NAVIGATING THE THEATRICAL BATTLEFIELD: A MANAGEMENT PERSPECTIVE ON VIOLENCE IN EDWARD BOND'S RATIONAL THEATRE

Violence and aggression have become pervasive in the modern world. This research paper sets out to examine the themes of violence and aggression in Edward Bond’s rational theatre. What is most striking about Bond’s plays is his representation of visible violence and insanity on an amplified scale and his refusal to accept the conventional limits in his critique of society through an unconventional structuring of the elements of violence and aggression. Bond’s plays navigate through different forms of crude and macabre forms of violence. By managing such forms of violence on the stage, Bond’s theatre for social change challenges diverse misleading rationalist and realist interpretations, myths, and fallacies of violence and dismantles them through unconventional treatment and interrogation of aggression and irrationality. The article draws on various theoretical perspectives on violence as set forth by Domenach (1981), Galtung (1981), Joxe (1981), and Freire (1970). This close reading of Bond’s texts helps establish that the foundations of Bond’s rational theatre are, in fact, laid on politics of violence portrayed in all its transgressive excesses, ambivalence, and graphic visuality. This alternative reading of Bond’s political vision through a range of theoretical perspectives also helps appreciate the breadth and depth of Bond’s political vision. The paper also conceptualizes the notion of Arts-Based Training (ABT) that delves into the application of improvisational theatre techniques within management development. Understanding a phenomenon through a theatrical approach proves to be effective for advancing management development by actively engaging managers in an in-depth exploration of problems and the creation of solutions.


INTRODUCTION
Violence or aggression is generally perceived as omnipresent, a largely contingent phenomenon; one of the most enigmatic and, at the same time, most serious social phenomena as it takes extremely varied forms and may possess many different traits.This paper outlines, British playwright Edward Bond's (1934) unconventional treatment of visible violence and insanity on his stage presents his political gesture of defiance of the conventional interpretations of violence, and his critique of society.In his plays, Bond portrays diverse forms of violence ranging from its mild, casual, and subtle forms to its excessive and most extreme manifestations of cannibalism, genocide, and war.This paper argues that Bond challenges misleading rationalist and realist interpretations, myths, and fallacies of violence and dismantles them through unconventional treatment and interrogation of aggression and irrationality.Criticism of Bond's plays generally centers around his concept of rational theatre, his portrayal of crude forms of violence on the stage, and a dramatic realization of his political message.Major critical studies attempt to explore the relationship between onstage violence and Bond's political concerns.Bond's unconventional portrayal of violence through macabre subversive images, taboo objects, the visuality of violence and its dark mutations in his plays is an exploration of how violence and world politics are interlinked in the modern rational world and how varied forms of violence signify cruelty, injustice, political oppression, war, and destruction.
The article offers various biological, social, psychological, and political perspectives on violence as propounded by Domenach (1981), Galtung (1981), Joxe (1981), andFreire (1970), and finally focuses on Bond's political interpretation of it.It is important to understand Bond's perspective on violence, as it is central to his political vision.Despite its pervasiveness, it is still difficult to arrive at a single definition of violence (Ray 7;Mertens, 1981) as the phenomenon is elusive and open to many contrasting even contradictory interpretations.In order to comprehend the complexity of Bond's presentation of naked forms and the political message of change it carries, it is first imperative to understand different theoretical perspectives on violence and how it is defined and perceived differently.
The article also discusses various thematic violence traps that create misperceptions about violence and describes in detail the ways Bond dismantles these fallacies by presenting violence in all its naked and stark visible and dormant forms.It is, therefore, pertinent to discuss how biologists, philosophers, anthropologists, and sociologists define aggressivity, its causes, and its effects on humans and society.

Journal of Entrepreneurship, Management, and Innovation
Volume 5, Issue 3, June 2023 [429] The article then provides a brief overview of diverse forms of violence ranging from its mild, casual, and subtle variants to its excessive and most extreme manifestations of cannibalism, genocide, and war.It also builds on Heitmeyer and Hagan's (2005) theoretical framework of 'thematization traps' of violence and various societal and political fallacies that surround it as Bond's unconventional treatment of violence can better be understood in the light of conventional theoretical approaches to the phenomenon.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Critical studies offer a relatively thin and conventional perspective on Bond's deployment of divergent forms of violence.Mainly concerned with the justification of violent situations, Worthen (1975) argues that Bond's use of violence is not to horrify the spectators but a dramatic strategy to shock them into recognition of themselves and their surrounding realities.
