV, argued with Ionesco that theatre is always political (the example he gave of how far political decisions impinge on life was, inevitably, in the purchase of cigarettes). He was not keen on what Arnold calls 'existential theatre', which privileged existential angst over more specific anguishes. 


While I am uncomfortable with my responses to The Citizens' recent Endgame, I believe that my complaint against its familiarity reflects my assumption that theatre ought to challenge the audience. Beckett is obviously a master playwright, and Endgame's vision of a post-apocalyptic world straddles the divide between abstraction and more specific paranoia (a hostile universe and a nuclear winter respectively). Although Dominic Hill did a solid job, getting great performances and playing out the script with clarity, I thought that Beckett's nightmare is too familiar, and draws heavily on 1950s' fears. 

The Beckett estates' conservatism on matters of interpretation - manifested in Hill's production - leaves Endgame as a period piece, lacking the immediacy of Hill's direction of, say, Crime and Punishment. It allows the audience off the hook, to read the event as performance rather than a critique. That is, it's easy to eulogise the actors, enjoy the words and revel in the dystopian rather than embrace the challenge of a play that reflects contemporary alienation.

Back with Andy Arnold, who recently directed Beckett's Happy Days: his choice of Mike Barlett's Cock was a far more bracing confrontation with the audience. Given its frank discussion of sexual identity, it did respond to modern dilemmas. Its basic premise - a man torn between male and female lovers - reveals a society more comfortable with observing same-sex relationships, but also going beyond a simple message of positivity. 

Despite sharing a certain bleakness with Beckett, it conforms to Diderot's ideal of the bourgeois comic tragedy. There were laughs, but the protagonist ended up alone on stage, the darkness slowly encroaching.

Cock was more uncomfortable than Endgame. It is set in a familiar domesticity which becomes more sinister than Beckett's blasted planet both because it fails to recognise wider catastrophes (the characters do reflect on their self-absorption) and it is more difficult to 'other' the characters' experience. Most people haven't existed in a post-apocalypse twilight. They have had dinner parties and worried about their ambitions and desires.

However, my reading of both plays is predicated on the assumption that 'theatre ought to challenge'. It's a variation on Diderot's claim: contemporary social relevance does not need to be provocative. One function of the critic might be to recommend productions - hence the star rating. My reviews are aimed at audiences who are, at least, in sympathy with my assumption. Endgame and Cock were well worth the time and money, although Gareth Nichol's Blackbird at The Citizens ticked the box harder.

Whether the purpose of theatre is to annoy the hell out of the audience is not necessary proven... the production of Cleansed, which is apparently ever so shocking, has bought back some public debate about the acceptability of on-stage violence. And sometimes, as Vanishing Point are currently showing in The Destroyed Room, breaking the format can be a powerful way of shoving the shit right in the audience's mush.

Okay, some Vile Commentary on The Glasgow Effect.

An appropriate critical response to The Glasgow Effect might involve waiting until the artist has made or done something concrete, assessing its intentions and commenting on its strategies and success. 

Public discussion has, however, raced ahead. The Glasgow Effect conjured a storm of protest. While I dislike any abuse aimed at the personality of the artist, I remain a pretentious old bore who regards all interpretation as valid. I respect it as opinion that has a right to expression. I'd prefer to read commentary without heavy use of the word 'cunt', though. 

Never let it be said that I refuse to jump onto bandwagons, though. Here comes a selection of my usual obsessions, tangentially connected to The Glasgow Effect.

All art is bourgeois

Throughout history, art has been used by the dominant sections of society to establish its values and culture. In fifth century Athens, tragedies were performed during a state supported festival: the absolute monarchy of France before the revolution staged ballets, and the Soviet Union invested in the development of The Bolshoi and The Kirov. In Artificial Hells, Claire Bishop argues that the conflation of political and artistic language has encouraged a participatory art that supports the state's agenda. Even the gentrification of hip-hop, for all its gangster lean, echoes a very capitalist morality.

I've banged on about this before, but the structure of art funding, because it comes from the state (or philanthropic individuals), supports certain bourgeois values. I'd do further: modern ideas about the function of art, the nature of the artist or genius, having been defined by Diderot, represent bourgeois conceptions and were designed to be used as weapons against feudal understanding of society.

