in order to generate and maximize both cultural and social capital.10
We already have a language in memory studies that borrows from economics—memory entrepreneur, Holocaust industry—and much of the scholarship in this field emerges from recognition of the ways that processes of memorializing often overlap with processes of commodification. Yet the analysis of the economic dimensions of culture has largely been restricted to the heritage sector; as a result, the broader applicability of market concepts has not yet made significant impact. As Reading argues, “the mnemonic economy has largely been overlooked within memory studies and feminist memory studies.”11 Indeed, as Jonathan Bach argues, there is a tendency in memory studies to discuss cultural memory in terms of the production of “narrations of the past”; Bach’s approach instead analyzes—alongside narrative—the ways that mnemonic capital circulates in “overlapping economies.”12 Tanya Notley and Reading argue that as critics we should pay attention to the labor as well as the objects of memory, as it is this labor that “becomes accumulated in [the] materialised states of memory capital.”13 Memory is thus both energetic and material. Through a focus on mnemonic capital and the labor of memory work, Reading highlights the otherwise invisible role of precarious workers and activists, often women. Hence one of the compelling reasons for considering the dynamics of the marketplace at play in the cultural sphere is the increased visibility of the investment of effort, emotion, and time by producers, performers, and audiences in the cocreation of “mnemonic capital.” The cocreation aspect of mnemonic capital is also important to note because, as Matthew Allen argues, there has been a problematic identification of memory as “private property” without sufficient attention to the public ownership, differentials in valuation, and the exchangeability of memory.14
Building on this conceptual groundwork, this book argues that we exploit the marketplace as a framework in order to gain insights into how witnessing painful memory operates as a transaction of both real and symbolic capital. This examination considers how the memory marketplace subjects witnesses to different forms of gatekeeping, how audiences (read as consumers) exert agency, whether consumption is active or passive, and whether witness theatre can lead not only to empathic catharsis, but social change.
The memory marketplace frames the kinds of cultural exchange we already analyze—the interactions of what “Adorno scornfully called ‘the culture industry,’” or, in Jen Harvie’s terms, the “entertainment market.”15 Highlighting the role of market dynamics in these spaces foregrounds how memory functions as a commodity, both as an economic asset and, more broadly, as Reading terms it, “mnemonic capital.”16 Reading’s use of mnemonic capital is an important addition to Bourdieu’s framework for cultural capital, which notes three different forms: embodied, objectified, and institutionalized.17 Reading draws on Bourdieu’s recognition of how each of these forms contributes to what he terms “symbolic capital,” the value accrued by generating or owning particular products (e.g., the social status conferred upon house owners).18 Reading’s development of this framework, to include mnemonic capital and mnemonic labor, thus recognizes that cultural memory involves a significant degree of work by a range of mnemonic actors (who is making it, who is transmitting it, who is receiving it). Moreover, building on Bourdieu’s framework helps us to understand the overlapping of the literal capital benefits to memory work (e.g., many of the plays discussed here are commercially successful) with the symbolic capital generated by particular kinds of cultural prestige often associated with memory plays that shed light on painful or troubled pasts.19 Drawing on Bourdieu’s framework also illustrates the roles of time and accumulation—these plays may take years to come to fruition, as their subjects gain public traction or support; the performances may be either the apex of the struggle to speak out, or (in the case of activist work) may be hoped to contribute toward the struggle. Capital is not easily generated, the marketplace is not an “imaginary university of . . . perfect equality” but rather, as Vladimir and Estragon find to their cost, a stratified sphere of different power relations.20 The frequent hope, then, underpinning the process of witnessing is that symbolic capital can work to reverse some of the marketplace inequalities.
As will become clear over the course of this book, in recent decades the performed memory of troubled pasts has taken on a certain market cachet and thus symbolic capital of its own, so that plays that share in this trend may enjoy an enhanced status in the marketplace (a result of trend scouting). By highlighting the role of capital we can perceive how memory functions not only as a signifier of a relationship to the past, but as a commodity in a marketplace that can be sold and bought, produced and consumed. Theatre is an unparalleled space on which to center these questions and discussions, not only because of how the past is put into form and performance, but because theatre represents a joint site of immaterial—“energetic”—production and consumption. Highlighting the role of immaterial labor is a political act, making visible the mnemonic, emotional, intellectual, and physical labor that are necessary to the witnessing event.
Memory products, from heritage sites to commemorative parades to memory plays, circulate in local and global markets. As Alison Landsberg argues, the commodification of memory enables “images of the past to circulate on a grand scale,” making them “available to all who are able to pay.”21 Memory is thus both the marketing device and the product being marketed, both of which contribute to the creation of what Harvie identifies as “consumer allegiance,” which generates “a more profitable bottom line.”22 While both Harvie and Landsberg point to the social good generated by memory culture—solidarity, connection, empathy—they each also emphasize the role of economic considerations in mediating how culture is transmitted—for example, the need to appeal to an audience “on a grand scale” will determine what kinds of memories are given space within the market (e.g., through corporate sponsorship, state/civic cultural programming, subsidies and grants, or heavy marketing).23 As Jean Baudrillard argues, “distress, misery and suffering have become the raw goods” that attract the largest audiences.24 Further, as Terri Tomsky outlines, trauma circulates as a commodity, “analogous to social and economic capital”; and, crucially, Tomsky illustrates how the scale of modern suffering (and knowledge of that suffering via the media) has resulted in the creation of a hierarchy of suffering as trauma is valued and revalued.25 As this book will argue, the market is thus a key determinant of what memories are deemed to generate consumer allegiance and thereby drive profit, and what memories are devalued by the market hierarchy.
The memory marketplace is hence a vital framework, shedding light on the circulation and exchange of different forms of capital and how memory performances are produced and consumed. The theatre audience is not, after all, spontaneously turning up and listening. They peruse a season brochure, schedule plans, buy a ticket. They invest in hearing the memory. They leave a review, recommend the show, buy tickets for others to attend the show or for subsequent performances. Or not—perhaps instead they leave a bad review, share no positive word of mouth, never buy a ticket for the theatre again. The successful transmission of memory in culture has to be understood as a transaction in order to fully understand how an audience chooses to support or invest in a particular memory narrative product. This transaction may be directly financial (buying a ticket) or it may be suprafinancial (recommending it to a friend), either way it represents the outlay and generation of different forms of capital by an audience, who choose how they will invest in the value of that memory in performance. The audience thus represents one more layer of gatekeeping in a complex commodity chain of funders, producers, and marketers.
Using the term “gatekeeper” raises the issue of power—who has the power to gain entry to the marketplace, who controls others’ entry, who regulates it, and who owns the “invisible hand”?26 This can be answered in a literal sense—memory is produced by, and circulates within, cultural and economic infrastructures. Memory commodities that are popular in the market will receive infrastructural support. For example, public and private funding enable theatres to run, to program shows, and to offer discounted tickets for particular shows; programmers decide what will fill the theatre’s stage; writers and directors decide on the final
