Staging (Post-) Cold War State-of-Eastern Europe: Mad Forest, Moscow Gold, and The Shape of the Table
Date Issued
2010
Date
2010
Author(s)
Lo, Sheng-Chia
Abstract
This thesis intends to examine British theatrical responses to the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the subsequent end of the Cold War. The theatrical responses were unique because they are immediate responses from acknowledged British political playwrights to deal with the (post-) communist Eastern European politics. Drawing form the particularity mentioned above, this thesis delves into Caryl Churchill’s Mad Forest (1990), Tariq Ali and Howard Brenton’s Moscow Gold (1990), and David Edgar’s The Shape of the Table (1990) to examine their theatrical interpretation of the political events. By closely reading the three plays, this thesis intends to demonstrate that, although from different perspectives and dramaturgical styles, these plays not only portray the revolutions but also assess the failure of the Communist-style socialism. Moreover, these plays explore the post-Cold War state of Eastern Europe. What replaces the Cold War ideological antagonism, as the plays depict, is the surfacing of other chaotic irresoluble tensions, such as nationalism, ethnic conflicts that challenges the completion of Gorbachev’s ideal of Common European Home. Through the characters debating about their post-Cold War future, these plays also reveal the playwrights’ consistent commitment to the desirability of a socialist alternative to the iniquities of Western capitalism. Finally, these immediate theatrical representations demonstrate the playwrights’ protest against Thatcherism and their aspiration to assert the role of theatre as a public forum for political and cultural intervention.
Subjects
Caryl Churchill
Tariq Ali
Howard Brenton
David Edgar
British political theatre
the fall of communism
post-Cold War
SDGs
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