Such a critique offers a uni-dimensional view of violence and aggression.Bond's treatment of violence, in fact, goes beyond shock value in that his portrayal of violence challenges conventional definitions of violence and its misleading interpretations.It would be useful to describe Bond's plays from a diverse theoretical perspective in order to understand the message that he intends to convey to the audience.Violence or aggression is generally regarded as an omnipresent, largely contingent phenomenon; one of the most enigmatic and, at the same time, most serious social phenomena as it takes extremely varied forms and may possess many different traits.Philosophers, intellectuals, and sociologists such as Domenach (1981), Galtung (1981), Freire (1970), Joxe (1981), Stanko (1960), Pierre (1981), and Tiger (1971) have defined violence from different biological, philosophical, ethical, psychological, and political perspectives.A brief overview of these perspectives on violence is integral to a discussion on violence as it will help contextualize Bond's works and will make clear Bond's significant departure from these conventional critical approaches to the phenomenon.Domenach (1981) and Stanko (2002) offer generic definitions of violence; the former calls it an ancient 'human phenomenon' which 'in cosmogonies, mythologies and legend' is presented as something linked to the beginning of history, always 'attendant upon the deeds of heroes and innovators' and the latter defining it as 'any form of behavior by an individual that intentionally threatens to or does physical, sexual or psychological harm to others or themselves ' (Ray, 1981).
However, what we today call 'violence, ' Domenach (1981) adds, came to be understood from three main perspectives: (a) the psychological aspect which defines violence as an explosion of force assuming an irrational and murderous form; (b) the ethical point of view which defines violence as an attack on the property and liberty of others; (c) the political aspect of violence as the use of force to seize power or to misuse it for illicit ends.
However conclusive the above-stated perspectives on violence may sound, it is still difficult to arrive at a single definition of violence (Ray & Mertens, 1981) as the phenomenon is elusive and open to many contrasting even contradictory interpretations.One social viewpoint is that nature provides humans only with the capacity for violence; it is social circumstance that determines whether and how they exercise that capacity.A somewhat similar perspective is that of the anthropologist Tiger (1971) who regards violence as a learnable trait but adds that only a minority of people engage in violent, anti-social behavior.Klineberg's (1981) view of violence, on the other hand, rejects the biological, anthropological, and philosophical standpoint by stating that violence is neither universal, inevitable, nor instinctive; 'there are individuals and groups that show a great deal of violence, and other individuals and groups that show very little'.Contrary to this view, Galtung (1981) and Freire (1970) take into account the social perspective in their definitions of violence and aggression.Galtung (1981) considers violence as an inclusive 'highly emotional' term, which 'unifies such disparate phenomena as wars, torture, homicide, etc.' He defines violence as 'anything avoidable that impedes human self-realization'.A similar perspective is offered by Freire (1970) in defining violence as any 'situation in which some individuals prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry'.
All these diverse critical views on violence point to the problematics of defining it comprehensively as none of these definitions is inclusive enough to take into account all possible aspects of the phenomenon.Summing up these definitions, violence is linked to human history, regarded as a tool for social oppression, defined as an irrational harmful force, a learnable feature, and is also identified as a human capacity, but none of these definitions is all-encompassing.They focus either on one aspect of aggressivity or relate it, at the most, to another concept.These inconclusive definitions which point to the complexity, ambivalence, and elusiveness of the phenomenon leave room for further excavation of the concept of violence which is an integral part of human beings and human history.Modern civilization's sensitivity to violence and intolerance of it, Domenach (1981) argues, are recent phenomena and have recently acquired very significant dimensions.Violence, as discussed earlier, is intimately 'bound up with pain, security, transgression, and concept of the body and its placing in the social order' (Ray, 1981).As regards the impacts of violence and aggresssivity, there is, admittedly, a general consensus that it causes injury, harm, sometimes death, and results in varied other forms of destruction, so that 'there are always victims' (Ray, 1981).It is broadly seen as undesirable, 'as something to be rejected' (Galtung, 1981).In a word, violence is a broad, 'all-embracing category' (Joxe, 1981).The broad connotations of the word also relate it to struggles, revolts, revolutions, and counterrevolutions.The possible forms, types, and characteristics of violence range from individual acts to the organized actions of groups or states and include rape, murder, cannibalism, torture, and verbal, and linguistic violence.Domenach (1981) highlights the absence of critical debate on violence in Western philosophy when she argues that in the Western philosophic tradition before the nineteenth-century violence had never been taken as a theme in itself.However, the question and problem of violence, according to her, was taken up and represented by tragedy which portrayed violence in the shades of 'revenge, anger, and the many excesses of passion.But even in tragic tradition, violence is not isolated and considered for its own sake; it is the result of arrogance (hubris) or reckless behavior (ate), which are the concerns of the gods'.Hegel was the first philosopher to fill the philosophic vacuum on violence and establish that violence was a staple part, not only of the 'rationality of the history of societies but of the very genesis of consciousness' (Domenach, 1981).History of societies, human consciousness, and aggressivity, then, are interlinked.Rather, Hegel regards violence as the very basis of consciousness.Writing of the prevalence of the myth of violence and its significance in contemporary discourses, Joxe (1981) argues that the myth of violence is a far more 'effective myth than nuclear war because nuclear warfare is not taking place, whereas violence exists-and it exists everywhere'.
