Key Theatre Research Articles

Theatre of Anger: Radical Transnational Performance in Contemporary Berlin by Olivia Landry

Reviewed by: Theatre of Anger: Radical Transnational Performance in Contemporary Berlin by Olivia Landry Sophie Nield (bio) Olivia Landry. Theatre of Anger: Radical Transnational Performance in Contemporary Berlin. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2021. Pp 256 + 8 b/w illus. $79. This book opens with a book burning. In May 2016, as part of the two-day event Desintegration: A Congress on Contemporary Jewish Positions at the experimental performance space Studio Я, directly opposite the site of the infamous 1933 Nazi book-burning on Unter den Linden, a copy of the (newly re-available) Mein Kampf was torn into fragments and fed into the fire by Jewish American artist Daniel Kahn. This powerful image is the starting point for a rich and detailed study of the possibilities and potentialities of anger as a mode of politicised contemporary theatre practice. Focusing on seven key theatre pieces performed in Berlin between 2006 and 2017, Olivia Landry identifies and tracks "a form of theatre in which minoritized subjects perform anger and perform in anger," speaking out against social injustice, racism and prejudice in "an open and aggressive refusal to integrate into an unjust society" (4). Theatre of Anger explores the work and ideas of a generation of writers and theatre makers drawn from the "post-migrant" theatre movement, making a persuasive case for the centring of anger as an illuminating interpretive framework. The selection comprises Schwarze Jungfrauen (Black Virgins), 2006; Weissbrotmusik (White Bread Music), 2010; Verrücktes Blut (Mad Blood), 2010; Telemachos, 2013; Aufstand – Monolog eines wütenden Künstlers (Rebellion: Monologue of an Angry Artist), 2014; Get Deutsch or Die Tryin', 2017; and Zucken (Twitching), 2017. Through analysis of these plays, Landry provides a rich historiography of post-migrant theatre from its inception at Shermin Langhoff's 2006 festival Beyond Belonging - Migration at the Hebbel am Ufer theatre (HAU), tracking its development as a fringe, experimental, and increasingly significant force in contemporary German theatre. Post-migrant experience—the "post-," summarised by Wendy Brown as indicating something which is "temporally over but not after" (n. 16, p. 9)—identifies the particular experience of second- and third-generation people of migrant heritage, who nevertheless are still identified and treated as migrants within a supposedly "host" culture. Central to the analytical perspective of the book is the concept of "desintegration (de-integration): a rejection of integrational, assimilative narratives in favour of an investment in 'affirmative anger'" (7). It is important to note that Landry does not propose the theatre of anger as synonymous for post-migrant theatre. Rather, the term "theatre of anger" identifies a strategic re-constellation of minoritized voices away from a perpetual relation to the "centre," and it is by re-aligning the lens through which these works [End Page 424] are read that they become open to the rich and productive analysis. In this way, the theatre itself is re-proposed as a politicised space for action; one which opens possibility for the recuperation and political application of anger itself as both performative strategy and consciously affirmative practice. The book is organised in seven chapters: fluent and detailed introductory and concluding sections frame the central work of the book, which comprises a philosophical history of anger, a series of rich and complex case studies, and an extended interview with playwright Sasha Marianna Salzmann. Landry's "defence of anger" (chapter 1) provides a thorough-going intellectual and conceptual history though which to read the theatrical work. Brecht's formally-realized anger is important here, but it is the thought and work of feminist scholars of color—in particular the writings and political ideas of Audre Lorde, Sara Ahmed, and bell hooks—which are threaded most foundationally through the book. Subsequent chapters extend particular questions of violence, exclusion, religious identity, and disenfranchisement through the selected plays. The plays discussed are drawn from a number of distinct theatrical modes. The theatre of anger is not a particular style, but a particular attitude: the mobilization of anger as a productive affective force. Landry chooses plays that "do something riveting with affirmative forms of anger at a time and in a political climate when this affect is often otherwise perceived as negative and only capable of leading...

Mind the Gap! A transatlantic, intergenerational theatre project

ABSTRACT This practitioner reflection explores the impact of a long-term inter-generational theatre project operating at the intersection between community and professional theatre practices in south-east London. The work developed through a creative partnership established between London South Bank University School of Performance, Southwark Playhouse and the New York Theatre Workshop whose intergenerational programme, Mind the Gap began in 2009. In this critically reflective essay, I seek to interrogate the precise nature of the impact of Mind the Gap! UK, derived from working with professional artists and processes within a community context. Writing in the journal of Health Promotion Practice, Anderson et al. observe that developing theatre performances from participants’ own experience and stories creates a “unique space that release(s) participants from usual ways of thinking and interacting” and this has certainly proved to be true for the Mind the Gap! ensembles. In order to understand how and what impact is generated, I will evaluate the key artistic and theatre practices which underpin the work and consider the precise nature of the effect of taking part in the project for both youth and elder participants.

