The Inherent Subversive Nature of Theatre: A Call to Action
Document Type
Event
Faculty Mentor
Malinda Haslett
Abstract
The Inherent Subversive Nature of Theatre: A Call to Action is a deep examination of the history of theatre through the lens of societal crisis, looking at how theatre has been used to inspire, organize, and ignite change, even in the face of censorship. This presentation covers revolutionary theatre from across the world, from Euripides in Ancient Greece and Bertolt Brecht in World War II, to Shakespeare subverting sexual standards in Elizabethan England and The People’s Theatre in India fighting against English colonialism in the 1940s. This presentation is both an educational tool and a rallying cry, comparing the censorship and tyranny of antiquity with the censorship and desperation for control from the Trump Administration. Theatre and art are the pulse of society, and they will not be contained. The research for this project has been done through studying both primary and secondary sources. To understand how the shows were received in their time, this presentation gives examples of criticism from original stagings, quotes from translated scripts, as well as scholarly analyses of the shows. The culmination of this project is a timeline, presented as paper to be submitted to various academic theatre journals, and a lesson plan targeted at young adults in the arts. The goal of publishing an article as well as a lesson plan is to rally theatre artists and theatre enjoyers alike to defend creative expression and fight back against oppression. The point of art is to reflect the artist, and theatre is a community-driven art form. This means it must reflect a whole, rather than an individual. Theatre has a unique responsibility to the community that builds it, and therefore cannot remain simple entertainment.
The Inherent Subversive Nature of Theatre: A Call to Action
The Inherent Subversive Nature of Theatre: A Call to Action is a deep examination of the history of theatre through the lens of societal crisis, looking at how theatre has been used to inspire, organize, and ignite change, even in the face of censorship. This presentation covers revolutionary theatre from across the world, from Euripides in Ancient Greece and Bertolt Brecht in World War II, to Shakespeare subverting sexual standards in Elizabethan England and The People’s Theatre in India fighting against English colonialism in the 1940s. This presentation is both an educational tool and a rallying cry, comparing the censorship and tyranny of antiquity with the censorship and desperation for control from the Trump Administration. Theatre and art are the pulse of society, and they will not be contained. The research for this project has been done through studying both primary and secondary sources. To understand how the shows were received in their time, this presentation gives examples of criticism from original stagings, quotes from translated scripts, as well as scholarly analyses of the shows. The culmination of this project is a timeline, presented as paper to be submitted to various academic theatre journals, and a lesson plan targeted at young adults in the arts. The goal of publishing an article as well as a lesson plan is to rally theatre artists and theatre enjoyers alike to defend creative expression and fight back against oppression. The point of art is to reflect the artist, and theatre is a community-driven art form. This means it must reflect a whole, rather than an individual. Theatre has a unique responsibility to the community that builds it, and therefore cannot remain simple entertainment.
