Agitprop and Political Theatre

2018 ◽  
pp. 15-65
Keyword(s):  
Political Theatre

Choric Theatre

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erika Fischer-Lichte
Keyword(s):  
Participatory Democracy ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
Political Theatre ◽  
New Form ◽  
Important Form

The ninth chapter, ‘Choric Theatre. Between Tragic Experience and Participatory Democracy’, discusses a new form of theatre that grew out of Greek tragedy’s chorus. While Einar Schleef used the chorus in The Mothers (1986) in order to create a new tragic theatre, in the 1990s—that is, after the protest choruses of the Monday demonstrations in the GDR had led to the fall of the Berlin Wall—choric theatre became an important form of political theatre. Mostly, these choruses were composed of local citizens, as in Volker Lösch’s Oresteia in Dresden (2003) or in theatercombinat’s The Persians (2006–8), and often even of members of a minority, as in all of Volker Lösch’s later productions. Here choric theatre gave a voice to those who had been silenced and even anticipated a utopia of a truly participatory democracy.

Performing Protest and Protesting Performance: The International Circuits of Touring Political Theatre

2021 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-69
Author(s):  
ELLIOT LEFFLER
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
Political Theatre ◽  
Waiting For Godot

From 1980 to 1981, the Baxter Theatre of Cape Town, South Africa, produced a multi-racial Waiting for Godot that garnered vastly different reactions in the various cities to which it toured. With a cast led by John Kani and Winston Ntshona, icons of anti-apartheid theatre, it was sometimes hailed as a scathing anti-apartheid polemic, sometimes admired for its ‘universality’, and in one case denounced and shut down by anti-apartheid activists as a piece of pro-apartheid propaganda. Based on both archival research and interviews, this essay investigates the artists’ intentions and the public's reception in order to illuminate how the international theatrical circuits dovetailed with international activist circuits, sometimes supporting one another, and occasionally tripping each other up.

‘Plays with Subjects that Matter’: Political Theatre and the Amateur Movement in the 1930s

2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-55
Author(s):  
Don Watson
Keyword(s):  
Media Culture ◽  
Political Theatre ◽  
North East ◽  
British Drama ◽  
Amateur Theatre ◽  
Labour History

Thousands of amateur theatre groups performed regularly in Britain during the 1930s but their activities have generally been overlooked by historians. Important features of the amateur world were the regional and national festivals organized by the British Drama League and the Scottish Community Drama Association. In this article Don Watson examines how the festivals could provide opportunities for progressive drama by groups outside the organized Left, and considers the League in relation to the Left theatre movement of the time. It broadens our understanding of where politically engaged theatre took place in the 1930s and thus the appreciation of British amateur theatre as a whole. Don Watson is an independent historian and holds a PhD from Hull University. His theatre research has been published in Labour History Review, Media, Culture and Society, and North East Labour History.

Writing for a Political Theatre

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-52
Author(s):  
Eric Bentley
Keyword(s):  
Political Theatre

Corruption and Nigerian political economy

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ibrahim Kawuley Mikail
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
National Development ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Political Theatre ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
Freedom Fighters

The book analyses the background of corrupt practices in the annals of Nigerian political history from pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial era down to the fourth democratic dispensation. The book also establishes a nexus between corruption and political economy in the Nigerian political theatre. Indeed, corruption undermines the rules of law, equity, transparency democratization and national development which breed poverty, insecurity and general underdevelopment among the populace.Meanwhile, the political economy approach and the theories of corruption and their application on Nigerian political economy is highlighted.The role of policy-makers and stakeholders with their policies and programmes on combating corruption is also analysed. Furthermore, the giant efforts of international organizations, civil society organizations (CSOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on combating the menace of corruption are also pointed out. The book serves as a guide to researchers on the subject matter and the freedom fighters with their anti-corruption crusade or mandates so as to proffer solutions to corrupt practices and scandals in Nigeria and beyond.

Risking Everything: Political Theatre for Mass Audiences in Rural Germany

1999 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-122
Author(s):  
Alison M. Phipps
Keyword(s):  
Job Creation ◽  
Language Education ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Political Theatre ◽  
Intercultural Studies ◽  
Annual Basis ◽  
South West ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Performance Research

In the south-west German village of Hayingen, the playwright-director Martin Schleker presents large open-air productions of politically sensitive yet entertaining plays to mass audiences on an annual basis. This article explores the element of risk in Schleker's work: his use of purely amateur performers; his job-creation schemes for young people; and his left-wing and often anti-Catholic stance on issues such as racism and nuclear arms before often deeply conservative, culturally Catholic audiences. Schleker's work is situated in the wider context of the state-funded, civic theatres in Germany, and of the tradition of open-air ‘Naturtheater’ which is particularly strong in the Swabian region. Some assumptions surrounding such binary divides as amateur-professional and high art-entertainment are also explored. Data for this article was collected in the Hayingen ‘Naturtheater’ during a period of ethnographic research supported by the Leverhulme Trust. Having completed her doctorate at Sheffield University, Alison Phipps has been working as a lecturer in the Department of German – and in particular in the Centre for Intercultural Germanistics – at Glasgow University since October 1995. She has published in the areas of her research interests, which include contemporary German theatre and performance research, Ethnographic approaches to language education, and popular German culture and intercultural studies.

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