POLITICAL THEATRE

INTRODUCTION

"Political theatre" is a term that has been used to refer to three different things:  • theatre that comments on political issues • political action or protest that has a theatrical quality to it • any action by politicians that is intended to make a point rather than accomplish something substantive

The political theatre begun in the very early years in Athens. Satire, comedy and drama performed by comic poets in theatres had influenced on public opinion in Athenian democracy. These plays were performed in amphitheatres, central arenas used for theatrical performances, religious ceremonies and political gatherings. The fact that they used the same place for performances, political discussions or religious celebrations give us an idea of how much they used to compare politics with theatre.In later centuries political theatre has changed place and form, depends to the country, the society, the political issues and the date.

Often political theatre has been used to promote specific political theories or ideals, for example Marxism and the development of communist sympathies.

My idea about the subject I choose is, making a research about how theatre and politics compared together in the past inside different cultures. People that made a change to the art world inside a theatre and how the political theatre can make the audience think, wonder without a TV or a newspaper but in a way that help them keep their critical thinking.

POLITICAL THEATRE IN 20th CENTURY

We shall not need to speak of a play's poetry ... something that seemed relatively unimportant in the immediate past. It seemed not only unimportant, but misleading, and the reason was not that the poetic element had been sufficiently developed and observed, but that reality had been tampered with in its name ... we had to speak of a truth as distinct from poetry ... we have given up examining works of art from their poetic or artistic aspect, and got satisfaction from theatrical works that have no sort of poetic appeal ... Such works and performances may have some effect, but it can hardly be a profound one, not even politically. For it is a peculiarity of the theatrical medium that it communicates awarenesses and impulses in the form of pleasure: the depth of the pleasure and the impulse will correspond to the depth of the pleasure.

Bertolt Brecht(1951)

This volume provides a theoretical framework for some of the most important play-writing in Britain in the second half of the twentieth century.  The book begins with a discussion of the way that theatre has been used to convey a political message. Each chapter is then devoted to an exploration of the engagement of individual playwrights with left-wing political theatre, including a detailed analysis of one of their major plays. Despite political change since the 1980s, political play-writing continues to be a significant element in contemporary play-writing, but in a very changed form.

I will use this book to give examples of how British play-writers used to combine theatre and politics and how this changed the last few years since 1980.

This is the first book to explore the world of the theatre in Russia after Stalin. Through his work at the Moscow Art Theatre, Anatoly Smeliansky is in a key position to analyse contemporary events on the Russian stage and he combines this first-hand knowledge with valuable archival material, some published here for the first time, to tell a fascinating and important story.‘The classics became this theatre’s ecological niche. They gave Efros opportunity to touch on the eternal themes that had been eliminated from Soviet repertoire. He brought back to our stage the human striving to understand what belief, lack of belief, truth, death and retribution are. These themes made totally new demands on the actor’s art, on the psychological realism that Russia had been so proud of ever since Stanislavsky.’

I will use this book to give information about Russian political theatre and how Stalin changed it.

"It tells a common story of the battle against the new poverty, of once lavishly funded theatres reduced to penury, or artists surviving against the odds, and fighting back. As a historical account, it is invaluable for all students of the theatre. As a record of human determination, it will inspire everyone." - John Elsom, International Association of Theatre Critics

Because of the quantity of people that giving their experience about how the theatre was to the eastern Europe after Iron Curtain I think I will have a strong research about different places and different approaches from all these cultures.

Stages in the Revolution is a ‘journalistic’ survey of politic (or ‘alternative’ or ‘popular’)Theatre in Britain in the decade after the magic year 1968.A book that will give me evidence about all the political and society changes and how Theatre changed since that time in Britain.

Were those who worked in the theatres of the Third Reich willing participants in the Nazi propaganda machine or artists independent of official ideology? To what extent did Richard Strauss and Carl Orff follow Nazi dogma? How did famous directors such as Gustaf Grüdgens and Jürgen Fehling react to the new regime? Why were Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw among the most performed dramatists of the time? And why did the Nazis sanction Jewish theatre? This is the first book in English about theater in the entire Nazi period. Based on contemporary press reports, research in German archives, and interviews with surviving playwrights, actors, and musicians, it is a much needed guide to this neglected area of European culture.

A strong piece of evidence on how theatre was that kind of period and how directors, actors musicians worked and follow the Nazi dogma. How strict Nazi were with the art and especially theatre. Were they afraid of it?

My idea about the subject I choose is, making a research about how theatre and politics compared together in the past inside different cultures. People that made a change to the art world inside a theatre and how the political theatre can make the audience think, wonder without a TV or a newspaper but in a way that help them keep their critical thinking.

Michael Billington, 7 NOVEMBER 2014The Guardian

‘Speaking truth to power: this is the rebirth of political theatreToo much film and television is cursed by blandness. Society’s mirror now is the stage’

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/07/rebirth-political-theatre-society-stage

The author in this article with reference to play-writers and theatre plays nowadays as new play in London which called Mike Bartlett’s King Charles III, he is talking about the failure of TV and film and the rising of theatre. Also he refers to young people who are trying to generate new forms of political theatre.

This article will help me to give a variety of examples about the movement in political theatre in Britain nowadays.

 ‘King Charles III, speculating on the dangers of a politically interventionist monarch, is the most popular new play in London.’ Photograph: Johan Persson

Tara Bracco,SEPTEMBER 12TH, 2008

The Brooklyn Rail

‘The Power of Political Theatre’

http://www.brooklynrail.org/2008/09/theater/the-power-of-political-theater

Tara Bracco in this article talking about how theatre is strong in comparison with TV and film, what theatre can give to the audience and what the artists doing inside the theatre. Also she gives a lot of information about politics and how she can find similarities with the art world.‘Artists decide what stories get created, seen, and heard by the public. They are actively shaping the culture around us, as theatre raises the antenna of people’s social and political consciousness.’

The strong way of her writing would help me to give similarities about artists and politicians in a way of how art can be political.

Oliver Wainwright, 15 October 2014The Guardian

‘Russia’s stage revolution: when theatre was a hotbed for impossibly space-age design’http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/oct/15/russian-theatre-design-revolution-avant-garde-v-and-a

This article it’s just give knowledge about designers and their work in Russia’s revolution (Soviet Theatre). So when I will write about Soviet Union and Russia I will know historical and history of design in their country from some really good designers.

Lyubov Popova’s fantastic mechanical set for The Magnanimous Cuckold, 1922. Photograph: V&A

Matt Trueman, 3 November 2011 The Guardian

Noises off: theatre can change the world … well, maybe

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2011/nov/03/wide-universal-theatre-change-world-maybe

This article is talking about theatre but in a different direction. How society put the artists in the category other.? He is talking also about people that there are fighting every day with the society for the arts and how they do it.

Because he is talking in a very different direction but still on subject, I can compare how society accept the artists and what does that mean about politicians, their relationship with the arts. The circle of political theatre.

Marcel Marceau set out to make his audience feel, see and hear the invisible. He wanted to reach out to children , to draw them into theatre. His work has laid the ground work for teaching language worldwide. His dedication has helped change the world for the better. (pinterest)