Joking a part: The social performance of folly

This article explores the relationship between folly, theatre and social change by proposing that folly is a core ingredient of social health. Ever since humans first formed social groups, their values and purposes have been questioned by those who play the fool. Over the last thousand years, the space for folly has often been the theatre, where relationships are rehearsed and replayed, sacred values tested and, if necessary, ridiculed, and social contradictions highlighted. Today the global dominance of neoliberalism, with its focus on relationships as business transactions and people as commodities, has resulted in the loss of playfulness from civic and civil society, a loss mirrored in the design and delivery of educational experiences that are focused on preparing young people for (un)employment, rather than acting as a playful space where the potentialities of being human are uncovered. There are, however, beacons of foolish performance flickering in the neoliberal darkness.