Catherine O'Leary - Böcker

Theatre has always been subject to a wide range of social, political, moral, and doctrinal controls, with authorities and social groups imposing constraints on scripts, venues, staging, acting, and reception. Focusing on a range of countries and political regimes, this book examines the many forms that theatre censorship has taken in the 20th century and continues to take in the 21st, arguing that it remains a live issue in the contemporary world. The book re-examines assumptions about prohibition and state control, and offers a more complex reading of theatre censorship as a continuum ranging from the unconscious self-censorship built into social structures and discursive practices, through bureaucratic regulation or unofficial influence, up to detention and physical violence. An international team of contributors offers an illuminating set of case studies informed by both new archival research and the first-hand experience of playwrights and directors, covering theatre censorship in areas such as Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Poland, East Germany, Nepal, Zimbabwe, the USA, Ireland, and Britain. Focusing on right-wing dictatorships, post-colonial regimes, communist systems and Western democracies, the essays analyze methods and discourses of censorship, identify the multiple agents involved, examine the responses of theatremakers, and show how each example reveals important features of its political and cultural contexts. Expanding understanding of the nature and effects of censorship, this volume affirms the power of theatre to challenge authorized discourses and makes a timely contribution to debates about freedom of expression through performance.

Theatre has always been subject to a wide range of social, political, moral, and doctrinal controls, with authorities and social groups imposing constraints on scripts, venues, staging, acting, and reception. Focusing on a range of countries and political regimes, this book examines the many forms that theatre censorship has taken in the 20th century and continues to take in the 21st, arguing that it remains a live issue in the contemporary world. The book re-examines assumptions about prohibition and state control, and offers a more complex reading of theatre censorship as a continuum ranging from the unconscious self-censorship built into social structures and discursive practices, through bureaucratic regulation or unofficial influence, up to detention and physical violence. An international team of contributors offers an illuminating set of case studies informed by both new archival research and the first-hand experience of playwrights and directors, covering theatre censorship in areas such as Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Poland, East Germany, Nepal, Zimbabwe, the USA, Ireland, and Britain. Focusing on right-wing dictatorships, post-colonial regimes, communist systems and Western democracies, the essays analyze methods and discourses of censorship, identify the multiple agents involved, examine the responses of theatremakers, and show how each example reveals important features of its political and cultural contexts. Expanding understanding of the nature and effects of censorship, this volume affirms the power of theatre to challenge authorized discourses and makes a timely contribution to debates about freedom of expression through performance.

This is a comprehensive study of the impact of censorship on theatre in twentieth-century Spain. It draws on extensive archival evidence, vivid personal testimonies and in-depth analysis of legislation to document the different kinds of theatre censorship practised during the Second Republic (1931–6), the civil war (1936–9), the Franco dictatorship (1939–75) and the transition to democracy (1975–85). Changes in criteria, administrative structures and personnel from these periods are traced in relation to wider political, social and cultural developments, and the responses of playwrights, directors and companies are explored. With a focus on censorship, new light is cast on particular theatremakers and their work, the conditions in which all kinds of theatre were produced, the construction of genres and canons, as well as on broader cultural history and changing ideological climate – all of which are linked to reflections on the nature of censorship and the relationship between culture and the state.

A comprehensive examination of the full range of Carmen Martín Gaite's work.Carmen Martín Gaite produced a large body of work in various genres over the course of her five-decade career, though she is primarily known as a novelist, short story writer, and social commentator. Her work at times reflects, and at times defies, the pattern of development in Spanish fiction since the 1950s. This Companion offers a re-reading of Martín Gaite's works, emphasizing her early experimentalism which culminated in mid-career works (notably El cuarto de atrás), and stressing how, in the late 1960s and early 1970s when the majority of Spanish novelists were engaged in a critique of history, Martín Gaite turned to the writing of cultural history, exploring its intersection with narrative fiction in a positivist rather than a nihilistic mode. Her exploration of gender issues, particularly mother-child relations, towards the end of her career anticipated new directions in feminist thought. Discussions of often-ignored works, such as poetry, drama, children's literature, and literary translations, offer insight into sidelined aspects of this writer's literary output. Catherine O'Leary is Reader in Spanish at the University of St Andrews. Alison Ribeiro de Menezes is Professor of Spanish at the University of Warwick.

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