ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to use theatre as a test case of the ways in which the commodification of cultural consumption may affect the distribution of authority and power in post-industrial, service-based societies. From this perspective theatre and live performance are especially rich fields for analysis; first, because much of British theatre has traditionally been subsidized in order to ‘protect’ it from the reign of the consumer, but in the past decade or so this protection has been reduced and theatre has been subject to increasing marketization and commodification; and second, because theatre and performance as ‘discourses of power’ are especially representative of a much wider range of cultural practices in society, and this is particularly the case in service-oriented economies. I wish to suggest that ‘performance’ may be a crucial concept for understanding how such cultures operate, and that the ways in which performance is ‘theatrically framed’ is indicative of widespread strategies in the struggle for authority and power in late capitalism.
