{"title":"Documentary and Community Theatre with Young People in Madrid: The Creative Process of Mundo Quinta","authors":"Luisa García-Manso","doi":"10.1017/s0266464x24000174","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0266464x24000174","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Mundo Quinta is a documentary theatre creation programme for adolescents in Madrid, launched by Espacio Abierto Quinta de los Molinos and directed by the theatre company Cross Border Project. This publicly funded programme started in 2018 and is currently celebrating its sixth season. Each season takes place during the academic year and culminates in the premiere of a new play. This article combines empirical and ethnographical methods with theatre analysis to examine the foundations, artistic vision, and creative process of Mundo Quinta, and to analyze how artistic quality is ensured in the final productions. The research undertaken focuses on the fourth season, and identifies the techniques used to create the verbatim theatre play <span>¿Me quieres alfileres?</span> (<span>Multiformas de quereres</span>) [<span>Do You Love Me?</span> (<span>Multiforms of Love</span>)] in 2022 with designated young participants.</p>","PeriodicalId":43990,"journal":{"name":"NEW THEATRE QUARTERLY","volume":"123 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142397912","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Not Billington, not Zoella, and Definitely not a ‘Fangirl’: Social Distinction within Communities of Amateur Theatre Critics","authors":"Megan Vaughan","doi":"10.1017/s0266464x24000186","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0266464x24000186","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In theatre criticism, the lines between professional and amateur have softened considerably since the turn of the twenty-first century, with much attention – academic and journalistic – given to the impact of amateur theatre criticism on theatre-making and marketing, on newspapers, and on theatre scholarship. So far, however, the voices and perspectives of amateur critics themselves have largely been absent from research. To rectify this absence, this study applies sociological concepts from Pierre Bourdieu and Sarah Thornton to thirty-five interviews undertaken with practising theatre bloggers in the United Kingdom in order to understand their relative positions within three intersecting fields: the field of professional theatre reviewing; the field of online ‘influencing’; and the smaller and more specific field of ‘amateur’ theatre criticism. Here, the study undertaken finds a significant proportion of practitioners using the counterpoint of the ‘fangirl’ – whose practices of appreciation and etiquette are widely disparaged – to advocate for their own purportedly more intellectual and professional approaches to critique.</p>","PeriodicalId":43990,"journal":{"name":"NEW THEATRE QUARTERLY","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142397996","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"British Theatre from Agitprop to ‘Primark Playwriting’","authors":"David Edgar, Hakan Gültekin","doi":"10.1017/s0266464x24000204","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0266464x24000204","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In this interview, which took place in Birmingham on 16 February 2023, Hakan Gültekin talks to playwright David Edgar about his theatre universe and the current state of British theatre. Edgar has long championed the social and economic rights of playwrights, and here suggests that the lack of long-term and sustained support from British theatres has created what he calls ‘Primark playwrights’. His plays are characterized by a careful examination of historical events and the impact of these events on society, as evident in his epic two-part play <span>Destiny</span> (1976), which examines the roots of the British Labour movement. Other notable plays include <span>Excuses Excuses</span> (1972), <span>Saigon Rose</span> (1976), <span>Wreckers</span> (1977), and <span>Entertaining Strangers</span> (1986), commissioned by the Colway Theatre. He has also written plays for the Royal Shakespeare Company, including <span>The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs</span> (1978), <span>Maydays</span> (1983, revived in 2018), and <span>Pentecost</span> (1994). More recently, he adapted <span>A Christmas Carol</span> for the RSC (2017) and staged the one-man show <span>Trying It On</span> (2018). He founded the first playwriting degree in Britain at the University of Birmingham in 1989, and served as President of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain from 2007 to 2013.