The Cambridge Guide to African and Caribbean Theatre.

Abstract

endeavor present dynamic interaction of performance traditions from all cultures in presentday is further enhanced by the Cambridge Guide Asian Theatre and the present Guide African and Caribbean Theatre. The policy of the original guide to celebrate popular theatre and popular entertainment, also by tracing systematically the indebtedness of art theater popular forms of entertainment has been further developed in the present guide. This Guide covers the theatrical landscapes of sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean islands as African diaspora in Brazil, Colombia, or Belize. The Guide is organized on a national or regional basis. This explains why the rich tradition of AfricanAmerican theater and the more recent developments of Black drama in Canada and multicultural or Black theater in Britain are not incorporated. The two sections-on Africa and the Caribbean-are each introduced by a broad survey article, which essentially focuses on historical developments, on the variety of forms and theatrical styles, and also lists minor authors and lesser plays, which do not figure in specific entries. This also helps place the better known writers and their plays within their proper national context. Since the accumulation and presentation of such a huge bulk of information, as is required in a theater guide of that category, is both costly and cumbersome, it is only natural that the majority of the entries were taken over from the parent guide; but they were supplemented and updated, and quite a number of new entries were added. Different from the parent guide, entries on individual authors, plays, theater organizations, or important institutions for the development of theater are listed here under the various countries of origin. Together with the introductory essay on theater of the individual country, this helps give an overview of the theater tradition and present state of the theatrical landscape in one particular national context. Thus, the differences-perhaps more than the similaritiesbecome evident between the two main domains on both shores of the Atlantic, but also inside Africa and the Caribbean. Different colonial policies entail differences in cultural infra-structure (National Theatres or private companies), the predominance of certain genres (historical drama or political farce), and the preference of certain performance styles in the francophone anglophone or lusophone