Viewed in the light of this discussion, the phenomenon of violence then emerges as an elusive concept more multifaceted than is usually perceived.It is at once fascinating as well as repulsive.It was, for instance, a form of entertainment for the people of antiquity-the Greeks and Romans with their penchant for violent Gladiatorial games of cock and quail fights, beast baiting, and slave fighting.'Most of us are both fascinated and horrified by it.It is a fundamental ingredient of how we entertain ourselves (children's stories, world literature, the movie industry) and an essential feature of many of our social institutions (Imbusch, 2005).In short, the ambivalence and contradictions of the modern age are reflected in the 'ambivalence of violence and its self-deception' (Imbusch, 2005) Aggression in modern times has, in fact, increased the fragility and vulnerability of the human world.'Violence is, ' Domenach (1981) argues, 'inseparable from the human condition' because of its ontological aspect.Although Domenach (1981) believes that it is abortive to condemn violence in 'moral pronouncements or political resolutions', she also realizes that it is useless to seek a categorical answer, in philosophy or ethics, to the problem of violence.
Notwithstanding the centrality of violence in the human world and despite its significance no typology or classification of violence exists (Galtung, 1981).Despite the ambiguity of violence evident in the characterization and framing of its phenomena, the logic of its occurrence and possible escalation, supposed causal explanations, and its evaluation (Galtung, 1981), one undeniable fact about violence is that it is a staple aspect of human society.In the words of Domenach (1981): 'however respectable 'non-violence, maybe, I do not think that it can represent a coherent, tenable position in a world where violence is widespread and bound up with almost every aspect of human relationships'.
The conflicting definitions and contradictory viewpoints of violence point to the difficulty of any singular typology or classification of the phenomenon.Not only that, but they also underscore the impossibility of rationalizing violence within the bounds of everyday realism or nineteenth-century rational scientific progress as all these divergent discourses open for human beings many possible pitfalls.This calls for the need for another alternative or parallel framework that can explain and anatomize violence from an unconventional perspective in order to understand its operative dynamics.
Since violence can take many divergent forms, it may be difficult to trace its manifestations in its more elusive and enigmatic forms.Domenach (1981) stresses this limitation when she says: 'As a 'civilized' conscience develops that cannot tolerate the spectacle of violence, the violence is driven to disguise itself and to do so moves in two directions'.On the one hand, it turns inward and finds an unexpected and indirect form of expression in philosophical and critical discourses, and, also, in daily life, through the brawls and riots during which the pent-up violence of the common man is 'let out' in many different ways, expressed through vague feelings of aggressiveness, which all too often become focused on a chance antagonist.The lynching of a petty thief by an angry mob is one instance of how aggressivity can become focused on a random victim.The burning and looting of public property during riots is another example of how violence might find random, surrogate victims.But violence sometimes also turns outward, as Domenach (1981) argues, and becomes 'embodied in collective, anonymous forms designed for it by technology and political systems'.The oppressive, tyrannical regimes, and repressive societies that deny human beings basic human rights by using law and order and

Journal of Entrepreneurship, Management, and Innovation Volume 5, Issue 3, June 2023
[433] technology to control people are examples of collective forms of violence that destroy human world.Domenach's (1981) viewpoint also highlights the limitations of a rationalist understanding of aggression which fails to take into account more subtle and modern masked forms of violence.Domenach (1981), therefore, calls for a radically new approach to the problem of violence and the solutions it calls for as the progress of philosophy and the development of technology have brought mankind to the point at which a new framework is required to develop real knowledge of this phenomenon.