The idea of the bourgeoisie - which Marx regarded as the class who held the means of production - has been confused with a wider 'middle-class', denoting a certain set of financial and cultural interests. It's usually those people who stand to gain from various forms of capitalism. Both doctors and playwrights, who don't actually own the means of production, could be within this group.

The Glasgow Effect offers a flash-point for the resentment of those who feel excluded by the arts. It's not unique.

Community orientated art is bourgeois

The argument that the money would be better spent on social amenities or food-banks has been wheeled out in the recent past against any art that transgresses popular ideas about what art's supposed to do or be. I'm suspicious of it: The Rite of Spring caused a riot (allegedly) because it transgressed, yet has become an icon of contemporary composition and choreography. But I'm equally suspicious of socially useful art. To take an example - free music lessons for children.

I support free music lessons but, beneath any subsidy lies the assumption that 'music soothes the savage beast': performing art reveals a quality in the human that has more value than, say, frying chips. Community art is sometimes about introducing culture to a group, as if they are bereft without it.

To take an example: remember The Choir? When Gareth Malone rolled up in South Oxhey, the programme presented an area that was culturally deprived. Funnily enough, my mother has run a ballet school on the estate since the 1960s. They interviewed her for the show, but her vision of a South Oxhey that had plenty of culture - her school sent a student to The Bolshoi School, something rare and wonderful - did not follow the narrative of how the working classes didn't get art. So they cut it from broadcast.

Nothing exists in isolation

The Glasgow Effect, whether or not it turns out to be amazing or rubbish, is part of a wider issue. If Creative Scotland handed over fifteen grand to a project that everyone loved, the problem would still be: what are the assumptions upon which they decide? With a bit of research, it's probably easy to find half a dozen grants that seem pointless or trivial. Certain art forms - such as comic books - are mostly excluded from consideration.

Every system has faults. As Loki points out, one of the problems with the current art culture is the exclusion of certain voices. The debate around this one piece is unfair if it refuses to challenge the underlying values of funding, or engages with Creative Scotland as if it has no integrity or honour. 

Pointing out Flaws is a Form of Respect

I have been rude about my fellow critics and, most recently, The Scotsman. I don't do it because I hate them, but because my fantasy is a dialogue with them. I probably go too far. 

It's the same thing, I think, with this debate. All the opinions are valid, intriguing and deserve to be heard. The Glasgow Effect is a starting point, perhaps. 

Note: not all art is bourgeois, but I like to say this as a corrective to the idea that art is, in some way, leftist and radical.

High Concepts and Low Morality

When Vice said that Martin Shkreli was claiming that his market manipulating antics are performance art, it was too good to be true. He did do an interview in which he achieves the apparently impossible - making him appear even more hateful - and between sounding like a teenage boy who has listened to a bit too much hip-hop and is threatening his Latin teacher for giving him a low grade, Shkreli refers to his financial activity as selling drugs (see what he did there? Gangster to the max, bro'). And there's this gem.

It makes you wonder what art is. To me, what I’m doing right now in the media, raising prices, all this shit, believe what you want, but it’s interesting. It gets people talking. At the end of the day, that’s what art is.

Thank goodness that discussion's over. It's been a struggle to get a clear definition of art - there has even been attempts to define assassination as performance art.  Shkreli avoids the nitty-gritty of specific forms and contexts, and sees it in terms of its consequences: it gets people talking. Like Star Wars.

Let's assume he is right, and this isn't just a desperate attempt to justify his willingness to make cash money off suffering. 

His behaviour actually reads more like a patron's position: he's got the loot, he spends it on art, and there is no obligation for a patron to be a good person or have any taste. I mean, Cesare Borgia, right?

My new pal Diderot would probably agree. In his treatise in defence of his (badly received) plays, he sees the role of theatre in a social context. He's weaponising theatre to make it a tool for bourgeois revolution, so he wouldn't mind The Shkrel's big wallet bragging. 

In fact, his description of the genius - extreme sensibility and moments of calm, even cold, action - is mirrored in that DX interview. Anyone who reacts to RZA's dissing by waving a metaphorical pistol, but can also raise prices on a product that is essential to the survival of the customer is totally a gangster, and conforms to Diderot's definition of genius.

