Political theater

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Political theater is a form of performative art or drama that takes up political issues or concerns and, as such, places them at the center of the action or the stage. A distinction must be made between political theater in a broad sense as theater with a general political content and a political, i.e. interventionist theater in a narrower sense.

Political theater as a collective term

The term political theater encompasses diverse forms of theater that focus on central socio-political topics and theses. The central aim of political theater in its narrower, interventionist form is the critical examination of complex social structures and the struggle for social change. Due to its controversial subjects, provocative theses and its potential to be critical of the system, political theater, unlike other forms of theater, often led to violent social controversies. The term “political theater” goes back to Erwin Piscator's 1929 script of the same name .

The theater of Leopold Jessner and Erwin Piscator and the epic theater of Bertolt Brecht were decidedly political forms of theater . Forms of theater such as Nazi theater ( Thingspiele etc.) were also understood and propagated by their authors as political theater. Affirmative theater forms such as the staging of NS-related plays in the “Third Reich” lack the socio-critical impulse that is characteristic of political theater in the narrower sense. The documentary theater of the sixties, in the USA the street theater of the San Francisco Mime Troupe , the puppet theater of the Bread and Puppet Theater or the body-hugging theater of the New York Living Theater, and in South America (Brazil) also became popular in Europe , also became political theater Classified theater of the oppressed by Augusto Boal . Independent groups such as the touring theater Berliner Compagnie , which has existed since 1982, can also be assigned to this area.

Classic and Politics

The first western dramas of the ancient polis and the democratic city-states were interpreted as political theater in the broader sense . These plays were performed in the large amphitheatres, which were also used for theatrical performances, religious ceremonies and political gatherings. This gave them ritual and social significance, which increased the relevance of the political material. Controversial political issues were brought up for discussion in the heart of the Athenian society. In the English-speaking world, William Shakespeare in particular was identified as the author of a political theater. His historical plays such as King Lear and Macbeth examine the nature or lack of political leadership as well as the complexities of behavior of human beings driven by the greed for power. Coriolanus negotiates the class struggles of the Roman Republic. Similarly, in German cultural history, Friedrich Schiller could be used as an important stimulus for a theater with a political impact, which is characterized by a political pathos based on the moral ideal of freedom.

Theater avant-garde and political theater

In the early 20th century, decisive impulses came from the Russian theater avant-garde in connection with the October Revolution of 1917 ( Bogdanov's Proletkult , Meyerhold , Eisenstein ). Subsequently, such different manifestations of theater as the schematizing proletarian and the agitprop street theater , the interventionist productions of the German theater avant-garde of the twenties, but also more popular forms such as cabaret or critical folk theater, were attested to be a theater by and for the people at the same time convey specifically political (often Marxist-inspired) content.

Bertolt Brecht developed political theater in the form of epic theater into a completely unique complex aesthetic , which was intended to involve the viewer in a rational, less empathetic way. Brecht's aesthetic influenced and stimulated political theater makers around the world, particularly in Latin America ( Augusto Boal , the theater of the oppressed ), India and Africa.

In the 1960s, authors such as Peter Weiss and Heinar Kipphardt, dealing with current political issues, undertook a far-reaching reformulation of conventional historical drama and in the process brought the political theater back to life. The so-called documentary theater was based closely on historical documents such as the trial files of the Auschwitz trial in Frankfurt (Peter Weiss, The Investigation ) and was continued in diverse forms of theater and staging that turned public space into a venue for political and aesthetic issues.

In the GDR, it was above all authors like Heiner Müller , Volker Braun and Peter Hacks who committed to the Brecht tradition and saw their plays as a contribution to a decidedly political theater. The critical view of these authors on the real development of the socialist idea in the GDR, however, meant that certain texts were temporarily or - such as Müller's Mauser - prohibited until the end of the GDR.

A separate form of a more enlightening theater was created in the 1970s by feminist authors such as Elfriede Jelinek or Caryl Churchill .

"Political Theater" after 1990

Since the 1990s, the broadly radiating impulses of the Berliner Volksbühne under the direction of Frank Castorf have developed various starting points for a politically involved theater in the German theater scene. With recourse to forms of happenings, performances or staged installations, its directors and “curators” are looking for new scenic answers to current political challenges, including in particular Christoph Schlingensief , René Pollesch and Christoph Marthaler . Attempts to redefine an explicitly enlightening theater both in terms of content and form were made after 2000 by Volker Lösch .

Nevertheless, a uniform definition of “political theater” that is valid for all theatrical projects does not seem possible at present, especially since the term is hardly used prescriptively any more. It is more advisable to speak of the “political” of a theater, whereby no more ideological concepts are postulated, but rather strange relations between political discourse and theater aesthetics are to be established, which often manifest themselves in experiences of freedom from the politically dominated everyday consciousness and the viewer's experiences enable an aesthetic “freedom” in the sense of Friedrich Schiller , which cannot be assigned to either a political ideology or an enlightening educational theater.