</p>","PeriodicalId":43990,"journal":{"name":"NEW THEATRE QUARTERLY","volume":"57 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142397914","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Othello: A Moor Rorschach Test","authors":"Akaela Michels-Gualtieri","doi":"10.1017/s0266464x24000241","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0266464x24000241","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The evolution of the colour of Othello’s skin-tone is a surprisingly accurate cultural barometer of attitudes towards race in the eyes of scholars. A significant portion of the critical literature is focused upon the Moor’s complexion as one of the main variables within the play. Yet the fact that the script has itself become a variable, and not a constant, has been neglected. This text’s transformation can be traced alongside the ratification of racial laws. In Jacobean England, Antebellum American, and Imperial Germany, audiences respectively experienced Othello committing divergent crimes, ranging from murder-suicide, to marriage, to simply existing. These countries’ racial legislation coloured the various audience interpretations of the Moor. While Othello’s actions were always the same, the public projected their own attributed meanings onto the play – a practice analogous to a living Rorschach test. This article explores the concept of using a metaphorical Rorschach test as a tool for the historicization of the many colours of <span>Othello.</span></p>","PeriodicalId":43990,"journal":{"name":"NEW THEATRE QUARTERLY","volume":"62 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142397915","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Embodied Gestures of Human Rights: Remorse, Sentiment, and Sympathy in Romantic Regency Drama","authors":"Eva Urban","doi":"10.1017/s0266464x24000198","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0266464x24000198","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article demonstrates how the Enlightenment model of sentiment and sympathy is performed in embodied gestures of affective empathy-building, cross-cultural fraternity, and concern for human rights in three Romantic Regency tragedies: <span>Pizarro</span> (1799) by the Romantic dramatist August von Kotzebue, adapted from the German by the Irish dramatist Richard Brinsley Sheridan; <span>Remorse</span> (1813) by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge; and <span>The Apostate</span> (1817) by the Irish dramatist Richard Lalor Sheil. In these plays, protagonists are moved towards sympathy and solidarity with others across cultural divisions and conflict. The discussion also examines how human rights issues are addressed in two plays by Scottish dramatists: Archibald MacLaren’s <span>The Negro Slaves</span> (1799) and Joanna Baillie’s <span>Rayner</span> (1804). Here the protagonists express remorse for engaging in conflict, colonialism, slavery, violence, and human rights abuses against others. All these texts share a common internationalist desire to unite humanity against oppression, injustice, and inequality, advocating human rights, equality, religious tolerance, and cosmopolitan citizenship.</p>","PeriodicalId":43990,"journal":{"name":"NEW THEATRE QUARTERLY","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142397913","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘… parents unknown … unheard of …’: Not I and the ‘Mother and Baby Homes Report’","authors":"Shane O’Neill","doi":"10.1017/s0266464x2400006x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0266464x2400006x","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article re-reads Beckett’s play <span>Not I</span> (1972) in the light of the ‘Mother and Baby Homes Report’, published in January 2021. Beckett interrogates what James Smith, Clair Wills, and others have referred to as Ireland’s ‘architecture of containment’. Mouth, ‘brought up … with the other waifs’ in a mother and baby home, absorbed religious notions of sin and punishment. Through a close reading of selected passages, the article considers to what extent <span>Not I</span> can be read as a ‘survivor’s testimony’ such as those given to the commission of investigation into mother and baby homes.</p>","PeriodicalId":43990,"journal":{"name":"NEW THEATRE QUARTERLY","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140808526","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Stanislavsky’s Legacy: From Vasily Toporkov to Oleg Yefremov and Oleg Tabakov","authors":"Viktoria Volkova","doi":"10.1017/s0266464x24000034","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0266464x24000034","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article discusses the continuity of Konstantin Stanislavsky’s pedagogy directly to his disciple Vasily Toporkov, and from him to his students Oleg Yefremov and Oleg Tabakov. Toporkov joined the Moscow Art Theatre (MAT) as an actor eleven years before Stanislavsky’s death, which allowed him to participate in the final phase of Stanislavsky’s life’s work and his development of the method of psychophysical actions. Struck by Stanislavsky’s authority, scrutiny, and caring attitude towards all actors, as well as other co-workers of the theatre, Toporkov transmitted this legacy, together with the practical knowledge that he had gained, to Yefremov and Tabakov, recounting vivid stories and anecdotes about Stanislavsky. The article traces the professional development of both men: each founded his own theatre, Yefremov the Sovremennik, and Tabakov the Tabakerka. Thus, whether or not they set out to do so, both Yefremov and Tabakov followed Stanislavsky’s life example, when he founded the MAT. Their decision to follow Stanislavsky’s example was a logical consequence of this great teacher’s life-affirmative, spiritual, material, and intellectual legacy, which is on a par with the most significant humanistic writings. The key spiritual-physical aspects of Stanislavsky’s legacy have been passed down in a straight line from Stanislavsky to his students, from them to their students, and so on, from one generation of the Moscow Art Theatre to the next, until the present day.