Then there's the precedent of Marina Abramovic. Once upon a time, she did some intriguing art, examining the nature of gender, desire, the boundaries of art itself. Now she tries to make the green off her own myth. Grant Morrison (off comics) said that making money in Hollywood is a form of magic. 

And despite Shkreli's dubious assertion that there hasn't been a really rich rapper, his mate Jay-Z does something similar. Oh yeah, he completely used Abramovic. It's making sense.

Then there is Kanye West. Anita Sarkeesian has something to say - it did get people talking, didn't it? Although I encourage the belief that it is the interpretation rather than the art that generates meaning, allowing Kanye's Monster video to operate as a critique of objectification rather than a celebration, I have sympathy with her position. 

So yeah, I think Martin is totally doing art. There isn't a genre for it yet - performance art would be a place-holder label. It's great that he has kept going with the act: getting arrested gets people talking, and he's introduced an element of comedy into a serious narrative. I mean, it got people laughing when he got nabbed for fraud. There's even a sense of natural justice, the wicked getting punished. 

Epilogue to the Genius Trilogy

That's enough, Genius.

The Critical Surfer

I am Donald Trump.

Those are HIS words, not mine

Why Diderot Matters...

Diederot was one of the Big Shots in the century before France had that bunch of revolutions starting in 1789. You know, the ones that inspired America to kick off the yoke of the UK, have been a template for leftists and ended up with an imperialist expansion across Europe. Using Owen Jones' description of right wing intellectuals in the 1970s (in a period when banging on about neo-liberalism was a minority interest, unlike today), Diderot was an 'outlyer', a thinker who presaged later developments.

Far from being concerned with hermetic analysis of theatre, Diderot's two periods of dramaturgical study were part of a dynamic debate. His Entretiens could be a response to Rosseau's worries about the morality of theatre (he repeated Plato's warnings, more or less, but with less ironic ambiguity), while his Advice to Actors is a comprehensive attempt to set up foundations for the training for performers (a professionalisation of the job, which could be seen as a prototype of 'professional development, as per contemporary buzzwords). 

Diderot's vision of theatre is not disengaged. His manifesto in Entretiens offers an almost naturalistic drama, with the aristocrats booted from their cosy seats on-stage, spectacular scenography replaced by tableaux vivants, dance to be classified and physical theatre (mime) to be integrated into performance. Above all, he made an appeal for a relevant theatre, one that demonstrated bourgeois values.

There are at least three good reasons to bother with Diderot. He apparently influenced Brecht - probably in his insistence on a theatre that was not interested in characters but situations. He provides a logic behind the status of the artist in society (that still exists today) and relates creativity to the burgeoning influence of bourgeois (and capitalist) culture. He also sits at an interesting point for art historians - between classicism and its enthusiasm for tradition and stability, and romanticism and the whole 'genius, entrepreneur, artist' blather. 

So, having been persuaded... some heavy-duty yap about Diderot will be coming soon. Sorry.

Diderot and the Lapdancer: Chapter One.

In good weather, it was his habit to arrive at the club around five o'clock in the evening. I’d see him there, sitting with his back facing the bar, always alone, wrapt in thought. He was discussing with himself – and anyone who caught his attention – politics, love, art, philosophy.

I’m indulging my mind, he says, in whatever it fancies, letting it follow the first thought, daft or wise that it comes across...

Like the regulars, who follow the dancer with a carefree look, a welcoming face and a lively eye, then leaving her for another? His thoughts are his whores, obviously. Although the term preferred now is sex workers (a reminder that his revolutionary mind did not quite extend to the liberation of women...)

And do those  thought ever follow to actually having a dance while you are here? 

I was accosted by one of the most extraordinary characters that this country possesses – and God knows we are not short of them! She’s a mixture of the noble and the base, intelligence and madness. 

It’s very charming of you to describe me so, Mr...?

Diderot. I am the irresistible Diderot.

I’ve seen you here often, Diderot. But don’t you ever have a dance?

I don’t care for oddities like you. Once a year is enough for me. 

Ah, Mister Philosopher! What are you doing among this group of scoundrels, then? Are you wasting time pushing the wood around?

I enjoy watching the dancers work the room, when I have nothing better to do.