Genealogies of recovery: The framing of therapeutic ambitions

The notion of recovery has become prominent in mental healthcare discourse in the UK, but it is often considered as if it were a relatively novel notion, and as if it represented an alternative to conventional treatment and intervention. In this paper, we explore some of the origins of the notion of recovery in the early 20th century in movements such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Recovery Inc. Whilst these phenomena are not entirely continuous with recovery in the present day, some important antecedents of the contemporary notion can be detected. These include the focus on the sufferers' interior space as a key theatre of operations and the reinforcement and consolidation of medical ways of seeing the condition without any immediate medical supervision of the actors being necessary. This has resonance with many contemporary examples of recovery in practice where the art of living with a mental health condition is emphasised without the nature of the psychopathological condition itself being challenged.

White water, Red tide: Sino-Russian conflict on the Amur 1917-20

The failure of the White movement in Siberia, one of the key theatres of the Russian civil war, has often been attributed to domestic actors and disunity among the Allies. Less attention is devoted to one of the region's closest neighbours, China. By examining the acrimonious negotiations between China and Russia over Amur River shipping, this article argues that the Whites inherited a legacy of imperial conflict which they were ideologically unable to resolve. Their mishandling of China's nationalist aspirations severely undermined their cause, whereas the Reds won Chinese sympathies through concessions. As in other regions, the White movement collided with nationalism on the Russian periphery.

Performing the subversive: censorship and theatre making in Zimbabwe

Studies on the history of censorship in Zimbabwe are very scarce. When Zimbabwe attained her independence from Great Britain on 18 April 1980, she chose to follow a socialist system of economic and social development. Even though this programme had the best intentions, like most programmes for the future, it was used, together with the recuperation of denuded indigenous culture, as a tool for restricting national debate and for censorship. After the failure of neoliberal policies that had begun in 1990, Zimbabwe plunged into a crisis which began in 1998 and ended in 2008. Protest theatre artists who voiced their displeasure with the underperforming economy and bad politics were censored, politically controlled and sometimes detained by the Zimbabwean Government. I seek to document this stifling of creativity through the method of thick description. I will specifically study the theatre and creative activities of Dambudzo Marechera and take a panoramic view of censorship and political control of theatre, of several key theatre companies of Zimbabwe, during the crisis period.

Four Revolutions in Global Philanthropy

The paper identifies and analyzes four main fault lines which will influence next decades of global All are related to what we can refer to as the market revolution in global philanthropy. As global philanthropy moves beyond grantmaking, into investment approaches that produce a social as well as a financial return, this accelerates mainstreaming of a variety of what used to be niche activities. They marry effectiveness, social impact, and market mechanisms.The paper discusses four key theatres: amplifying social entrepreneurship through synthetic social business; shift from microfinance to inclusive financial services; abandonment of paradigm of development assistance in favor of base-of-the-pyramid investments; and transition from classical grantmaking to an entrepreneurial internalization of externalities that uses public-private-civil society value chains.The paper was reviewed in Huffington Post on January 18, 2011. According to reviewer, “If you are a serious social entrepreneur, Dr. Martin's insights provide a hard-hitting perspective about how a new generation of super-wealthy is changing logic of philanthropy by moving dollars from inefficient, relationship-driven grantmaking to investments in values-driven social impact business.

Cuatro Revoluciones en la Filantropía Global (Four Revolutions in Global Philanthropy)

The paper identifies and analyzes four main fault lines which will influence next decades of global All are related to what we can refer to as the market revolution in global philanthropy. As global philanthropy moves beyond grantmaking, into investment approaches that produce a social as well as a financial return, this accelerates mainstreaming of a variety of what used to be niche activities. They marry effectiveness, social impact, and market mechanisms.The paper discusses four key theatres: amplifying social entrepreneurship through synthetic social business; shift from microfinance to inclusive financial services; abandonment of paradigm of development assistance in favor of base-of-the-pyramid investments; and transition from classical grantmaking to an entrepreneurial internalization of externalities that uses public-private-civil society value chains.The paper was reviewed in Huffington Post on January 18, 2011. You can read review at here. According to reviewer, “If you are a serious social entrepreneur, Dr. Martin's insights provide a hard-hitting perspective about how a new generation of super-wealthy is changing logic of philanthropy by moving dollars from inefficient, relationship-driven grantmaking to investments in values-driven social impact business.”

