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The classical critique of theatre, from Plato to Rousseau to Debord, is that it only offers a world of appearances, a spectacle of 'mere representation' that distracts the viewer from seeing things as they really are. Indeed, in everyday commentary, machinations in the political realm that seem devoid of any substance are often derided as 'pure theatre' or 'only theatre'. But rather than opposing 'reality' and 'appearances', a lineage of political thinkers have described politics as the domain of appearances – from Hannah Arendt's description of 'spaces of appearance' that 'come into being whenever [persons] are together in the manner of speech and action, and therefore predates and precedes all formal constitution of the public realm and the various forms of government' (Arendt [1958] 1998, 199), to Judith Butler's explicit invocation of Arendt in relation to the 'movement of the squares' and arguments for agency in plurality (Butler and Athanasiou 2013; Butler 2015). Making an appearance is a political act, revolving around 'what is seen and what can be said about it', according to Jacques Rancière ([2000] 2004, 13), such that 'The task of politics is to return appearance itself to appearance, to cause appearance itself to appear' (Agamben [1995] 2000, 95).If theatre is the art of appearances, then, such an art might be useful for showing us 'appearance itself', to show us the act of showing, as Brecht and others have elaborated. That is, theatre might try to show itself, to see its own blind spot. More than this, can we also take what might be described as a theatrical approach to our forms of political gathering? In the context of 1970s feminist movements, Jo Freeman warned against the invisibility of hidden hierarchical structures in apparently non-hierarchical assemblies. In subsequent decades, a number of methods have been developed by community organisers and communication to promote transparency around the structures the structures of group process and decision-making that are being used -- such as Open Space Technology, formal consensus-based decision making, Action Learning Sets, 'dotmocracy', as well as creative and embodied forms we practice in performance-making, such as silent walks, spatial composition, and creative writing. In their intentionality and artifice, can we think of these as forms of political theatre?

Taking its inspiration from the twenty-first-century protest chant, 'This is what democracy looks like!', this chapter explores the interrelation between theories of representation and modes of radical democracy. Drawing on Jacques Rancière, Chantal Mouffe, and others, Schmidt analyses recent political actions that refuse to adhere to what he calls 'the politics of the count', including demonstrations against tuition fee increases in the UK, the 2011 London riots, the actions of UK Uncut, and Occupy, all of which emerged within the same twelve months. Such actions produce a representational crisis in two interrelated meanings of the idea of representation: they challenge representational democracy, and also challenge our understandings of what counts as the political—that is to say, what politics looks like.

This article explores the ways in which theatrical techniques might intervene in the representational operations of monuments. As illustrated by the controversy surrounding nearly every aspect of the memorial to the destroyed World Trade Center, monumentality implies a finality of meaning and an unavailability of monumental spaces to open and fluctuating meanings. Henri Lefebvre's distinction between 'representations of space' and 'representational space' suggests a method for unsettling or rewriting these meanings, which Joanne Tompkins develops as an analytical tool in her consideration of contemporary Australian theatre. However, Tinderbox Theatre Company's production of convictionsin a decommissioned courthouse in Belfast demonstrates that theatrical representations may have the effect of displacing previous spatial practices, but they also have their own authorizing norms and associated codes of meaning and behaviour. Using Doreen Massey's concept of 'relational space' to augment Lefebvre's categories, a set of criteria can be articulated for counter-monumental theatre that is attentive to the politics of openness and closure. And While London Burns, a downloadable audio tour of the financial centre of London produced by John Jordan and PLATFORM, is used as an example of a theatrical event which creates relational spaces that intervene within the normative mechanisms both of corporate organization of urban space and of dramatic narrative. Concluding by co-opting Wren's Monument, And While London Burns asks its participants to rethink identity in spatial terms, and the author argues that this spatial awareness in turn necessitates an awareness of relationality which is relevant to both theatre and politics.

This editorial introduces this special issue on the thresholds, borders, and dialogues between Hannah Arendt's work and performance philosophy, bringing together contributions that investigate political resistance, thought, and practice. Arendt's relevance to our times is ubiquitous: from the near constant citation of The Origins of Totalitarianism in relation to the recent rise in strong-man politics and resurgent ethnic nationalism, to her diagnosis of the plight of refugees, denied even the rights belonging to those that have broken the law, but instead placed outside the law. Contemporary political philosophy also bears numerous influences, in the thinking of Mouffe, Rancière, Nancy, Agamben, Brown, Butler, and more. For performance philosophy, we might engage with Arendt's performative notion of politics itself, as exemplified in her idea of 'spaces of appearance', but also the performativity of thought, as well as the implications of Arendt's work for phenomenology, governmentality, rights, and ecology. Contributors to this special issue also think through the relevance of Arendt's work for an anti-colonial and anti-racist political praxis, and for post and non-human political ethics, judgment, and thinking.