An observational philosopher, are we? Not a bold anthropologist who mixes with the culture he would understand? 

As long as things are in our understanding only, they are just opinions: it’s only by observing external objects, and linking them to our understanding, that we can know whether they be true or false.

You say that, yet you know that there is a multitude of phenomena that happen beyond the limitations of your understanding... for example, what happens behind the black curtain, Mr Diderot?

It is easier and quicker to consult my own mind than investigate it in the world. 

I think perhaps you’ll be astonished if you had a dance?

Then my work as a philosopher would be to dissipate that astonishment.

Then let me remind you that you are in the club, and here a certain set of rules abide. ‘Take the dress of the country you are going to...’ 

And in reply, let me remind you that your dance is merely the end of a process whereby the most solemn desires, a noble and innocent pleasure, has been converted into a source of depravity and evil. To be clear, in a better society, where no laws bound the natural passions, where women are not trapped in matrimony, where social status can be no barrier to shared delights, this corrupted merchantile exchange, this commodification of the very body itself, would be an unnecessary transaction.

The philosopher speaks again of ideals, some utopia of authentic experience. I can see the conflict in your eyes, the gestures, the way you writhe upon the seat: the natural man, with natural curiosity and honest passions, longs to know what is behind the curtain. Yet the other man, the artificial moral man, strives to chain this natural inquisitiveness with rules and codes. You want...

We both want... you want my money... you are made ill by the  tyranny of man, who has made you into property.

In want, a man has no remorse. In sickness, a woman has no shame... now, do you want to discover how shameless I can be?

And so he agrees, knowing that pleasure and pain are the only foundations for action, and that those educated men who lock themselves away from life for the benefit of study are not driven by their desire for women but thinking, only thinking (and that was never his desire).

Le Neveu de Rameau (3, 4) pg 190 (ID)

De L’Interpretation de la Nature (VII, VI, X) pg 62-3 (ID)

Supplement au Voyage de Bougainville pg 317, 315 (ID)

Refutation D’Helvetius pg 295 (ID)

Mad Cyril Tells It like He Sees It (Diderot and the Lap-dancer, interlude 3)

I have a bit of bother with this whole ‘suspension of disbelief’ malarkey.  I know Coleridge came up with it, and he wasn’t adverse to a bit of puff. Suggests his relationship to reality was probably tangential. But I’ve seen a few plays, like that Forced Entertainment one when I was right off my chump, and I didn’t feel the need to scream that there was a real gorilla on the stage. It was that sexy bird in a monkey suit. I knew that.

Mind you, I still reckon that Bloody Mess was the closest I’ve ever come to feeling the dramatic illusion old Diderot bangs on about. The way that they had these characters

doing their own thing, ignoring each other pretty much, just trying to tell their own story – and the way that this overlapped so that each personal story reflected on the others – this series of unconnected episodes that somehow connected to each other. 

Yeah, that’s the closest I’ve seen to real life on stage. Plus no-one knew whether they were a tragedy or a comedy: couple of clowns trying to split up, only they couldn’t; a sexy lady talking dirty in that gorilla clobber; two dirty long-hairs pretending they were romantic heroes.

That time Forced Entertainment was good – unlike their follow-up, which tried the same trick only explaining history and failed – that was text-book dramatic illusion. See, they kept piling it on, scene after scene. The sort who wanted to pass away, the geezer doing his impersonations of various bombs, the clown trying to tell a story about the universe… the end of the Universe, as it happens, which suggests that they might have had a bit of a destructive theme going on. 

The emotions got higher and higher, until the whole thing was a bloody mess. Just what it says on the tin – and there was no way reason was able to cope with the amount of information they were chucking at the audience. The constant interruptions, the bickering, bloke getting his nads out at one point… it was so much that reason was proper overwhelmed. And so, yeah, I might never have forgotten that it was a play – they were quick to chat straight at the audience – but I was right in and about it.

Diderot was never much cop at fiction: his novel gets distracted by big ideas and

wanders off to explore them. One thing, which Lessing sampled in his Hamburger Cook-Book, was this thing, where a bloke is told about this intrigue – which is really a play – then gets taken to the theatre to see it. The punch-line is, even though the bloke’s been told the intrigue is all real, as soon as he sees the play, in a theatre (natch), he’s like: oh right, it’s a play.

