The Political Theatre

The Political Theatre PDF Author: Erwin Piscator
Publisher: Methuen Publishing
ISBN: 9780413335005
Category : Theater
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
'The Political Theatre' is among the most important documents of the modern stage. It tells of the foundation and flowering in Weimar Germany of a new form of theatre - epic theatre - designed to bring on to the stage the real political issues of the time, and to do so with all the aids that modern technology could supply.

The Political Theatre

The Political Theatre PDF Author: Erwin Piscator
Publisher: Methuen Publishing
ISBN: 9780413335005
Category : Theater
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
'The Political Theatre' is among the most important documents of the modern stage. It tells of the foundation and flowering in Weimar Germany of a new form of theatre - epic theatre - designed to bring on to the stage the real political issues of the time, and to do so with all the aids that modern technology could supply.

Erwin Piscator's Political Theatre

Erwin Piscator's Political Theatre PDF Author: C. D. Innes
Publisher: CUP Archive
ISBN: 9780521084567
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
This 1977 text was the first full study of Erwin Piscator, the German theatrical producer who was prominent in the 1920s and worked after 1945 with the writers Hochhuth, Kipphardt and Weiss. Professor Innes sketches the background of Dadaism and Expressionism from which Piscator came, and points out the differences between Piscator and the other experimenters of his time. He also gives a vivid description of Piscator's technical innovations, the modern means of communication such as film, the illumination of the stage from below and 'the treadmill', a flat moving band along which the characters walked. These turned drama into a multi-media event. Professor Innes uses Piscator's career as a focus to describe theatrical developments in the twentieth century and to discuss the role of the author, the director, and the actor in drama, the purpose of the theatre, and the involvement of the audience.

Staged

Staged PDF Author: Minou Arjomand
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231545738
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Theater requires artifice, justice demands truth. Are these demands as irreconcilable as the pejorative term “show trials” suggests? After the Second World War, canonical directors and playwrights sought to claim a new public role for theater by restaging the era’s great trials as shows. The Nuremberg trials, the Eichmann trial, and the Auschwitz trials were all performed multiple times, first in courts and then in theaters. Does justice require both courtrooms and stages? In Staged, Minou Arjomand draws on a rich archive of postwar German and American rehearsals and performances to reveal how theater can become a place for forms of storytelling and judgment that are inadmissible in a court of law but indispensable for public life. She unveils the affinities between dramatists like Bertolt Brecht, Erwin Piscator, and Peter Weiss and philosophers such as Hannah Arendt and Walter Benjamin, showing how they responded to the rise of fascism with a new politics of performance. Linking performance with theories of aesthetics, history, and politics, Arjomand argues that it is not subject matter that makes theater political but rather the act of judging a performance in the company of others. Staged weaves together theater history and political philosophy into a powerful and timely case for the importance of theaters as public institutions.

The Piscator Notebook

The Piscator Notebook PDF Author: Judith Malina
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 041560074X
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Piscator founded the Workshop after emigrating to New York, having collaborated with Brecht to create "epic theatre" in Germany. The Piscator Notebook documents the author Malina's intensive and idiosyncratic training at Piscator's school.

The Theatre of Erwin Piscator

The Theatre of Erwin Piscator PDF Author: John Willett
Publisher: New York : Holmes & Meier
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
This is the first book in English to cover the theatrical career of Erwin Piscator. As one of the leading authorities on 20th century German theatre, the author is well-equipped to write about this important director. Most of the text is devoted to the Weimar period and is illustrated with rare pictures and documents.

The Performance of Power

The Performance of Power PDF Author: Sue-Ellen Case
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
ISBN: 1587290340
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
Recently in the field of theatre studies there has been an increasing amount of debate and dissonance regarding the borders of its territory, its methodologies, subject matter, and scholarly perspectives. The nature of this debate could be termed "political" and, in fact, concerns "the performance of power"—the struggle over power relations embedded in texts, methodologies, and the academy itself. This striking new collection of nineteen divergent essays represents this performance of power and the way in which the recent convergence of new critical theories with historical studies has politicized the study of the theatre. Neither play text, performance, nor scholarship and teaching can safely reside any longer in the "free," politically neutral, self-signifying realm of the aesthetic. Politicizing theatrical discourse means that both the hermeneutics and the histories of theatre reveal the role of ideology and power dynamics. New strategies and concepts—and a vital new phase of awareness—appear in these illuminating essays. A variety of historical periods, from the Renaissance through the Victorian and up to the most contemporary work of the Wooster group, illustrate the ways in which contemporary strategies do not require contemporary texts and performances but can combine with historical methods and subjects to produce new theatrical discourse.

