British Theatre and Performance 1900-1950 PDF Download

Author: Rebecca D'Monté
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781408166024
Category : Theater
Languages : en
Pages : 339

View

Book Description
British theatre from the first half of the twentieth century is undergoing a critical reevaluation, with many high-profile theatre revivals of plays from the period in recent years. This book explains why by an examination of the variety of work from this period and how it shaped what followed.

Author: Rebecca D'Monte
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1408166011
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 353

View

Book Description
British theatre from 1900 to 1950 has been subject to radical re-evaluation with plays from the period setting theatres alight and gaining critical acclaim once again; this book explains why, presenting a comprehensive survey of the theatre and how it shaped the work that followed. Rebecca D'Monte examines how the emphasis upon the working class, 'angry' drama from the 1950s has led to the neglect of much of the century's earlier drama, positioning the book as part of the current debate about the relationship between war and culture, the middlebrow, and historiography. In a comprehensive survey of the period, the book considers: - the Edwardian theatre; - the theatre of the First World War, including propaganda and musicals; -the interwar years, the rise of commercial theatre and influence of Modernism; - the theatre of the Second World War and post-war period. Essays from leading scholars Penny Farfan, Steve Nicholson and Claire Cochrane give further critical perspectives on the period's theatre and demonstrate its relevance to the drama of today. For anyone studying 20th-century British Drama this will prove one of the foundational texts.

Author: Claire Cochrane
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9780367487898
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 0

View

Book Description
The Routledge Companion to Twentieth Century British Theatre provides a broad range of perspectives on the multiple models and examples of theatre, artists, enthusiasts, enablers, and audiences that emerged over this formative one-hundred-year period. This first volume covers the first half of the century, constructing an equitable and inclusive history that is more representative of the nation's lived experience than the traditional narratives of British theatre. Its approach is intra-national - weaving together the theatres and communities of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The essays are organised thematically arranged into sections that address nation, power, and identity; fixity and mobility; bodies in performance; the materiality of theatre and communities of theatre. This approach highlights the synergies, convergences, and divergences of the theatre landscape in Britain during this period, giving a sense of the sheer variety of performance that was taking place at any given moment in time. This is a fascinating and indispensable resource for undergraduate and graduate students, postgraduate researchers and scholars across theatre and performance studies, cultural studies, and Twentieth Century history.

Author: Claire Cochrane
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139502131
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 365

View

Book Description
In this book, Claire Cochrane maps the experience of theatre across the British Isles during the twentieth century through the social and economic factors which shaped it. Three topographies for 1900, 1950 and 2000 survey the complex plurality of theatre within the nation-state which at the beginning of the century was at the hub of world-wide imperial interests and after one hundred years had seen unprecedented demographic, economic and industrial change. Cochrane analyses the dominance of London theatre, but redresses the balance in favour of the hitherto marginalised majority experience in the English regions and the other component nations of the British political construct. Developments arising from demographic change are outlined, especially those relating to the rapid expansion of migrant communities representing multiple ethnicities. Presenting fresh historiographic perspectives on twentieth-century British theatre, the book breaks down the traditionally accepted binary oppositions between different sectors, showing a broader spectrum of theatre practice.

Author: Helen E. M. Brooks
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108754325
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 299

View

Book Description
The first comprehensive guide to British theatre's engagement with the First World War over the last century, providing accessible and lively coverage of theatre's role in the representation and remembrance of events, focusing on topics including regionality, politics, popular performance, Shakespeare, class, race and gender.

Author: E. H. Mikhail
Publisher: Detroit : Gale Research Company
ISBN:
Category : English drama
Languages : en
Pages : 350

View

Book Description

Author: Simon Trussler
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521794305
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 420

View

Book Description
Written with style, imagination and insight, and packed with interesting illustrations, this authoritative book traces the development through the ages of plays and playwriting, forms of staging, the acting profession and the role of the actor - in fact all aspects of live entertainment. From satire and burlesque to melodrama and pantomime, this is a major history of British theatre from the earliest times to the present day. Shifting its focus constantly between those who played and those who watched, between officially approved performance and the popular theatre of the people, The Cambridge Illustrated History of British Theatre will be invaluable to anyone interested in theatre, whether student, teacher, performer or spectator.

Author: Steve Nicholson
Publisher: Exeter Performance Studies
ISBN: 9781905816439
Category : Censorship
Languages : en
Pages : 0

View

Book Description
Winner of the Society for Theatre Research Book Prize - 2016 This is the final volume in a new paperback edition of Steve Nicholson's definitive four-volume survey of British theatre censorship from 1900-1968, based on previously undocumented material, covering the period 1960-1968. This brings to its conclusion the first comprehensive research on the Lord Chamberlain's Correspondence Archives for the 20th century. The 1960s was a significant decade in social and political spheres in Britain, especially in the theatre. As certainties shifted and social divisions widened, a new generation of theatre makers arrived, ready to sweep away yesterday's conventions and challenge the establishment. Analysis exposes the political and cultural implications of a powerful elite exerting pressure in an attempt to preserve the veneer of a polite, unquestioning society. This new edition includes a contextualising timeline for those readers who are unfamiliar with the period, and a new preface. DOI: https://doi.org/10.47788/TGOJ9339

Author: Maggie B. Gale
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526136872
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 403

View

Book Description
This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. This book presents a collection of cutting-edge historical and cultural essays in the field of women, theatre and performance. The chapters explore women’s networks of professional practice in the theatre and performance industries between 1900 and 1950, with a focus on women’s sense and experience of professional agency in an industry largely controlled by men. The book is divided into two sections: ‘Female theatre workers in the social and theatrical realm’ looks at the relationship between women’s work – on and off stage – and autobiography, activism, technique, touring, education and the law. ‘Women and popular performance’ focuses on the careers of individual artists, once household names, including Lily Brayton, Ellen Terry, radio star Mabel Constanduros and Oscar-winning film star Margaret Rutherford.

Author: Maggie B. Gale
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351397192
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 369

View

Book Description
This book provides a new social history of British performance cultures in the early decades of the twentieth century, where performance across stage and screen was generated by dynamic and transformational industries. Exploring an era book-ended by wars and troubled by social unrest and political uncertainty, A Social History of British Performance Cultures 1900–1939 makes use of the popular material cultures produced by and for the industries – autobiographies, fan magazines and trade journals, as well as archival holdings, popular sketches, plays and performances. Maggie B. Gale looks at how the performance industries operated, circulated their products and self-regulated their professional activities, in a period where enfranchisement, democratization, technological development and legislation shaped the experience of citizenship. Through close examination of material evidence and a theoretical underpinning, this book shows how performance industries reflected and challenged this experience, and explored the ways in which we construct our ‘performance’ as participants in the public realm. Suited not only to scholars and students of British theatre and theatre history, but to general readers as well, A Social History of British Performance Cultures 1900–1939 offers an original intervention into the construction of British theatre and performance histories, offering new readings of the relationship between the material cultures of performance, the social, professional and civic contexts from which they arise, and on which they reflect.