Political theatre

Political theater is a form of performing arts or drama that addresses political issues or concerns, and as such becomes the center of the action or of the stage action. A distinction is made between political theater in a broad sense as a theater with general political content and political, that is interventionist theater in the Restricted.

Political theater as a collective term

The term of political theater diverse forms of theater are summarized, the back key socio- political themes and theses in its center. Central intention of political theater in its narrower, more interventionist form of a critical analysis of complex social structures and the struggle for social change. Due to its controversial substances, provocative theses and its system-critical potential political theater, in contrast to other forms of theater led disproportionately to violent social controversies. The concept of " political theater " goes back to the same font Erwin Piscator's 1929 return.

Pronounced political forms of theater were the theater Leopold Jessner and Erwin Piscator and the epic theater of Bertolt Brecht. Also theater forms such as the Nazi theater ( Thing games, etc. ) were understood by their authors as political theater and propagated. Affirmative forms of theater productions such as the Nazi near tracks in the " Third Reich" is missing in the Restricted characteristic of political theater socially critical impulse. As political theater were also the documentary theater of the sixties, the street theater of the San Francisco Mime Troupe, the puppet theater of the Bread and Puppet Theatre or form-fitting Theatre of New York's Living Theatre and in South America ( Brazil), the popular in the U.S. and in Europe classified Theatre of the Oppressed Augusto Boal of. Also free groups such as the existing since 1982 touring theater Berliner Compagnie can be assigned to this area.

Classics and Politics

As political theater in a broader sense, the first western dramas of the ancient polis and the democratic city states already were interpreted. These plays were staged in the large amphitheatres, which were also used for theatrical performances, religious ceremonies and political gatherings. This gave them ritual and social significance, which increased the relevance of political substance. Controversial political issues were asked in the heart of Athenian society for discussion. In English-speaking countries in particular William Shakespeare was identified as the author of a political theater. His historical plays such as King Lear and Macbeth investigate the nature of political leadership or lack thereof as well as the complexity of the behavior of human beings who are driven by the lust for power. Coriolanus negotiates the class struggles of the Roman Republic. Analog could be used as an important stimulator of a theater with a political impact, which is characterized by a policy, based on a moral ideal of freedom pathos in the German cultural history Friedrich Schiller.

Avant-garde theater and political theater

Significant impetus in the early 20th century by the Russian avant-garde theater in the context of the October Revolution of 1917 ( Bogdanov Proletcult, Meyerhold, Eisenstein ). Subsequently, as a theater of and for the people has different forms of theater such as the schematizing proletarian and the agitprop street theater, attested to the interventionist productions of the German avant-garde theater of the twenties, but also more popular forms such as cabaret or critical popular theater, to be the at the same time specifically political (often Marxist-inspired ) content transporting.

To a wholly own complex aesthetics Bertolt Brecht developed the political theater in the form of epic theater, which should involve the viewer in a rational, less passing on empathy manner. Brechtian aesthetics influenced and encouraged political theater makers all over the world, especially in Latin America ( Augusto Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed), India and Africa.

In dealing with current political issues took in the 1960s writers such as Peter Weiss and Heinar Kipphardt a far-reaching reformulation of the conventional historical drama before and reaktualisierten this political theater. The so-called documentary theater leaned closely to historical documents such as the case files of the Auschwitz trial in Frankfurt ( Peter Weiss, The determination ) and was continued in various forms of theater and staging, which made the public space to the venue political and aesthetic questions. A separate instance of a more enlightened theater was built in the 1970s by feminist authors like Elfriede Jelinek and Caryl Churchill.

" Political theater " after 1990

Since the 1990s, through the widely radiating pulses of the Berlin Volksbühne under director Frank Castorf a variety of starting points of a politically involved theater have developed in the German theater scene. With recourse to forms of happenings, performance or scenic installation of its directors and ' curators ' search for new scenic answers to current challenges, including in particular by Christoph Schlingensief, René Pollesch and Christoph Marthaler. Attempts to redefine an explicitly Enlightenment theater both in terms of content as well as formal level went out after 2000 by Volker deletion.

However, currently a single, valid for all theatrical projects definition of " political theater " seems hardly possible, especially since the term can hardly find more prescriptive use per se. It offers itself rather to speak of the " political" in a theater, with no ideological concepts be postulated, but peculiar relations between political discourse and theater aesthetics must be attached, which often manifest themselves in experience of freedom from politically dominated everyday consciousness and the viewer experiences allow an aesthetic " freedom " in the sense of Friedrich Schiller, neither had a political ideology or an enlightening educational theater can be assigned.

The Political theater thus manifests front hand in his anthropological condition of succession meeting as part of the performance. If one understands the political as dissent or break with a given order, this is often caused by colliding between the aesthetic and social issues in contemporary theater, or by an " exploration of the situational aspect " (Hans -Thies Lehmann) or by a " Re-Entry the social " into the Aesthetic (Benjamin Wihstutz ). In this respect, we can speak of political theater as by a laboratory that allows social confrontations with experimental character and the individual freedom experience enables reflected in the abolition of the dualism of feeling and intellect or mind and body. The question of the potential of theater to real political improvement of social conditions must be re- discussed from this point.

Bibliography

Europe

• Götz Dapp: Media Clash In Political Theatre: Building on and continuing Brecht. Marburg: Tectum Verlag, 2007.
• Dorothea Kraus: theater protests. To politicization of street and stage in the 1960s. Q.s. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2007.
• Siegfried Melchinger: history of political theater. Vol 1 and 2 Frankfurt / Main: Suhrkamp, 1974.
• Erwin Piscator: Time Theatre: The Political Theater and other writings 1915-1966 Selected. . and Edit. by Manfred Brauneck & Pete Stertz. Reinbek: Rowohlt 1986.
• Stephan Porombka, Wolfgang Schneider, Volker Wortmann (ed.): Political Arts. Tübingen: Francke Verlag 2007
• Jacques Rancière: The Distribution of the Sensible. Berlin: B -Books, 2006.
• Marc Silbermann: The tradition of political theater in Germany. In: The Parliament, 23-24 / 2006.
• Becker, Peter; Gorner, Eberhard; Schößler, Franziska; Davis, Geoffrey V.; Bergmann, Wolfgang; Kolesch, Doris; Maihold, Günther: Political theater. In: Federal Agency for Civic Education (Ed.): From politics and contemporary history. No. 42, October 13, 2008, ISSN 0479-611 X X ( https://www.bpb.de/shop/zeitschriften/apuz/30915/politisches-theater, accessed on 30 October 2012).

Other continents

• Heidrun Adler: Political theater in Latin America. From the mythology about the mission of collective identity. Berlin: Reimer, 1982 ( Contributions to Cultural Anthropology ).
• Yolanda Broyles - Conzalez: El Teatro Campesino: Theater in the Chicano Movement, University of Texas Press, 1994
• Charlotte Canning: Working from experience: a history of feminist theater in the United States, 1969 to the present. Seattle, Univ. of Washington, Diss, 1991.
• Simone Odierna and Fritz Letsch: theater makes policy. Forum Theatre by Augusto Boal. A workshop book AG SPAK Books, 2006. ISBN 978-3-930830-38-1