Bertolt Brecht in Context

Bertolt Brecht in Context PDF Author: Stephen Brockmann
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108634141
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 676

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Book Description
Bertolt Brecht in Context examines Brecht's significance and contributions as a writer and the most influential playwright of the twentieth century. It explores the specific context from which he emerged in imperial Germany during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well as Brecht's response to the turbulent German history of the twentieth century: World Wars One and Two, the Weimar Republic, the Nazi dictatorship, the experience of exile, and ultimately the division of Germany into two competing political blocs divided by the postwar Iron Curtain. Throughout this turbulence, and in spite of it, Brecht managed to remain extraordinarily productive, revolutionizing the theater of the twentieth century and developing a new approach to language and performance. Because of his unparalleled radicalism and influence, Brecht remains controversial to this day. This book – with a Foreword by Mark Ravenhill – lays out in clear and accessible language the shape of Brecht's contribution and the reasons for his ongoing influence.

Politics Of Theatre And Drama

Politics Of Theatre And Drama PDF Author: G. Holderness
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349217921
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description


Tony Kushner's Postmodern Theatre

Tony Kushner's Postmodern Theatre PDF Author: Hussein Al-Badri
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443870331
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
The book is an insightful and thorough examination of one of the most prominent political dramatists in the US today, Tony Kushner, and his theatricalization of politics. Moreover, it draws heavily on Kushner’s wide range of themes and techniques. As such, it will be beneficial for graduate students and scholars who are concerned with the realm of contemporary American drama at the threshold of the twenty-first century. In addition, the book will appeal to anyone who wants a deeper understanding of Kushner and his major influences such as Bertolt Brecht, and will also be valuable for readers with a general interest in American drama. This book is primarily concerned with exploring and analyzing political discourse as dramatized in the work of Tony Kushner. The author’s point of departure is the concept of political theatre as developed by Erwin Piscator and Bertolt Brecht. This theoretical exploration serves a double purpose: first, it is meant to provide a statement of the definitions and concepts central to this study, such as political discourse, political theatre, and postmodern theatre; second, it offers the tools of analysis by which to read and analyze Tony Kushner’s postmodern, politically-oriented texts. Through this, the book defines the major features of Kushner’s postmodern theatre and explores how he theatricalizes politics. American drama in the 1980s and the 1990s witnessed a noticeable thematic shift from the exclusively personal plays and musicals that once dominated American theatre for a long period of time to an increasing number of plays which put greater emphasis on exploring issues and questions of socio-political interest. As a result of this thematic shift, the predominantly private settings and familial character relationships of the traditional family play have been replaced by a great variety of public settings and non-familial characters. Tony Kushner’s theatre is a pioneering attempt in this respect. In Kushner’s theatre, there is no room for the traditional family plays which dominated the American stage in the 1960s and 1970s. Kushner has found that there is not enough political discourse in contemporary American Theatre. For this reason, he writes his plays to shed special light on the politics of American society in the 1980s, the 1990s, and in the beginnings of the 21st century.

Performance and Politics in Popular Drama

Performance and Politics in Popular Drama PDF Author: David Bradby
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521285247
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
Since the beginning of the nineteenth-century, many forms of theatre have been called 'popular', but in the twentieth-century the term 'popular drama' has taken on definite political overtones, often indicating a repudiation of 'commercial theatre'. Does this mean that political theatre is or tries to be more attractive to more people than commercial theatre? Does it conversely mean that commercial theatre has no political effects? The articles in this book were submitted as papers for a conference on the theme of 'popular' theatre, film and television. Contributions came from people with very different types of experience: from an ex-animal trainer to a lecturer in film studies; from playwrights, directors and actors to professional critics and academics. Each author focused on a particular problem of defining drama in performance, drawing together the conditions of performance, the types of audience and the political effects of the plays or films in question. The result was a series of fruitful connections and juxtapositions that shows the remarkable continuity of the problems raised in attempts to create a popular political drama.