Workers' Theater Movement (United Kingdom)

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The Workers 'Theater Movement (WTM, Workers' Theater Movement ) was a British theater organization, which from 1926 to 1935 for the performance of mainly workers-composed plays with revolutionary objectives and was close to the Communist Party of Great Britain (CP).

If the organization of the labor movement in Great Britain was delayed compared to the European continent, this was all the more true for the level of development of a socialist theater. Only in 1917 there was an attempt with the “ ILP Dramatic Society”, then in 1922 it was renewed together with the Labor Party in the form of the “Art Guild”, but the project ultimately resulted in copying bourgeois models. The deficiency was remedied in 1926 with the founding of the WTM, which had its roots in the 1924 Council of Proletarian Art. The “People's Players” joined, among them Tom Thomas, who became the national secretary of the WTM.

In the absence of a theater of their own, “ town halls ” and “Labor clubs” served as venues for the 12 groups in London and the 50 in the country. Pieces of Tom Thomas were played, as with the consequences of the general strike of 1926 seised The Fight Goes On or its theatrical version of Robert Tressells novel The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists . As a result of its affiliation to the "International Workers' Theater Association" (later "International Revolutionary Theater Association"), after 1930 the WTM increasingly renounced stage plays in favor of Agitprop . In 1933, however, it was self-critically determined in the groups that the game often aimed too much at generating laughter and too little at conveying a political message that it was not enough to stand on stage with a megaphone and shout: “Down with capitalism! High socialism! ”The rejection of bourgeois culture had in some cases assumed proletarian features.

The reference to the CP brought it with it to have to take part in the tricks of the Comintern , first of all the struggle "class against class" owed to the social fascism thesis. If there was hardly any exchange between the individual groups before, they now also found themselves in the role of sectarians. When a new political line made the united front the target of the CP in 1933 , the WTM went along with it, and in 1934 West Ham saw the first "United Front Troupe". "Curtain plays" were now the order of the day, but others were much more agile on the new terrain. B. the "Rebel Players", the nucleus for the Unity Theater , which ultimately brought it to its own stage. The WTM ultimately proved to be unsuitable for bundling left theater activities and was dissolved in 1935 with the creation of the "New Theater League", which, like the "International Revolutionary Theater Association", came to an end in 1936. It was not until the " Left Book Club Theater Guild " was founded in 1937 that a nationwide socialist theater was established.

literature

  • Reiner Lehberger : The socialist theater in England from 1934 to the outbreak of the Second World War. Studies of the history and programming activities of the Left Theater, Unity Theater and the Left Book Club Theater Guild. Verlag Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1977, pp. 19–32.