Chapter 5 - ‘What We Are Fighting For’

Summary

During the Second World War, the British state invested in theatre for the first time through two main organizations: the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA) and the Entertainments National Services Association (ENSA). Chapter 5 argues that official records and publications linked to CEMA and ENSA tend to stress the ‘apolitical’ currency of Shakespeare – that performances symbolize the pre-war cultural heritage that was under attack in this war against fascism – and favour plays that do not have, in subject matter, direct wartime application, such as The Merry Wives of Windsor. This emphasis exists, however, in tension with the aims of individual production agents associated with CEMA and ENSA, such as Sybil Thorndike and Lewis Casson from the Old Vic. Shakespeare could be, for example, mobilized as explicitly anti-Nazi, socialist, or pacifist, sometimes within the same production. By examining productions that toured to regional towns and industrial cities across Britain and Europe, this chapter draws attention to the community-building impact and soft power of live theatre and breaks down the distinction between ‘apolitical’ and ‘political’ Shakespeare, suggesting that almost any production during this period of total war was a distinctly ‘political’ act.