Joan Littlewood’s Post-Theatrical Engagements Beyond Theatre Workshop: A Comparison of the Original Fun Palace Project With the 2014 – 2015 Revivals

Abstract

This paper suggests recognizing Joan Littlewood and Cedric Price’s Fun Palace project as a blend of the Old Left and the New Left as it fulfills 1960s’ faith in social progress through change in people’s work/leisure balance on account of era’s technological advances and also prioritizes Joan Littlewood’s workingclass politics as it seeks to make urban centers accessible to all people’s pastime activities. Fun Palace project was also introduced by Richard Schechner in The Drama Review issue of 1968 and therefore can be regarded in the whereabouts of early performance art definitions delineated by Schechner. Although Fun Palace resides in the dynamic New Left moment on the timeline, recognizing Littlewood’s communistic commitments in Fun Palace idea is a necessary tribute to Joan Littlewood’s life in working-class theatre, and a relevant perspective in probing the social and political potentials of the annual Fun Palace revivals initiated by Stella Duffy in 2014, the Joan Littlewood Centenary.