Prisoners of War and Civilian Internees of the Japanese in British Asia: The Similarities and Contrasts of Experience

The similarities and differences between the experiences of prisoners of war and civilian internees of the Japanese have largely been overlooked by studies of Japanese-held prisoners. This article aims to provide this critical comparative perspective by examining the experiences of prisoners of war and civilians in four key theatres of the war in British Asia: Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore and Borneo. It draws largely, however, on the intriguing case study of the Lintang Camp in Borneo (Sarawak) where prisoners of war were imprisoned alongside civilian internees during the war. It argues that there were overarching similarities and constraints to both sets of experiences, but key differences in Japanese wartime policies and a variety of other factors such as combatant status, class, rank, active agency, leadership, and gender also contributed to how captivity was experienced during this tumultuous period.

Bergman's Rigour

ABSTRACTThis essay was written as a provocation and contribution to the Writing Space project, University of Winchester, 2008. It was presented as a performance text with the opening 20 minutes of Winter Light playing without sound in the background. It is a fusion of memoir, film criticism, aesthetic theorization and critical re-evaluation. The author examines his own film-going history and the centrality of Bergman's work to that; posits Bergman's films of the 1960s as the key theatre texts of their time; analyses the components of Bergman's cinematic project at that time; reflects upon a notion of rigour derived from that work; settles on Winter Light as the exemplary film and ponders its meaning and genesis.

An Editor's Wish List

The co-editors of New Theatre Quarterly take time out here to reflect on the milestone of the journal reaching its hundredth consecutive issue, in succession to the forty of the original Theatre Quarterly. Simon Trussler was one of the founding editors of the ‘old’ Theatre Quarterly in 1971. He is the author of numerous books on drama and theatre, including New Theatre Voices of the Seventies (1981), Shakespearean Concepts (1989), the award-winning Cambridge Illustrated History of British Theatre (1993), The Faber Guide to Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama (2006), and Will's Will (2007). Formerly Reader in Drama in the University of London, he is now Professor and Senior Research Fellow at Rose Bruford College. Maria Shevtsova, who has been co-editor of New Theatre Quarterly since 2003, is Professor of Drama and Theatre Arts and Director of Graduate Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London. The author of more than one hundred articles and chapters in collected volumes, her books include Dodin and the Maly Drama Theatre: Process to Performance (2004), Fifty Key Theatre Directors (co-edited with Shomit Mitter, 2005), Robert Wilson (2007), Directors/Directing: Conversations on Theatre (with Christopher Innes, 2009), and Sociology of Theatre and Performance (2009).

From West to South to North

It is hardly surprising that Russia's foreign policy is to a very large degree concerned with relations with its immediate neighbourhoods, which are uniquely diverse and often rich in violent conflicts. This short-range policy is a direct consequence of the country's enormous longitude, which provides it with more neighbours than any other state in the world. Obsession with relations with the United States constitutes an important exception to this pattern, but this pivotal political dimension has to remain outside the scope of this article. Another massive omission is the ambiguous nature of Russia's relations with its far eastern neighbours, primarily China. Following advice from Dirty Harry, this author acknowledges the need to know his limitations.What is really striking about Russia's concentration in dealing with its neighbours is that it reaches such a degree where there is little attention left for a wide range of global issues, even those that directly impact its wellbeing. This explains the sincere lack of interest in Africa, even if Putin has to endure long discussions about increasing aid at the G8 meetings. Hence also the lack of attention to climate change problems after ratifying the Kyoto protocol in 2004; it is widely assumed that Russia would not suffer that much from global warming (even if the oil and gas producing areas in western Siberia might). Landmines and small arms ring no political bells. What becomes less easy to explain is Russia's non-engagement in key international economic and financial institutions. Putin did proclaim the goal of joining the WTO, but its non-achievement has barely registered. Among the more current global economic issues, it is possible to point out that, during the second half of 2007, the consensus in Moscow was that Russian banks would not be affected by the US sub-prime crisis; it was only the sharp fall of the stock market in January 2008 that informed the political elite that Russia was not insulated from the continuing shocks. Even that awakening has not changed the dominant perception that a country that holds the third largest gold/hard currency reserves in the world does not have to play any role in regulating global finances.This article starts with indicating these peculiarities and oddities in order to cut them off and isolate its main aim-to provide a provisional assessment of whether the proactive policies in the western, southern, and northern neighbourhoods have secured for Russia the status of a regional great power. The desire for such status originates in the evolution of Russia's political regime, and that is where the analysis begins. Energy exports constitute the resource base for-and the key content of-these policies, and the role of energy is evaluated in the next section. Then, five key theatres in Russia's foreign policy operations are examined: Europe (essentially the EU), Ukraine and Belarus, the Caucasus, the Caspian area, and the Arctic frontier. The conclusion draws a very provisional balance of achievements and setbacks that could show whether Russia is indeed turning into a bona fide revisionist power.DOWN WITH DEMOCRATIZATIONRussia's political evolution inevitably determines the key content of its relations with its neighbours, and this evolution gives more and more ground for serious concern. Portraying Russia as an incorrigible state returning to its traditional authoritarian ways and inherent imperialistic policies would be not only an over-simplification but a misrepresentation of the complex and controversial political processes. At the same time, there is hardly any doubt that Putin's second presidential term signified a profound retreat from the path of democratic reforms and modernization that Russia had embarked upon with the implosion of the USSR in late 1991. This article will not examine the incoherent substance of the emergent overcentralized (but thoroughly corrupt) petro-bureaucratic regime, but it appears essential to emphasize some of its features that are particularly pertinent to the theme under investigation. …

