War and Theatrical Innovation

Description

This book examines the relationship between wartime conflict and theatre practices. Bringing together a diverse collection of essays in one volume, it offers both a geographically and historically wide view of the subject, taking examples from Britain, Australia and America to the Middle East, Korea and China, and spanning the fifth century BCE to the present day. It explores the ways in which theatre practices have been manipulated for use in political and military propaganda, such as the employment of scenographers to work on camouflage and the application of acting methods in espionage training. It also maps the change in relationships between performers and audiences as a result of conflict, and the emergence of new forms of patronage during wartime theatre-going, boosting morale at periods when social structures and identity were being destabilized. Front Matter ....Pages i-xxvii Front Matter ....Pages 1-1 The Greek Tragic Chorus and Its Training for War: Movement, Music and Harmony in Theatrical and Military Performance (Will Shüler)....Pages 3-21 Cultural Camouflage: Acting Identities in World War 2 Espionage (Fraser Stevens)....Pages 23-40 The Scenographer as Camoufleur (Greer Crawley)....Pages 41-60 Front Matter ....Pages 61-61 Puppetry and the Spanish Civil War (Cariad Astles)....Pages 63-80 Theatrical Propaganda and an Imagined West During the Korean War (Yuh-Jhung Hwang)....Pages 81-99 The Biopolitics of ISIS’ Iconoclastic Propaganda (Gabriella Calchi-Novati)....Pages 101-118 Front Matter ....Pages 119-119 Guns, Money and the Muse: New Patronage in the Russian Civil War, 1919–1922 (Mayhill C. Fowler)....Pages 121-138 Manipulating Beijing Opera: Criminality and Prosperity During Civil War in China C. 1930 (Lu Miao, Wei Feng)....Pages 139-160 Patronizing the National Stage: Subsidies and Control in Wartime Britain (Anselm Heinrich)....Pages 161-178 ‘Make Do and Mend’: Civilian and Military Audiences in Australian Popular Entertainment During the Pacific War of 1942–1945 (Veronica Kelly)....Pages 179-198 Back Matter ....Pages 199-210