Now I mention this because Diderot is explaining why plays can never have suspension of disbelief. In his time, they had the knobs sitting on the stage and all, so you got these gawkers right up in the action. Diderot did mention that he wanted the impediments to realism out of the way, but this problem – of explaining the dramatic illusion through reason (it’s supposed to be a thing of emotional overload, so quite why he thinks he’ll manage that is another point) – is made a lot more difficult when the play as a play is being made clear by all the stage business and the way that the actors speak their words.

Suspension of disbelief? Skin us up another one, Coleridge, eh?

Diderot's Manifesto (from Entretiens...)

Puff Diderot on talent... part one

Irony alert: French philosopher Diderot begins his discussion of The Paradox of the Actor with a discussion about how hard it is to be a critic. Apart from a Jesuit education, I don't have much in common with the atheist editor and author of The Encyclopedia, but I recognise the angst of this conversation. 

The First.
I should find it much easier to say nothing than to veil what I really think.

The Second. Of course.

The First.
I shall be uncompromising.

The Second.
That is just what my friend would like you to be.

The First.
Well then, as I must speak — his work, crabbed, obscure, complicated, bombastic as it is in style, is yet full of commonplace. A great dramatic artist will not  be a bit the better, a poor actor not a bit the less inefficient, for reading it. 

Okay, so he is talking about a book about acting, so Puff Diddy is playing a meta-game on the reader... he is slighting another book on the topic he is about to consider. Love the way he acts all coy, before piling in like Hulk Hogan.

Where next, Dids?

It is Nature who bestows personal gifts — -appearance, voice, judgment, taste. It is the study of the great models, the knowledge of the human heart, the habit of society, earnest work, experience, close acquaintance with the boards, which perfect Nature's gifts. The actor who is merely a mimic can count upon being always tolerable: his playing will call neither for praise nor for blame.

The Second. 
Or else for nothing but blame.

The First. 
Granted. The actor who goes by Nature alone is often detestable, sometimes excellent. But in whatever line, beware of a level mediocrity. 

Allowing for the translation (I just spent ages changing f to s - it's an old, copyright free number off the Archive), I think Diderot is stating his own commonplace: nature and nurture combine to make a great performer, and if an actor just relies on their gifts, they'll be a bit crap. 

It's the argument that makes Conservatoires important. It's also pretty obvious. I'm sure there is a Gustave Dore comic that says the same thing in the back of Raw, volume 2, issue 3. 

Diderot Diddles Dialogue

'Despite the official Vile Arts' line on the enlightenment (it inevitably led to both fascism and the corporate takeover of culture), today's guest has been revivified from the era of the philosophes. Denis Diderot wrote a book that stated the necessary conditions for creativity - sadly, his dictum that 'he who needs rules will never get far' is rather negated by the rules he then describes. However, it is a good place to begin today's discussion. Denis, can you tell us about Rameau's Nephew?'

'Thank you, Gareth. It's a dialogue between myself, a philosopher and a cheeky ruffian called Rameau. It is what you might call an ontological representation of a mental reality.'

'It is actually what Professor Boden might call it, in the chapter after the one I'm ripping off for this post. What I feel is that the two characters represent different aspects of the human psyche: the rational and the emotional.'

'It is exactly that. Elsewhere, I remark on the paradox of theatre - it is a lie that tells the truth. The actor pretends, the audience pretend that the actor is not pretending and so learns a truth. Here, I leave unresolved another interior tension, between the passions - the romantic sensibility, if you will - and the intellect - the more classical mode of thinking.'

'You might not give an answer to which one is right, but by using the dialectical form, you are situating your work in the classical tradition, like Plato. This implies that the intellect is necessary even to frame the conflict. So, you give implicit victory to the philosopher.'

'But look again. What is a dialogue but an argument. And is not argument the very domain of passions?'

'Interestingly, I see a parallel between Rameau's Nephew and the ancient Hindu myth of Shiva and Shakti. Shiva is like Rameau - naughty, lower-class, feckless. And Shakti is the householder, patiently awaiting the return of her passionate lover.'

'Yes. But that is religion. I am an academic.'

With thanks to The Concept of Dialogue by Magnus Florin, Bo Goranzon and Per Sallstrom.