Given the ongoing debate on the philosophical, psychological, and socialist views of violence, its causes, effects, and the problematics of classifying it, it can be argued that violence has always intrigued sociologists, anthropologists, philosophers, and writers.Classical writers took up the question of violence to interrogate human behavior, man's relation to gods, and his relationship to his surroundings.From the contemporary playwrights Bond has also theorized violence in his writings and dramatized its variant forms in his plays.Propounding his theory of violence in the author's note to Saved, Bond (1977) defines violence as an evolutionary 'biological mechanism' that has been 'inherited' by humans.Bond's definition echoes the social definition of aggression which defines it as a human capacity determined by social circumstances.He further argues that when animals are threatened, they resort to violence as a last defense to ensure 'the continuation of their species.But for human beings the opposite is true.Violence threatens the continuation of our species, at least in a civilized form '. Bond (1977) does admit human beings' potential for violence, but his main argument is about why they are aggressive.'Human violence is contingent, not necessary, and occurs in situations that can be identified and prevented'.He further argues that the idea that humans are naturally aggressive and 'necessarily violent' is a 'political device' manipulated by the ruling classes to main structures of coercion.In this regard, Bond's definition of violence is quite similar to Galtung's (1981) and Freire's (1970) socialist perspectives on violence.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This article employs qualitative paradigms of research.The texts are analyzed using interpretive methods of research through the theories of violence.This qualitative literary study aims to produce new meaning in a text.It offers a close textual reading of the primary texts to explore and describe the concept of violence in the context of Bond's plays.Bond (1977) classifies violence based on its four distinctive features.'One, it is used either to maintain injustice or, two, to react to injustice; and three, its users are either conscious of its DOI: 10.52633/jemi.v5i3.343

Data Analysis
[434] cause and significance or, four, unconscious of them'.Highlighting the enigmatic nature of violence Bond says that all 'four forms of violence may occur together, and that is one reason why there is so much confusion about the cause of violence and why so many mistakes are made in dealing with it' (Bond, 1977).Summing up the causes of violence, Bond (1977) says that it 'occurs in situations of injustice.It is caused not only by physical threats but even more significantly by threats to human dignity.In other words, Bond (1977) does not regard violence as a 'function of human nature but of human societies'.He views violence as a manifestation of man's irrationality, an impulsive force with a destructive potential.The author's preface to Lear Bond (1978) points to the destructive potential of aggression when he maintains that humans use 'much of their energy and skill to make more efficient weapons to destroy each other . . .'. Sartre (1963) presents a similar view of the enigma of violence on his stage: 'Violence creates its own society-a society that is the repulsive caricature of a society based on reason and love' (as cited in Domenach, 1981).Wars, conflicts, oppression, and use of force that are still prevalent in the modern world are but mutant forms of aggression that are ceaselessly reproducing themselves like monsters with the power of self-reproduction.
Although violence itself is faceless, elusive, and complex in all its ambiguities, its effects are concrete.Bond's theatre interrogates and challenges the modern myths of violence and the ultimate limits of an irrational society by Gothicizing violence, aggression, and madness as discussed in detail later in this chapter.He dramatizes naked violence on his stage in order to make people understand its complex dynamics and to show clearly how violence operates and why it happens despite the civilizational and scientific progress of mankind.Bond's theatre uses the irrational to show the very processes of human reasoning.In short, 'violence, although intrinsically unreasonable, is bound up with the very process of reasoning.To quantify, organizing is already an act of violence (Domenach, 1981).
Bond's theatre with its portrayal of disturbing, graphic, and even elusive forms of violence is a response to Domenach's (1981) call for a radically new approach to the enigma of violence in the modern technocratic world.In his dramatic world, Bond exhibits the grotesque excesses of violence that transgress all social, moral, and religious boundaries, and articulates questions and problems that ensue.Bond's treatment of violence as the ultimate force of destruction in its excesses, extremities, and ambivalence can be placed within a Gothic structuring of violence or with a Gothic inflection.His dramatic corpus dramatizes divergent forms of violence ranging from its most casual unassuming forms to its most extreme manifestations.In such a representation of aggressivity and insanity Bond neither philosophizes about violence nor offers any idealistic, utopian solutions to the problems of humanity; he interrogates