The Theatre of Power: A Casual Reflection

A grand production of illusion and control—where power hides behind velvet curtains and the crowd cheers for a script they never wrote.

Lately I’ve started to see the world less like a functioning democracy and more like an old classical theatre production. As I picture it, it’s a grand, imposing venue like the Civic Theatre in Queen Street, Auckland—a fond memory of my childhood—built in 1929 and designed as an immersive fantasy space. Inside, the theatre evokes a dreamlike world: a fusion of styles that blends Babylonian sentinels, Persian domes, Moorish arches, and Indo-colonial ornamentation into one seamless spectacle. Above, a midnight-blue ceiling dotted with faux stars creates the illusion of open sky—cosmic, serene and utterly fabricated. It’s not merely ornate; it’s enchanting. A space where power doesn’t just perform—it bewitches. Everything here—from the deep red velvet seats to the gold-lit balconies—is designed to blur the line between watcher and watched, to remind you that you are inside the story now, whether you believe it or not.

Civic Theatre, Queen Street, Auckland, New Zealand, built 1929

This theatre wasn’t built for comfort—it was built to enchant. Every detail lures the eye and hushes the voice, reminding you that you’ve entered someone else’s dream—and you’re here to sit quietly and be dazzled.

At the centre of it all is the Stage, bracketed by two massive gold lions with shining red eyes. This is where the real spectacle takes place—the drama, the debates, the big speeches. It’s all spotlight, symbolism, and performance. The actors—presidents, prime ministers, opposition leaders, celebrity CEOs—each step forward, deliver their lines, and bow to applause or jeers, depending on which team the audience is backing. But these aren’t playwrights. They didn’t write the story, and they’re not changing the ending. They’re cast members, stepping into long-standing roles with a known arc. Sometimes they play the hero, other times the villain, and often both depending on where you're sitting.

But more important than the actors themselves are the roles they’re cast to play. These principal parts are written into the script in every production—familiar, comforting, divisive, necessary. They aren’t personalities. They’re functions. Masks. But beneath these theatrical roles lies something deeper—older. These aren’t just political tropes; they are archetypes drawn from the collective unconscious, coded into us long before ballots and borders. The audience sees faces, but responds to something mythic. In these deeper patterns, the performers embody:

• The Hero (Reformer/Warrior-King): Driven by the myth of transformation, the Hero promises to conquer chaos and bring renewal. In this theatre, he often finds the real dragons live backstage. Obama, Zelensky, Blair, Trump (to some), the USA itself—all cast as saviours, all shackled by the same script.

• The Shadow (Villain): The enemy projected to unify the crowd. He carries the system’s darkness so its agents can shine. Putin, Trump (to some), or whichever nation-state the script needs next. The enemy must be credible—so the illusion of good can endure.

• The Trickster (Outsider/Jester): A disruptor who breaks rules but preserves the structure. Trump, Musk, Johnson—all delight and enrage the audience while leaving the theatre untouched. The joke’s always on us.

• The Wise Old Man (Elder Statesman): The relic of continuity. Reagan, Biden, Bush Sr.—summoned not to act, but to reassure. He tells us the play has always been running, and that’s why we must believe.

• The Ruler (Technocrat): Calm, clinical, and deeply managerial. He governs through consensus, paperwork, and behavioural cues. Starmer, Macron, and their many administrative twins. He’s not there to inspire—he’s there to regulate belief.

• The Martyr (Tragic Hero): Sacrificed for the script. Elevated and displayed, then quietly discarded. Zelensky’s arc may follow this path. The martyr provides pathos—an illusion of moral stakes.

• The Innocent (Citizen/Audience): The most tragic role: the viewer. Projecting hope, fear, and anger onto a story not theirs. Clutching tickets to a play already written, wondering why the ending never changes.

• The Doppelgänger (Double Agent): Wears one team’s jersey while running the other team’s playbook. Clinton, Blair, and the “centrists” who serve continuity by betraying their base. They don’t switch sides—they obscure that the sides are props.

Different actors step into these roles across the arc of the production. The faces change. The costumes vary. But the masks stay the same.

