Censorship of the American Theatre in the Twentieth Century

Censorship of the American Theatre in the Twentieth Century PDF Author: John H. Houchin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521818193
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
John Houchin explores the impact of censorship in twentieth-century American theatre. He argues that theatrical censorship coincides with significant challenges to religious, political and cultural traditions. Along with the well-known instance of the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s, other almost equally influential events shaped the course of the American stage during the century. The book is arranged in chronological order. It provides a summary of censorship in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century America and then analyses key political and theatrical events between 1900 and 2000. These include a discussion of the 1913 riot after the Abbey Theatre touring produdtion of Playboy of the Western World; protests against Clifford Odet's Waiting for Lefty, performed by militant workers during the Depression; and reactions to the recent play Angels in America.

Censorship of the American Theatre in the Twentieth Century

Censorship of the American Theatre in the Twentieth Century PDF Author: John H. Houchin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521818193
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 360

Get Book Here

Book Description
John Houchin explores the impact of censorship in twentieth-century American theatre. He argues that theatrical censorship coincides with significant challenges to religious, political and cultural traditions. Along with the well-known instance of the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s, other almost equally influential events shaped the course of the American stage during the century. The book is arranged in chronological order. It provides a summary of censorship in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century America and then analyses key political and theatrical events between 1900 and 2000. These include a discussion of the 1913 riot after the Abbey Theatre touring produdtion of Playboy of the Western World; protests against Clifford Odet's Waiting for Lefty, performed by militant workers during the Depression; and reactions to the recent play Angels in America.

The Censorship of Eighteenth-Century Theatre

The Censorship of Eighteenth-Century Theatre PDF Author: David O'Shaughnessy
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108853579
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
This collection reveals the wide-ranging impact of the Stage Licensing Act of 1737 on literary and theatrical culture in Georgian Britain. Demonstrating the differing motivations of the state in censoring public performances of plays after the Stage Licensing Act of 1737 and until the Theatres Act 1843, chapters cover a wide variety of theatrical genres across a century and show how the mechanisms of formal censorship operated under the Lord Chamberlain's Examiner of Plays. They also explore the effects of informal censorship, whereby playwrights, audiences and managers internalized the censorship regime. As such, the volume moves beyond a narrow focus on erasures and emendations visible on manuscripts to elucidate censorship's wide-ranging significance across the long eighteenth century. Demonstrating theatre archives' potency as a resource for historical research, this volume is of exceptional value for researchers interested in the evolving complexities of Georgian society, its politics and mores.

The Censorship of Eighteenth-Century Theatre

The Censorship of Eighteenth-Century Theatre PDF Author: David O'Shaughnessy
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108496253
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
A far-reaching analysis of censorship's profound impact on Georgian theatrical culture and its development across the long eighteenth century, showcasing how the analysis of plays can be helpful for historical research.

The Frightful Stage

The Frightful Stage PDF Author: Robert Justin Goldstein
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1845458990
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
In nineteenth-century Europe the ruling elites viewed the theater as a form of communication which had enormous importance. The theater provided the most significant form of mass entertainment and was the only arena aside from the church in which regular mass gatherings were possible. Therefore, drama censorship occupied a great deal of the ruling class’s time and energy, with a particularly focus on proposed scripts that potentially threatened the existing political, legal, and social order. This volume provides the first comprehensive examination of nineteenth-century political theater censorship at a time, in the aftermath of the French Revolution, when the European population was becoming increasingly politically active.

Theatre Censorship in Britain

Theatre Censorship in Britain PDF Author: H. Freshwater
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230237010
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
This exploration of the wide variety of censorship that has shaped theatrical performance in twentieth and twenty-first century Britain examines the unpredictable outcomes of censorship, deep-seated anxieties about the performative influence of the stage, and the complex questions raised by acts of theatrical censorship.

Theatre Censorship

Theatre Censorship PDF Author: David Thomas
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199260281
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Using previously unpublished material from the National Archives, this book provides a thoroughgoing account of the introduction and abolition of theatre censorship in England, from Sir Robert Walpole's Licensing Act of 1737 to the successful campaign to abolish theatre censorship in 1968. It concludes with an exploration of possible new forms of covert censorship.

Censorship and Conflict in Seventeenth-Century England

Censorship and Conflict in Seventeenth-Century England PDF Author: Randy Robertson
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271036559
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Censorship profoundly affected early modern writing. Censorship and Conflict in Seventeenth-Century England offers a detailed picture of early modern censorship and investigates the pressures that censorship exerted on seventeenth-century authors, printers, and publishers. In the 1600s, Britain witnessed a civil war, the judicial execution of a king, the restoration of his son, and an unremitting struggle among crown, parliament, and people for sovereignty and the right to define “liberty and property.” This battle, sometimes subtle, sometimes bloody, entailed a struggle for the control of language and representation. Robertson offers a richly detailed study of this “censorship contest” and of the craft that writers employed to outflank the licensers. He argues that for most parties, victory, not diplomacy or consensus, was the ultimate goal. This book differs from most recent works in analyzing both the mechanics of early modern censorship and the poetics that the licensing system produced—the forms and pressures of self-censorship. Among the issues that Robertson addresses in this book are the workings of the licensing machinery, the designs of art and obliquity under a regime of censorship, and the involutions of authorship attendant on anonymity.

Global Insights on Theatre Censorship

Global Insights on Theatre Censorship PDF Author: Catherine O'Leary
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131750092X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 427

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Book Description
Theatre has always been subject to a wide range of social, political, moral, and doctrinal controls, with authorities and social groups imposing constraints on scripts, venues, staging, acting, and reception. Focusing on a range of countries and political regimes, this book examines the many forms that theatre censorship has taken in the 20th century and continues to take in the 21st, arguing that it remains a live issue in the contemporary world. The book re-examines assumptions about prohibition and state control, and offers a more complex reading of theatre censorship as a continuum ranging from the unconscious self-censorship built into social structures and discursive practices, through bureaucratic regulation or unofficial influence, up to detention and physical violence. An international team of contributors offers an illuminating set of case studies informed by both new archival research and the first-hand experience of playwrights and directors, covering theatre censorship in areas such as Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Poland, East Germany, Nepal, Zimbabwe, the USA, Ireland, and Britain. Focusing on right-wing dictatorships, post-colonial regimes, communist systems and Western democracies, the essays analyze methods and discourses of censorship, identify the multiple agents involved, examine the responses of theatremakers, and show how each example reveals important features of its political and cultural contexts. Expanding understanding of the nature and effects of censorship, this volume affirms the power of theatre to challenge authorized discourses and makes a timely contribution to debates about freedom of expression through performance.

British Enlightenment Theatre

British Enlightenment Theatre PDF Author: Bridget Orr
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108499716
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Reveals how England's eighteenth-century theatre dramatized anti-imperial protest, and gave voice to oppressed groups.

Ireland, Enlightenment and the English Stage, 1740-1820

Ireland, Enlightenment and the English Stage, 1740-1820 PDF Author: David O'Shaughnessy
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108498140
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
Reveals the contribution of Irish writers to the Georgian English stage; argues that theatre is an important strand of the Irish Enlightenment.