Complicit Participation: The Liberal Audience for Theater of Racial Justice

by Carrie J. Preston

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In this incisive critique of the ways performances of allyship can further entrench white privilege, author Carrie J. Preston analyses her own complicit participation and that of other audience members and theater professionals, deftly examining the prevailing framework through which white liberals participate in antiracist theater and institutional “diversity, equity, and inclusion” initiatives. The book addresses immersive, documentary, site-specific, experimental, street, and popular theatre in chapters on Jean Genet's The Blacks, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins's An Octoroon, George C. Wolfe's Shuffle Along, Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton, Anna Deavere Smith's Notes from the Field, and Claudia Rankine's The White Card. Far from abandoning the work to dismantle institutionalized racism, Preston seeks to reveal the contradictions and complicities at the heart of allyship as a crucial step toward full and radical participation in antiracist efforts.
  • ISBN10 0197693393
  • ISBN13 9780197693391
  • Publish Date 7 July 2024
  • Publish Status Active
  • Publish Country US
  • Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
  • Format Hardcover
  • Pages 288
  • Language English