Guy Yedwab

Writing the Essay

3/27/2007

Interview

Bailes begins her essay not by introducing the Elevator Repair Service, nor by introducing the

performance which sparked her interest, but rather by describing the context of her experiences with

ERS. She describes her feelings of isolation in Manhattan, and her feelings of confusion and lack of

self. Then, once she has adequately introduced the reader into her background, she begins to describe

her experience with ERS. The reason she does this is so that she can communicate what, on an

emotional level, gripped her so tightly about the performance and the group.

Then she moves into the interview, but with a far more solid foundation. Her questions spark

directly from her interest, fleshing out precisely what drew her to ERS in the first place. She moves to

dig deeper into the elements of the production (the dismantling of the audience-actor relationship)

which drew her attention in the first place. Her questions also flow naturally from the responses which

John Collins provide.

What drew me to Stephen Colbert was the power of his satirical format. The impact of his satire

has been almost immediately felt. Democratic Caucus chair Rahm Emanuel warned Democrats not to

appear on the show lest they jeopardize the new Democratic majority. When Stephen Colbert coined

the word “Truthiness” in the first episode, it became the Oxford English Dictionary's Word of the Year

for 2005. The guests he has managed to get on his show have become more and more prestigious;

Madeliene Albright, various Congressmen, and Henry Kissinger are among the guests which Colbert

has managed to get a hold of on his show. In an atmosphere of obfustication and lack of dialogue, his

appearance before the Press Correspondent's Dinner was a bold and principled act of dissent.

One of my favorite writers, Vaclav Havel, describes in his essay Power of the Powerless, that

the only way to stand up to a government built on lies is to live in truth. Colbert manages to live the

truth while wrapping himself in a character, exposing hypocrisy and lies by simply repeating them
simply. His use of the serious language of the conservative movement engages the brain and tears apart

illusion. He can reframe issues at will to reduce the most seemingly serious things to absurdity.

But what Stephen Colbert does is by no means new. The creation of a stereotypical character to

mock people in power is an old custom. Dario Fo, in his book Tricks of the Trade, describes pageants in

medieval France in which, once a year, the peasants would congregate in the church, but rather than

finding their priest there, they would find a clown dressed as the priest. For several hours, he would

pretend to be the priest, mocking whatever speech styles he observed during the year. Although

sometimes the clowning was all in good fun, for a certain period, these pageants were banned by the

Pope. But peasants were so attached to their satire that they forced the Pope to allow the pageants once

more.

In Shakespeare's plays, one of the prevailing motifs is the fool who can speak freely because he

is a fool. Often the fool or jester will turn out to have the perspective that the lords and princes do not

have. Stephen Colbert is often dismissed as a comedian. And yet, he is far more serious than the

average comedian. Still, in straightforward interviews, he dismisses the idea of having a particular

agenda or sway over people. What is the man aiming for, what does he hope to accomplish, and how

does he go about accomplishing it? These are the questions I hope to ask if I can get in contact with

him.