Theatre and War 1933-1945: Performance in Extremis

by Michael Balfour (Editor)

Overview

On an April evening in 1934, on the River Arno in Florence, an air squadron, an infantry, a cavalry brigade, fifty trucks, four field and machine gun batteries, ten field radio stations, and six photoelectric units presented a piece of theatre. The mass spectacle, 18 BL involved over two thousand amateur actors and was performed before an audience of twenty thousand.

18 BL is one of eleven extraordinary essays collected together for the first time. The essays have been selected and edited from a wide range of publications dating from the 1940s to the 1990s. The authors are academics, cultural historians, and theatre practitioners - some with direct experience of the harsh conditions of Europe during the war. Each author critically assesses the function of theatre in times of world crisis, exploring themes of Fascist aesthetic propaganda in Italy and Germany, of theatre re-education programmes in the Gulags of Russia, of cultural "sustenance" for the troops at the front and interned German refugees in the UK, or cabaret shows as a currency for survival in Jewish concentration camps.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781571814975
Publisher:	Berghahn Books, Incorporated
Publication date:	10/01/2001
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	57.50(w) x 85.00(h) x 5.00(d)

About the Author

Michael Balfour is currently head of BA in Drama, Theatre and Television at King Alfred's, Winchester and an award winning writer of theatre, film and radio scripts.

Table of Contents

Introduction

PART I: THE AESTHETICS OF FASCISM

Chapter 1. The Adventures of Mother Cartridge-Pouch
Jeffrey T. Schnapp

Chapter 2. Theatre and Politics of the Mussolini Regime
Pietro Cavallo

Chapter 3. Towards an Aesthetic of Fascist Opera
Erik Levi

Chapter 4. Hitler’s Theatre
Bruce Zortman

PART II: THEATRE, OCCUPATION AND CURFEW

Chapter 5. The War Years
Andrew Davies

Chapter 6. The Role of Joan of Arc on the Stage of Occupied Paris 65
Gabriel Jacobs

PART III: THEATRE BEHIND BARBED WIRE

Chapter 7. German Refugee Theatre in British Internment 83
Alan Clarke

Chapter 8. Thespis Behind the Wire – A Personal Recollection
George Brandt

Chapter 9. The Muses in Gulag
Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Chapter 10. Cabaret in Concentration Camps
Peter Jelavich

PART IV: THEATRE AT THE FRONT

Chapter 11. Brigades at the Front
Joseph Macleod

Index