Science War II: the shift from physics to biology as the field of struggle

It is generally agreed that, in some sense, there have been 'science wars' for at least the past ten, perhaps even twenty, years. In fact, as I argue here, there have been two such wars, the second of which is ongoing. The first part of this paper is concerned with distinguishing the two science wars and marking the transition between them. The second part deals with the substantive issues arising from a key theatre in Science War II, namely evolution versus intelligent design. The third part concludes the paper with a brief proposal for regular monitoring of the state of science in society, perhaps anticipating the terms of engagement of any subsequent 'Science War III'.

Fifty Key Theatre Directors (review)

Fifty Key Theatre Directors (review)

Prisoner Taking and Prisoner Killing in the Age of Total War: Towards a Political Economy of Military Defeat

Compared with the First World War, which ended quite quickly once the position of Germany became strategically hopeless, the Second World War proved exceedingly difficult to end even after the overwhelming economic advantage of the Allied powers had turned the strategic tide decisively against the Axis. Both German and Japanese forces continued to fight tenaciously long after any realistic chance of victory had disappeared. Part of the explanation lies in the extremely violent battlefield culture that developed in two key theatres of the war, which deterred soldiers from surrendering, even when they found themselves in hopeless situations. This culture had its origins on the Western Front during the First World War. But in the Second World War it became official policy on both sides, not only on the Eastern Front but in the Pacific theatre as well. Only when the Allied authorities adopted techniques of psychological warfare designed to encourage rather than discourage surrender did German and Japanese resistance end.

Dangerous dynamics: activists, militants and terrorists in Southeast Asia

This article critiques the view that Southeast Asia has emerged as a key theatre for terrorist activity. While accepting that al-Qaeda and the indigenous Southeast Asian group Jemaah Islamiyah have emerged as a potent threat to regional security, it interrogates the view that this renders Southeast Asia more dangerous than many other parts of the world. The article suggests that this exaggerated sense of threat rests largely on a failure to account for nuanced differences in the nature of Islamist politics in the region. As a small step towards redressing this problem the article outlines a typology of Islamist organizations. It also suggests that a person’s location within this typology is more than a function of religiosity but reflects instead relative degrees of social and political alienation.

Limits of Generosity and Trust: The Naval Side of the Combined Munitions Assignment Board, 1942–1945

Economic mobilisation and close collaboration were central to Allied victory over the Axis powers in the Second World War. At political and senior military levels, American and British staffs worked together to harness available resources, pursue a common strategy, and exchange vital information. Although virtually taken for granted in retrospect, provision of the vast quantities of war materials and munitions necessary for timely prosecution of military operations was little short of remarkable. The winning of total war on a global scale involved overwhelming material advantage. During the four war years, American shipyards and factories turned out some 87,620 large and small warships, 372,000 guns and 296,000 aircraft, at a cost of Us$183 billion. In contrast, over six years of war, Great Britain produced 4300 large and small warships, 132,100 guns, and 96,100 aircraft, while the Dominion of Canada manufactured 4043 small warships and landing craft, 42,966 guns and 16,418 aircraft.1 The United States clearly deserved Franklin Roosevelt's billing as the 'Arsenal of Democracy'. The industrial capacity in the United States that produced such impressive numbers was huge compared to most other countries at the time, but never remained unlimited. A world-wide war in several key theatres of operations and an American commitment to share a portion of its war production with Allied nations