POSTMODERN LAMPOON: METATHEATRICAL SATIRE ON NEOLIBERALISM IN TIMBERLAKE WERTENBAKER’S OUR COUNTRY’S GOOD

Year 2024, Volume: 64 Issue: 2, 1021 - 1043

Esra Ünlü Çimen

https://doi.org/10.33171/dtcfjournal.2024.64.2.3

Abstract

Metatheatre, which generally indicates a number of strategies revealing the fictionality of plays, has been prevalent throughout the history of theatre. The metatheatrical vehicles like the play-within-the-play have been sustainedly employed by playwrights in Ancient Greek theatre, Roman theatre and English theatre since the Renaissance up to day. In English theatre, a remarkable number of studies on this concept have focused on the Renaissance as it was popularised in this period. The studies on metatheatre have often described it as a technical novelty breaking the illusion created by traditional/realist plays. However, a careful analysis of its use in plays from varying periods and cultures show that metatheatre has also been employed as a tool of satirizing politics by the playwrights. In both the Renaissance and the eighteenth-century English drama, metatheatrical tools were used to satirize domestic politics and familiar politicians. However, with postmodernism, in the twentieth century, the context of satire changed since it was directed at universal problems, ideologies and accustomed ways of thinking rather than the contemporary problems of a certain country. In line with such a change, metatheatrical satires in the twentieth century aimed to target grand narratives produced by modernity. One such play is Our Country’s Good (1988) by Timberlake Wertenbaker where neoliberalism as a master narrative is satirized through the device of the rehearsal-within-the-play. Within this context, this study aims to explore Our Country’s Good as a postmodern satire in order to show that satire still has validity in the postmodern age, and draw attention to the symbiotic and persistent relation between satire and metatheatre.

Keywords

metatheatre, satire, postmodernism, Timberlake Wertenbaker, Our Country’s Good

POSTMODERN YERGİ: TIMBERLAKE WERTENBAKER’IN OUR COUNTRY’S GOOD OYUNUNDA NEOLİBERALİZMİN METATEYATRAL HİCVİ

Abstract

Tiyatro metinlerinin kurgusallığını vurgulayan metatiyatro kavramı tiyatro tarihi boyunca karşımıza çıkar. Antik Yunan’da, Roma’da ve Rönesans’tan itibaren günümüze kadar İngiliz tiyatrosunda oyun yazarları eserlerinde oyun-içinde-oyun gibi çeşitli metateyatral araçlara başvurmuşlardır. İngiliz tiyatrosu özelinde, metatiyatronun Rönesans döneminde popülerleşmiş olmasının neticesinde, bu kavram üzerine yapılan çalışmaların daha ziyade Rönesans dönemi oyunlarını kapsadığı görülebilir. Kavram üzerine yapılan çalışmaların çoğu metatiyatroyu geleneksel/gerçekçi oyunların yarattığı illüzyonu bozan teknik bir yenilik olarak ele almışlardır. Fakat, metatiyatronun farklı dönem ve kültürlerdeki kullanımına bakmak onun aynı zamanda siyasi hiciv amaçlı kullanılan bir tiyatro tekniği olduğunu ortaya koyar. Örneğin, Rönesans ve on sekizinci yüzyıl İngiliz tiyatrosunda oyun yazarlarının ülke sorunlarını ve politikacıları hicvetmek için metatiyatroya başvurdukları görülür. 20. yüzyılda ise postmodernizmin etkisiyle hiciv kavramının bağlamı değişmiş, önceki yüzyıllarda belirli bir ülkenin belirli bir dönemindeki ekonomik kriz, sosyal adaletsizlik, siyasi baskı gibi sorunlarını hedef alan hiciv, daha evrensel meseleleri ve ideolojileri tartışmaya açmaya başlamıştır. Bu değişim meticesinde, metateyatral hicivler modernitenin ürünü olan büyük anlatıları sorgulamaya başlamışlardır. Böyle bir durum, Timberlake Wertenbaker’ın oyun-içinde-prova tekniği yoluyla kendi döneminin neoliberal uygulamalarından yola çıkarak neoliberalizmi genel bir ideoloji olarak hicvettiği Our Country’s Good (1988) adlı oyununda görülebilir. Bu çerçevede, bu çalışmanın amacı, Wertenbaker’ın Our Country’s Good oyununu postmodern hiciv olarak analiz ederek hicvin postmodern çağda da geçerliliği olan bir tür olduğunu göstermeye ve hicivle metatiyatro arasında süregelen simbiyotik ilişkiyi ortaya koymaya çalışmaktır.

Keywords

metatiyatro, hiciv, postmodernizm, Timberlake Wertenbaker, Our Country’s Good

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