ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author is concerned with democracy and inequality, and how theatre and performance can both extend democracy and challenge conditions which limit equality, especially for groups disadvantaged by, for example, age, class, race, and gender. He wants to imagine that the most politically progressive performance is that which is apparently most democratic, appearing to offer the greatest extension of agency or power to its audiences. The author explores how that kind of limitation could potentially function beneficially socially. He also explores two feminist performances. The first is American performance maker Adrienne Truscott’s Asking for It: A One-Lady Rape about Comedy Starring Her Pussy and Little Else, first produced in 2013. The second is English performance maker Lucy McCormick’s Triple Threat, first produced in 2016. The power dynamics of performance and spectatorship have long raised particular problems for feminism.
