Stages in the Revolution: Political Theatre in Britain Since 1968 by Catherine Itzin

Author:Catherine Itzin [Itzin, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780413391803
Google: rmWvAAAAIAAJ
Goodreads: 2406403
Publisher: Eyre Methuen
Published: 1980-01-15T00:27:06+00:00

In writing about Stalinism, communism, socialism, said Brenton, ‘you have no alternative but to tell the truth’ - even though there is the risk of what you say being abused by the right-wing press, or even by the production system of subsidised theatres. ‘Like if you write a play with a communist in it, which is about people discovering that the communist tradition can help them in their work and the state they are in, you just cannot not mention Stalin. You begin to tell lies.’

It was one signal achievement of socialist writers, said Brenton, to have maintained effectively (and arrogantly), that ‘the most important plays in the theatre are new plays with a left perspective. They are more important than classics. Therefore they should be on the same stages. They must dominate the theatre. That is really what we are saying.’ He defended a policy of ‘strategic penetration’:

Because the plays themselves and the people who are writing them assume and presume that socialism and a socialist society are a norm - even though daily experience contradicts this all the time - it begins to become part of a norm. So you make the drift of the arts socialist.

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