ABSTRACT
A terrorist act inevitably provokes an equally theatrical political response, whether it is a full-dress pageant such as George Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech on board the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln in May, 2003 or a presidential address to Congress where “extras” such as ally Tony Blair or a Muslim rst-time voter are called upon to support the male lead. While these speeches are commonly viewed as the usual partisan ploys, they are nonetheless consequential. As Diana Taylor has pointed out, Bush’s speeches meet the conditions for “happy”—that is, successful-speech acts since they are uered by someone in authority in an appropriate context. If theatricality is thought to be ephemeral, there should be no mistake about the actual lasting material and political consequences of these performances. eatre artists respond by demystifying the political use of theatricality and by devising alternative performances meant to counter both terrorist spectacles and political performances.
