Theatre, Globalization and the Cold War

✍ Scribed by Christopher B. Balme, Berenika Szymanski-Düll (eds.)

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2017
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 350
• Series: Transnational Theatre Histories
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book examines how the Cold War had a far-reaching impact on theatre by presenting a range of current scholarship on the topic from scholars from a dozen countries. They represent in turn a variety of perspectives, methodologies and theatrical genres, including not only Bertolt Brecht, Jerzy Grotowski and Peter Brook, but also Polish folk-dancing, documentary theatre and opera production. The contributions demonstrate that there was much more at stake and a much larger investment of ideological and economic capital than a simple dichotomy between East versus West or socialism versus capitalism might suggest. Culture, and theatrical culture in particular with its high degree of representational power, was recognized as an important medium in the ideological struggles that characterize this epoch. Most importantly, the volume explores how theatre can be reconceptualized in terms of transnational or even global processes which, it will be argued, were an integral part of Cold War rivalries.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-xv
Introduction....Pages 1-22
Front Matter....Pages 23-23
A Cold War Battleground: Catfish Row versus the Nevsky Prospekt....Pages 25-43
Spirituals, Serfs, and Soviets: Paul Robeson and International Race Policy in the Soviet Union at the Start of the Cold War....Pages 45-57
The Politics of an International Reputation: The Berliner Ensemble as a GDR Theatre on Tour....Pages 59-71
‘A tour to the West could bring a lot of trouble…’—The Mazowsze State Folk Song and Dance Ensemble during the First Period of the Cold War....Pages 73-85
Song and Dance Ensembles in Central European Militaries: The Spread, Transformation and Retreat of a Soviet Model....Pages 87-106
Theatre, Propaganda and the Cold War: Peter Brook’s Midsummer Night’s Dream in Eastern Europe (1972)....Pages 107-129
Front Matter....Pages 131-131
MI5 Surveillance of British Cold War Theatre....Pages 133-150
Creating an International Community during the Cold War....Pages 151-163
The Cultural Cold War on the Home Front: The Political Role of Theatres in Communist Kraków and Leipzig....Pages 165-186
Front Matter....Pages 187-187
Years of Compromise and Political Servility—Kantor and Grotowski during the Cold War....Pages 189-205
‘A Memorable French-Romanian Evening’: Nationalism and the Cold War at the Theatre of Nations Festival....Pages 207-221
An Eastern Bloc Cultural Figure? Brecht’s Reception by Young Left-wingers in Greece in the 1970s....Pages 223-238
Acting on the Cold War: Imperialist Strategies, Stanislavsky, and Brecht in German Actor Training after 1945....Pages 239-257
Checkpoint Music Drama....Pages 259-270
Front Matter....Pages 271-271
Whose Side Are You On? Cold War Trajectories in Eritrean Drama Practice, 1970s to Early 1990s....Pages 273-292
‘How close is Angola to us?’ Peter Weiss’s Play Song of the Lusitanian Bogeyman in the Shadow of the Cold War....Pages 293-306
Manila and the World Dance Space: Nationalism and Globalization in Cold War Philippines and South East Asia....Pages 307-323
Back Matter....Pages 325-350

✦ Subjects

Theatre History;Global/International Theatre and Performance;National/Regional Theatre and Performance;Russian, Soviet, and East European History;World History, Global and Transnational History