A Trialectical Cusp: between the real and the represented At the bus stop in SPID Theatre Company’s 23176

Abstract

This article applies Soja’s ‘trialectic’ as an analytical method with which to explore the relationship between the real, the imagined and the represented in SPID Theatre Company’s 2008 production 23176. This production took place in the community rooms of the Kensal House estate in Ladbroke Grove, London. The central feature of the set was hyper-realistic depiction of a Transport for London bus stop, which referenced similar bus stops just outside the Kensal and across London. I argue that the fictional bus stop worked affectively to place viewers on a trialectical ‘cusp’, which disrupted stereotypical depictions of young council estate residents as criminal and delinquent. Kate Katafiaz proposes that the ‘dialectical cusp’ is a ‘plastic physical point of [de-limitation] which allows the onlooker autonomy, [and] may help figure and understand a lost classical connection between drama and democracy’ (2013: 24). In this analysis I consider how placing audience members on a spatialized, and thus ‘trialectical’, cusp is a political act which might activate Soja’s ‘Thirdspace’ and allow audience members reflexively to evaluate ingrained beliefs and prejudices.