A Presidential Protagonist on the World Stage

When more than four centuries ago William Shakespeare proclaimed "all the world's a stage," he would have been hard-pressed to invent a protagonist more stage-worthy than US President-elect Obama. The Obama persona seems to have been crafted for the international arena, as many have already taken to calling him the first global US president. And Obama has held his worldwide audience captive through the plot twists-and-turns of an historic campaign that culminated in an electoral victory of fairytale proportions.

Last week, I reflected on the cathartic resolution Obama's victory had wrought. Like any good dramatic protagonist, Obama had provided the American electorate with a release from the emotional tension and profound anxiety of their most recent political chapter.

With each touch of the electronic screen or punch of the paper ballot, millions of Americans had finally found a political and personal outlet for the psychic pain that had burdened them throughout the historically disastrous Bush administration. Obama's victory felt to many like a satisfying resolution to the tragic storyline of the past eight years.

This audience catharsis poured onto the streets of America and around the globe, captured on the tear-stained faces of war-weary civil rights activists and those of bleary-eyed Kenyans outfitted in matching Obama t-shirts, who swatted mosquitoes at all-night, outdoor parties, only to erupt in front of camera crews with shouts of "I love America!" in the wee morning hours.

Undoubtedly, this collective cleansing runs deeper than a mere renunciation of the policy pitfalls of the past eight years. This emotional purification afforded expression to the deep-seated anxieties and unhealed wounds of racism in America and around the world, as the election of a mixed-race man to the American presidency marked a moment of profound spiritual renewal at home and abroad.

A new chapter unfolds
Naturally, a decisive end of one political plot marks the beginning of another still unwritten. And Obama will be tasked to continue in the role of both protagonist and playwright. In order to write history's new chapter, perhaps a fresh look at the role of catharsis in crafting a political storyline is in order.

Twentieth century German director and playwright, Bertold Brecht, believed catharsis could actually be a tool of social change. Eschewing traditional plot development that culminated in cathartic release, Brecht instead wrote plays to provoke feelings of sustained emptiness and tension to compel audiences to social and political action as a means of escaping their frustrated longings.

Like Brecht, Obama must find a way to sustain a continued tension for change among his global audience. To do so, he should continue reaching out to the millions of new voters who supported him and the billions around the world who found renewed hope in his post-racial persona. He would be wise to take a page from his campaign playbook, where he performed in a participatory political theater of sorts, using community organizing techniques to engage voters at the grassroots level, allowing them to sound out their hopes and fears and channel them into the electoral process.

Obama must continue to elicit audience participation as he works to advance the policy changes on which he campaigned. He must finesse this audience dialectic between give and take, emptiness and fulfillment, tension and release by crafting policies that sustain hope, while simultaneously calling on individuals to make the sacrifices required to achieve the political renewal they desire. This theatrical call-and-react is a particular challenge now, as people are increasingly distracted by personal financial woes that reflect the most dismal global economic reality of generations.

As artistic director of the Berkeley Repertory Theater recently said of putting on a good play, "Catharsis is hard. That's what you're driving for, a sense of genuineness in resolution. But it's so rare to really experience it, that sense of fulfillment and release into something that feels both revelatory and true."

While the opening sentences of a compelling new political plotline have been written, the pages to another hard-won catharsis are chapters in the making.