Theatre Censorship Research Articles

'Prager Luft' at the Berliner Ensemble? The Censorship of Sieben Gegen Theben, 1968-9

Sieben gegen Theben nearly became the most controversial production in the Berliner Ensemble's history when Manfred Karge and Matthias Langhoff transformed it into an allegory of the Warsaw Pact's suppression of the Prague Spring. Their adaptation exploited the many fortuitous parallels between Aeschylus's play and recent international events, and culminated in a new ending in which the chorus castigated its failure to speak out against ‘rechtlose Herrschaft’ and foreign invasion. The protracted conflict over the script and staging – waged both outside and inside the company – illuminates reactions to the Prague Spring and reveals how theatre censorship actually operated: as a curious mixture of the personal and the bureaucratic, as a system that was formidable but not invincible. Indeed, the very means by which Sieben gegen Theben was censored suggest how GDR theatre may, on occasion, have been able to function as an ersatz political forum: if directors proceeded more tactically, used more challenging forms to evade the censors, created a stronger relationship with their spectators and, crucially, had the support of all their colleagues.

Three cases of censorship in opera theatre: Mozart, Rossini, Verdi

Three cases of censorship in opera theatre: Mozart, Rossini, Verdi

Censorship of the American theatre in the twentieth century

Introduction 1. Overture: theatrical censorship from the puritans to Anthony Comstock 2. Bad girls, tough guys and the changing of the guard 3. Flappers and fanatics 4. Have you now or have you ever ... 5. Bye, bye American pie 6. The past is prologue.

The Allure of the Archive

This article problematizes cultural studies' recent return to the“thing,” assessing the archive's position in research work. I draw on my experience of consultation of the surviving records of the Lord Chamberlain's theater censorship office in order to demonstrate that the archive's seductive charms often serve to conceal its flaws. This archive's undeniable allure obscures the contingency of its construction, its destructive powers, and the way in which its contents remain vulnerable to interpretative violence. These observations are measured against the metaphorical and theoretical frameworks which continue to condition our approach to the archive, coming to rest at the place where the procedures and concerns of psychoanalysis overlap with those of archaeology. I conclude that any study of this archive requires both a theoretical redefinition of the concept of the archive and the introduction of a rigorous ethical framework which foregrounds the interpretative investment of the researcher.

Ilse Langner's Amazonen and the Reception of J. J. Bachofen's Das Mutterrecht

AbstractIlse Langner's play Amazonen: Komödie was due to receive its première in April 1933, but became one of the early victims of Nazi theatrical censorship, attracting condemnation for its satirical feminist polemic and its radical reworking of the myth of the Greek victory over the Amazons. This paper explores Langner's play as a response to a highly‐charged debate over the legacy of Johann Jakob Bachofen's theory of ancient matriarchy, in which theorists and writers from all political camps fought over the uses of myth in the modern world. Langner's approach to Bachofen's theory and to this debate demonstrates that the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’, which are often applied to the debate on myth in the Weimar Republic, do not necessarily do justice to the complexity of pre‐1933 thinking on the place of myth in modernity.

The Man Who Saved Kabuki: Faubion Bowers and Theatre Censorship in Occupied Japan (review)

The Man Who Saved Kabuki: Faubion Bowers and Theatre Censorship in Occupied Japan (review)

The Man Who Saved Kabuki: Faubion Bowers and Theatre Censorship in Occupied Japan (review)

The Man Who Saved Kabuki: Faubion Bowers and Theatre Censorship in Occupied Japan (review)

Rolling out the red carpet: Power ‘play’ in modern Greek versions of the myth of Orestes from the 1960s and 1970s (II)

This paper traces an evolution among the most important modern Greek versions of the myth of Orestes that date back to the 1960s and 1970s, when Greece was experimenting with a new theatrical and political language. In this phase of modern Greek history, the myth of Orestes took on very concrete mythical, anachronistic, and sociopolitical forms and transformations, and entered into the broader cultural debate of the revival stage, native Greek playwriting, and contemporary poetry. The myth functioned as an important frame of reference under the seven-year dictatorship of the colonels, who plunged Greece into the dark of literary and theatrical censorship. Main themes in this article are the various motivations underlying novel versions and reinvented stage personae and, in particular, the new moral and political characterizations of Orestes as matricide and tyrannicide (as the more radical Greek interpretations would have it).

