The Street is the Stage

Official movements such as those by the military tend to be orderly and regimented, while unofficial demonstrations tend toward the chaotic. Schechner employs the Bakhtinian concept of carnival to consider the way demonstrations by ‘the people’ may bring about revolution and change, but are more frequently fundamentally conservative, ending with the old order restored. Unofficial movements may take over official public spaces, and are marked by excess, using theatrical techniques in order become more visible to the media.