</p>","PeriodicalId":43990,"journal":{"name":"NEW THEATRE QUARTERLY","volume":"94 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140808498","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What is ISTA (International School of Theatre Anthropology)?","authors":"Julia Varley","doi":"10.1017/s0266464x24000022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0266464x24000022","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Eugenio Barba first defined ‘theatre anthropology’ as the study of the human being in an organized performance situation in a lecture in Warsaw in May 1980. The first session of ISTA (International School of Theatre Anthropology) was held in October 1980 and the last to date in 2023. This article gives a personal account of ISTA’s history from its origins, rooted in Eugenio Barba’s interest in Asian classical theatre techniques and the founding of Odin Teatret in Denmark, to the most recent experiences, which include the intercultural production of <span>Anastasis/Resurrection</span> at the 2023 Theatre Olympics in Budapest. It identifies masters of given ISTA sessions and their invaluable contribution to the School’s emphasis on, and understanding of, craft, as well as the distinguishing characteristics and points of change and development of selected ISTAs.</p>","PeriodicalId":43990,"journal":{"name":"NEW THEATRE QUARTERLY","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140808528","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Contemporary Censorship Debates in Germany","authors":"Marvin Carlson","doi":"10.1017/s0266464x24000058","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0266464x24000058","url":null,"abstract":"<p>During the past five years the cultural world in Germany has been shaken and divided by a series of controversies involving contemporary works of art charged with being anti-Semitic. Obviously, with the Holocaust continuing to occupy a major position in modern German consciousness and history, sensitivity to anti-Semitic expressions is particularly keen here. This sensitivity has been increased by a number of recent developments, including the growing visibility of far-right political groups, the rise of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) protesting Israeli treatment of the Palestinians, and the official politicization of these tensions by a parliamentary ruling in 2015 restricting the activities of the BDS. The conflict between legitimate criticism of policies of the Israeli state and legitimate censorship of ethnically offensive material has recently become increasingly bitter in Germany. This article discusses the dynamics of three of the most significant recent examples: the conflict involving Germany’s most prestigious arts festival, the Kassell documenta in 2020; the withdrawal in 2022 of the European Drama Award, the continent’s largest award, from British dramatist Caryl Churchill; and the withdrawal from the Munich stage of the most recent play by Wajdi Mouawad, who has been widely heralded in Germany as the most significant contemporary dramatist.</p>","PeriodicalId":43990,"journal":{"name":"NEW THEATRE QUARTERLY","volume":"58 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140808533","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Feminist Rereading of Shabih’khani in Iran","authors":"Milad Azarm","doi":"10.1017/s0266464x24000010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0266464x24000010","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article examines Shabih’khani, a traditional ritual performance in Iran also known as Ta’ziyeh, in the context of the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement. It includes the historical challenges faced by Iranian women in a patriarchal society dominated by politics and religion, augmenting existing research on women’s Shabih’khani through recently discovered documents that show the erasure of feminine symbols within the tradition. The article also explores the theatrical conventions, dramaturgical elements, and historical reasons for the emergence and decline of women’s Shabih’khani, together with factors that contribute to the endurance of men’s Shabih’khani. By drawing connections and comparisons between Shabih’khani and the contemporary ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement, it illuminates the factors shaping the movement and offers insights into its potential for success and progress.</p>","PeriodicalId":43990,"journal":{"name":"NEW THEATRE QUARTERLY","volume":"191 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140808495","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}