The action is carefully managed. There's the rise-and-fall storyline for every politician, the manufactured rivalries, the scripted comebacks, the scandals that erupt on cue. You can tell when the director wants the crowd stirred up—there’s a well-timed leak, a dramatic resignation, or a late-night policy shift that’s hyped like a plot twist. The actors deliver monologues about freedom, democracy, responsibility, reform—but the themes stay the same. It's theatre designed to feel fresh while preserving the structure. A distraction with emotional depth, but no real consequence—everything real happens anywhere else in the theatre except on the stage itself and, of course, outside the front doors.

Sometimes two or three actors rotate through the same part—just like a Broadway production where multiple leads are listed for the same role. If one actor stumbles, another steps in. The role must be filled. Continuity is everything. The show must go on.

Then there are the Cheap Seats (Stalls), packed with people waving their red or blue team flags, totally caught up in the action. They get emotionally invested, thinking that their support makes a difference, that maybe this time their team will win. Every now and then, one of the actors on stage gives them a nod or a smile, and it feels like a personal connection. The actors on stage stoke division among the cheap seats, goading the crowd to hurl insults and sometime fists at each other over scripted lines—while they bow from the footlights and exit through the same backstage door. These manufactured rivalries don’t end when the curtain drops; they spill out into the streets, into bars and cafes, into online threads and family dinners—turning ordinary people into unpaid extras in a conflict they didn’t write and don’t benefit from. But really, they’re just part of the illusion. The audience thinks it's participating, but the plot’s already decided. Many in the cheap seats also work backstage—building the props, cleaning the floors, making the costumes and concessions. They’re the ones who physically make the theatre run, but rarely get credit, let alone a say.

Above them sits the Balcony crowd—the managerial and ownership class. They’re not actors, not playwrights, and not even hands-on workers. But they own the businesses that provide the goods and services inside the theatre. The popcorn sellers, the printing companies for the programmes, the uniform suppliers, the contractors who do the set redesigns—these all operate under their portfolios. They award contracts, extract profit, and manage reputation. They don’t do the labour—they supervise it. Some of them like to think they’re part of the creative process, occasionally offering a marketing suggestion or applauding a costume revision, but they’re really just running the commercial side of the operation. They don’t care much about the content of the play—only that it sells tickets and maintains order in the aisles.

Then we get to the Boxes, stacked elegantly along each side of the theatre, close to and overlooking the stage. That’s where the true patrons sit. This is the domain of the old families and the upper crust—the ones who inherited the theatre or bought their seats generations ago. They arrive fashionably late, whisper across their private alcoves, and nod discreetly to the production staff. These are not rowdy spectators. They are people of influence—members of private clubs, trustees of grand estates, gentlemen of quiet intrigues.

They spend the intermissions in exclusive side-salons, host parties where casting choices are quietly debated over gin and canapés and send their handwritten suggestions for the next act to the director’s office by way of trusted intermediaries. It’s all very civilised, very indirect. But don’t be fooled—the shape of the story, the timing of the intermissions, the plot changes and actors selected—it all passes through their hands. They’re affiliated with long-standing societies: the kind that meet behind heavy oak doors, where the decor hasn’t changed since the Edwardian era. Some are members of old clubs with names like the Round Table or the Circle, or attend high-tier galas or garden parties that feel like something out of a P.G. Wodehouse novel—only less charming, less bumbling, more calculating.

And behind all of it are the Playwrights. Not one person, not a single cabal, but clusters of shadowy collectives, think tanks and foundations. They include strategists, planners, ideologues, behaviouralists, and master manipulators of public sentiment. They don’t script every word, but they do shape the tone, the values and the philosophical backdrop. Their goal isn’t control through force—it’s coherence through narrative. Most people don’t even realise there’s a script—and that’s exactly how the playwrights like it.

What strikes me is how invested everyone is in the performance. The Cheap Seats are screaming over who’s on stage. The Balcony folks are scrambling to win contracts to keep the show running. And the Boxes are sipping champagne, pulling strings and passing notes while the playwrights make quiet revisions backstage.

What gets lost is the obvious question: whose story is it? Because it sure isn’t ours.

I don’t think the problem is that people cheer for the wrong team. I think the problem is that they’re still cheering at all. There’s a point where you stop wondering how to win the game and start asking why we’re still playing by their rules—on their stage—with a script they’ve rewritten for generations. Maybe it’s not about rewriting the ending. Maybe it’s time to walk out of the theatre altogether.