The Man Who Saved Kabuki: Faubion Bowers and Theatre Censorship in Occupied Japan

As part of its programme to promote democracy in Japan after World War II, the American Occupation, headed by General Douglas MacArthur, undertook to enforce rigid censorship policies aimed at eliminating all traces of feudal thought in media and entertainment, including kabuki. Faubion Bowers (1917-1999), who served as personal aide and interpreter to MacArthur during the Occupation, was appalled by the censorship policies and anticipated the extinction of a great theatrical art. He used his position in the Occupation administration and his knowledge of Japanese theatre in his tireless campaign to save kabuki. Largely through Bowers's efforts, censorship of kabuki had for the most part been eliminated by the time he left Japan in 1948. Although Bowers is at the centre of the story, this translation from the original Japanese treats a critical period in the long history of kabuki as it was affected by a single individual who had a commanding influence over it. It offers details about Occupation censorship politics and kabuki performance while providing yet another perspective on the history of an enduring Japanese art form.

The Man Who Saved Kabuki: Faubion Bowers and Theatre Censorship in Occupied Japan

The Man Who Saved Kabuki: Faubion Bowers and Theatre Censorship in Occupied Japan

An ignoble history

Theatre censorship is almost as old as the dramas it prohibits. Even today, particularly in the UK, archaic attitudes continue to influence what we may and may not see on the stage

I Am a Camera: Film and Theatre Censorship in 1950s Britain

Although the processes of censorship as exercised over the stage and screen in 1950s Britain shared similar characteristics, there were vital differences in the way in which the governing authorities construed the audiences who frequented these entertainment media. Because cinemagoers constituted a mass audience and were considered to be more impressionable, the criteria of ‘quality’ applied by the British Board of Film Censors differed markedly to those put into effect for the theatre by the Lord Chamberlain's Office. The reception afforded both the play and film of I Am a Camera reveals the subtlety of approach adopted by the censors in each instance.

CENSORSHIP IN COMMUNITY COLLEGE THEATRE PROGRAMS

The research reported in this article explored the extent of self‐censorship in community college theatre programs across the country. What part of the college administration plays in such censorship is also examined. Censorship does exist in community college theatre. Much of the censorship is self‐imposed. Directors avoid plays that are controversial. The audience is protected from harm. Profanity, racial slurs, and negative religious references are cut. When cuts are not made, disclaimers are often published in programs or placed in the lobby or both. Further research opportunities suggested by this study lie in examinations of how theatre departments deal with copyright issues when cutting objectionable material from plays. Defining the responsibility of the community college theatre program to the community is another area of research that needs to be addressed. Little censorship occurs from external sources. Finally, how the responsibilities of the college and the theatre to truth can be resolved with the presence of censorship in academic theatre is an area yet to be adequately explored.

Theater Censorship in Israel

Theater Censorship in Israel

Theater Censorship in Israel

Theater Censorship in Israel

The Curtain Never Rises: Femininity and Theater Censorship in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Germany

The Curtain Never Rises: Femininity and Theater Censorship in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Germany

Colluding with the Censor: Theatre Censorship in France after the Revolution

Colluding with the Censor: Theatre Censorship in France after the Revolution

Colluding with the Censor: Theatre Censorship in France after the Revolution

Colluding with the Censor: Theatre Censorship in France after the Revolution

CUMHURİYET DÖNEMİNDE DEVLET-TİYATRO İLİŞKİSİ

Ataturk gave the importance needed for art, literature and especially theater when he founded the new Republic of Turkey. The state - theater relationship became stronger with the republic. In the early periods, funded theaters emerged, and the years between1927-1928 were a milestone for Ottoman's Darulbedayi theater. Sanayi-i Nefise Directorate and Sanayi-i Nefise Committee were established and affiliated to Ministry of National Education. According to the regulation which was put into effect on December 1, 1949, it was stated that the City Theater was an art institution managed with a supplementary budget to Istanbul Municipality. With the 1976 regulation, City were divided into five divisions. Over time, changes were made in the field of theater, new policies were developed, efforts were made to spread the theater, and the idea of Regional Theaters was put forward. In this article, these developments, theater censorship and theater supervision are touched upon; issues of Theatrical Education in the State Conservatory and the universities in the context of the state's contribution are discussed.

Political Censorship of the Theatre in Nineteenth-Century Europe

Censorship of the stage, like censorship of the printed word, was widespread and well-established in Europe in 1815. However, while prior censorship of the press was eliminated throughout Europe by 1914, European countries almost universally retained prior censorship of the stage until (and sometimes well after) World War I. England became the first major European country to abolish censorship of the press in 1695, yet Parliament systematized a formerly haphazard theatre censorship in 1737, and did not end stage censorship until 1968. Most other European countries did not eliminate press censorship until about the middle of the nineteenth century, while maintaining theatre censorship throughout the century, and typically exercised much harsher controls over the stage than over the printed word. As John Allen has noted, ‘In many times and places the drama has been subject to far greater censorship than any other form of literature or art’, reflecting governmental feelings that ‘the theatre, with its power of affecting an audience with possibly subversive emotions and ideas, is more to be feared’.