Courting the Middle: Capital Stages, Supreme Court Performances, and the Aesthetics of Centrism

Abstract

Abstract:Analyzing performances of the US Supreme Court staged in Washington, DC, this essay examines how institutional theatres produce an aesthetics of centrism. The structuration of mainstream regional theatres by fiscal, political, and institutional exigencies drives a centrist aesthetics that is related to but distinguishable from middlebrow aesthetics. Examining examples including Holly Hughes's Preaching to the Perverted, Elevator Repair Service's Arguendo, and John Strand's The Originalist, this essay reveals how institutional forces pressure theatres to variously critique and valorize ideological moderation as a set of narrative and staging ideals, often while obscuring investments in patriarchal whiteness as a governing cultural logic.