Walking the Tightrope: The Tension Between Art and Politics

In 2014, Exhibit B, an art installation by a white artist featuring silent black performers as museum exhibitions, didn’t run at the Barbican. The Jewish Film Festival almost didn’t run at the Tricycle Theatre. An Israeli hip-hop musical didn’t play at Underbelly.

All three works were cancelled in the light of protests over whose voices were being prioritised, who was being silenced, and whose money was being spent for whose benefit. This year, back at Underbelly, Walking the Tightrope is a punchy show of eight new plays responding to these events.

Some of the works speak directly to the original provocation, while others look broadly at issues of politics and art: political correctness, corporate sponsorship, and violence on stage.

Stylistically, they’re diverse. Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Shampoo is a deeply satirical look at the policing of language. Neil LaBute’s Exhibit A directly challenges the audience with grotesquely violent act done in the name of art. Gbolahan Obisesan’s Re: Exhibit is a highlight, giving voice to the performers in Exhibit B whose voices were silenced.

In some ways, it’s a messy production: curated by commissioning playwrights rather than selecting the texts themselves, ideas are repeated and vast tracts of conversations surrounding these issues are left unsaid. But perhaps that’s the point, to capture simply what feels most urgent to these artists in this moment. It’s a debate that is messy with no easy answers, and Walking the Tightrope is content to leave its audience with more questions on the way out than on the way in.