The political aspect of the theater thus manifests itself for the time being in its basic anthropological condition of the encounter in the context of the performance. If the political is understood as dissent or a break with a given order, in contemporary theater this is often brought about by a collision between the aesthetic and the social, be it through an "exploration of the situational aspect" (Hans-Thies Lehmann) or through a "re-entry of the social ”into the aesthetic (Benjamin Wihstutz). In this respect, one can speak of the political of the theater as a laboratory that enables social confrontations with an experimental character and enables the individual to experience freedom, which is reflected in the abolition of the dualism of feeling and mind or body and spirit. The question of the theater's potential to improve the conditions of society in real politics must be discussed anew from these points of view.

bibliography

Europe

  • Götz Dapp: Mediaclash In Political Theater: Building on and Continuing Brecht. Tectum, Marburg Verlag 2007.
  • Erika Fischer-Lichte : Theater, sacrifice, ritual: exploring forms of political theater. Routledge, London 2005.
  • Dorothea Kraus: Theater Protests. On the politicization of the street and the stage in the 1960s. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 2007.
  • Siegfried Melchinger : History of the political theater. Volume 1 and 2. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / Main 1974.
  • Erwin Piscator: Zeittheater: The political theater and other writings from 1915 to 1966. Selected. u. edit by Manfred Brauneck u. Peter Stertz. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1986.
  • Stephan Porombka , Wolfgang Schneider, Volker Wortmann (eds.): Political arts. Francke Verlag, Tübingen 2007.
  • Jacques Rancière : The division of the sensual. B-Books, Berlin 2006.
  • Marc Silbermann: The tradition of political theater in Germany. In: The Parliament. 23-24 / 2006.
  • Peter von Becker, Eberhard Görner, Franziska Schößler, Geoffrey V. Davis, Wolfgang Bergmann, Doris Kolesch, Günther Maihold: Political Theater . In: Federal Center for Political Education (Ed.): From Politics and Contemporary History . No. 42 , October 13, 2008, ISSN  0479-611X ( bpb.de [accessed October 30, 2012]).

Other continents

  • Heidrun Adler: Political Theater in Latin America. From mythology to mission to collective identity. Reimer, Berlin 1982 (contributions to cultural anthropology).
  • Yolanda Broyles-Conzalez: El Teatro Campesino: Theater in the Chicano Movement. University of Texas Press, 1994.
  • Charlotte Canning: Working from experience: a history of feminist theater in the United States, 1969 to the present. Seattle, Univ. of Washington, Diss., 1991.
  • Simone Odierna, Fritz Letsch: Theater makes politics. Forum theater based on Augusto Boal. A workshop book AG SPAK books 2006, ISBN 3-930830-38-8 .
  • Theodore Shank: Beyond the Boundaries: American Alternative Theater. Univ. of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor 2002.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Erwin Piscator: The Political Theater. Adalbert Schultz, Berlin 1929. - Peter Jung: Erwin Piscator. The political theater. A comment. Nora, Berlin 2007.
  2. ^ Christian Meier: The political art of the Greek tragedy. CH Beck, Munich 2001.
  3. ^ Siegfried Melchinger: History of the political theater. Volume 1 and 2. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / Main 1974.
  4. ^ Richard Weber : Proletarian Theater and Revolutionary Labor Movement 1918-1925. 2nd edition Prometh, Cologne 1978.
  5. ↑ Friedrich W. Knell Food: agitation on stage. The political theater of the Weimar Republic. Lechte, Emsdetten 1970.
  6. ^ Augusto Boal: Theater of the Oppressed, Exercises and Games for Actors and Non-Actors. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1979 and 1989, ISBN 3-518-11361-5 . - Augusto Boal: The Rainbow of Desires. Kallmeyer, Seelze 1999, ISBN 3-7800-5811-1 .
  7. ↑ Brigitte Marschall: Political Theater after 1950. Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2010. - Ingrid Gilcher-Holtey, Dorothea Kraus, Franziska Schößler (eds.): Political Theater after 1968: Direction, drama and organization. Campus, Frankfurt 2006.
  8. ↑ Hans-Thies Lehmann, Patrick Primavesi (ed.): Heiner Müller Handbook. Verlag JB Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2003, ISBN 3-476-01807-5 , p. 252.
  9. ^ Charlotte Canning: Working from experience: a history of feminist theater in the United States, 1969 to the present. Seattle, Univ. of Washington, Diss., 1991. Michael Patterson, Strategies of Political Theater: Post-War British Playwrights. Cambridge University Press, 2003.
  10. ↑ Tobias Hockenbrink: Carnival instead of class war. The political in Frank Castorf's theater. Tectum Verlag, Marburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-8288-9819-6 .
  11. ↑ Hans-Thies Lehmann: How political is post-dramatic theater? In: ders .: Political writing. Theater der Zeit, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-934344-16-X , pp. 11–21, p. 15.
  12. ↑ Benjamin Wihstutz: The other room. Politics of Social Negotiation in Contemporary Theater. Diaphanes Verlag, Zurich 2012, ISBN 978-3-03734-253-4 .
  13. ↑ Stephan Porombka, Wolfgang Schneider, Volker Wortmann (eds.): Political arts. Francke Verlag, Tübingen 2007.