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This unique text uses material never previously published on theatre life during the Communist years. Chapters begin with introductions by well-known theatre professionals or lively interviews with a major directors or playwrights.
How does one become a theater critic in London? What do the theater critics think of their profession? How are they judged by those they critique? What do both critics and theatre-makers think of their mutual object of desire - the British Theatre? Who Keeps the Score on the London Stages? sets out to find the answers to these questions and many more in this long overdue publication on Britain's current theatre scene. Included are comprehensive interviews with more than fifty major London theatre critics and theater-makers, including Sir Alan Ayckbourn, Stephen Berkoff, Michael Billington, Martin Coveney, Nicholas de Jongh, Sir Richard Eyre, Sir Peter Hall, Sir Cameron Mackintosh, Adrian Noble, Sir Trevor Nunn and Irving Wardle. The author has gathered together a lively discussion about the contrmporary state of the British theatre, drawing a picture of its strengths, weaknesses and the problems it faces today. This volume serves as a long overdue guide to the Theatre critics' profession in Britain.
This book is the fullest and most detailed study yet published in English of Ernst Toller's plays and their most significant productions. In particular the productions directed by Karl-Heinz Martin, Jurgen Fehling and Erwin Piscator are closely analyzed and the author demonstrates how, brilliant though they were, they obscured or even distorted Toller's intentions. The plays are seen as eminently stage-worthy while worth lies in Toller's use of language, both in prose and inverse. The neglected puppet-play The Scorned Lovers' Revenge is analyzed from a new perspective in the light, both of its language and its sexual theme, so important in Toller's writings as a whole. The reader is led to appreciate why Toller was regarded as the most outstanding German dramatist of his generation until, after his death in 1939 his reputation was overlaid by that of Brecht. This book should do much to restore Toller to his proper place in theatre history.
Theatres of Conscience offers an invaluable and essential insight into four touring British theatre companies whose work and contributions to post-war British theatre have largely gone unnoticed. Combining a rigorous scholarly evaluation of their work and their broadly ideological and ethical contribution to wider post-war developments in British theatre. Peter Billingham offers the reader a unique insight into four companies which, motivated by enthusiasm, principles and creative innovation, sought to take the theatre of conscience to theatre-less communities in wartime Britain and during the following decade. Contemporaries of - amongst others - Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop, the Pilgrim Players, the Adelphi Players, the Compass Players and the Century Theatre represent a significant but rather overlooked phase in the development of twentieth-century British theatre.
First Published in 1997. Edward Bond Letters, Volume III, includes sections on the important areas of writing and translating as well as continuing to trace Bond's interest in productions of his work. Focusing on The Pope's Wedding and Saved, a radio production of The Fool (1990), In the Company of Men (1992) and the television plays – Olly's Prison (1993) and Tuesday (1993) – this lively and thought-provoking volume of Edward Bond's letters provides useful background information for both the student and the general reader.
This book provides the reader with a comprehensive view of Matsemela Manaka's plays, namely, Egoli, Pula, Children of Asazi, Toro, and Goree and discusses three of his essays: 'Theatre of the dispossessed', 'The Babalaz people', and 'Theatre as a physical word'.
First Published in 1997. Can South African theatre continue to maintain its autonomy and exercise its critical role? Can one rethink form and find new content? Can a concept of post-protest theatre be developed? How might theatre contribute to post-apartheid soceity? These are just of the questions addressed in this book. The real and present difficulties South Africian theatre is facing, as well as possible future orientations, are clearly shown, at one of the most complex moments of political transition in the history of the South African society. The authors include contributions from playwrights, actors, visual artists, poets, directors, administrators, critics and theatre academics. Their comments and thoughts portray the active process of reflection and reappraisal, redefining their artistic and political aims, searching for new and vital theatrical forms.
Edward Bond Letters, Volume IV, focuses on four significant areas of Edward Bond's work: education, imagination and the child; theatre-in-education; At the Inland Sea; language and imagery. The letters represent a coruscating attack on our present society, as well as offering insights into how the situation might be improved. Bond's letters attack modern education, arguing that "children are being educated to sell themselves" and suggesting that social problems are caused by an oppression of the imagination. Many letters refer directly to a play - for instance Tuesday, which presents an assessment of the many difficulties faced by contemporary society. The language and imagery of one of Bond's most recent plays, In the Company of Men, is animatedly discussed, and Bond reminds us in a final description that "the good image is always absent, because it is present in the mind.
"Explores the relationship between culture and power in Imperial Russia. Argues that Russia's performing arts were part of a vibrant public culture that was usually ambivalent or hostile to the tumultuous political events of the revolutionary era"--Provided by publisher.
Cecil Davies' The Adelphi Players: The Theatre of Persons represents a uniquely interesting contribution to our understanding of touring British theatre in the mid-twentieth-century, post-war period. This book will interest everyone - whether student, academic or general reader - who wants to know more about issues concerning the recent history of British theatre. In their values and aims, the Adelphi Players pre-empted many of the post-war developments that we associate with the non-commercial, fringe and community theatre movement. In Richard Heron Ward founder of the Adelphi-Players, we encounter a dramatist, novelist, essayist and poet who has been unusually neglected in terms of our appreciation of the English literature of the broad left in the 1930s, `40s and `50s. The Adelphi Players has been edited by Peter Billingham, who has also provided an introduction placing Ward and the Adelphi players in the wider social, cultural and ideological context.