Failure, a guilty pleasure?

Failure ‘undermines the perceived stability of mainstream capitalist ideology’s preferred aspiration to achieve, succeed, or win and the accumulation of material wealth as proof and effect arranged by those aims’ (Bailes, 2011, 2). This perfectly captures one of fragments main aims to deliver the everyday story, one which is often lost within the ‘bigger’ stories portrayed by the mainstream media. We wanted to represent a realistic point of view of escapism, one which the everyday person faces, and this often means the representation of failure.

We furthermore wanted to portray humanity’s love of failure, this enjoyment of watching others fail is known as Schadenfreude (Oxforddictionaries.com, 2017). So why do we laugh at others? is it simply because it makes us feel better about ourselves, or is it something much darker such as a ‘release of aggresion’ such as freud believed – laughter “can often be an act of release of aggression when the individual is perceived as having some form of power over us, hence the slip being funnier the more powerful the slipper is” (Gray et al, 2009, 10). This idea of the enjoyment of failure was enhanced when we performed the show as the audience would laugh at inappropriate moments, and at the characters failings. After all ‘isn’t it just human nature…we love to watch people fail!’ (Fragment Theatre Company, 2017).

In ‘Exit This Way’ we represent this failure in various ways. This can be seen through the characters escapes all ending in disaster, as they realise the magic disappears once they snap back into their everyday lives. Furthermore each section ends unresolved with the characters giving up or being cut off. This can be seen clearly through the presentation of Alice’s internal battle between fantasy and reality and her ensuing breakdown, and also clearly in Ben’s performance as he can’t use his escape to achieve his goals as its not socially acceptable.

Citations

Bailes, S, (2011) Performance theatre and the poetics of failure. Abingdon: Routledge.

Gray, J. Jones, J. and Thompson, E. (2009) Satire TV: Politics and comedy in the Post-Network Era. New York: New York University Press.

Oxforddictionaries.com. (2017) Definition of Schadenfreude. [online] Available from: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/schadenfreude [accessed 20 May 2017].