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The ‘Art‘ of Political Theatre-Making for Educational Contexts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2009

Abstract

In NTQ 39 (August 1994) Nicolas Whybrow provided an analysis of ideological changes which have recently occurred in the organization and running of schools and youth clubs. He went on to discuss the ways in which theatre in education (TIE) and theatre in youth work – commonly grouped under the title of Young People's Theatre (YPT) – were being affected by these changes. Here, in the second of two articles, he shifts his perspective towards the standpoint of theatre companies themselves, with a view to locating where the political efficacy of their practices might lie. Nicolas Whybrow is a lecturer at the Workshop Theatre, School of English, Leeds University.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

Notes and References

1. See Whybrow, Nicolas, ‘The Politics of Contemporary Theatre Production for Educational Contexts’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Leeds, 1993Google Scholar.

2. Townend, Louise, ‘Art as a Mode of Knowing’, Theatre and Education journal, No. 2 (04 1989), p. 7Google Scholar.

3. Eagleton, Terry, Ideology: an Introduction (London: Verso, 1991), p. 96–7Google Scholar.

4. Ibid., p. 94.

5. Mamet, David, Writing in Restaurants (London: Faber, 1988), p. 8Google Scholar.

6. Ibid., p. 58.

7. Edgar, David, The Second Time as Farce: Reflections on the Drama of Mean Times (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1988), p. 170–1Google Scholar.

8. Bettelheim, Bruno, The Uses of Enchantment: the Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1991), p. 130–1Google Scholar.

9. Ibid., p. 155.

10. Vygotsky, L. S., The Psychology of Art (Cambridge, Mass.; London: M.I.T. Press, 1971), p. 152–4Google Scholar.

11. Ibid., p. 160.

12. Ibid.

13. Wolff, Janet, The Social Production of Art (Basing-stoke; London: Macmillan, 1981), p. 94CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14. Best, David, Feeling and Reason in the Arts (London: Allen and Unwin, 1985), p. 157Google Scholar.

15. Eagleton, Terry, The Ideology of the Aesthetic (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), p. 58Google Scholar.

16. Kershaw, Baz, The Politics of Performance: Radical Theatre as Cultural Intervention (London; New York: Routledge, 1992), p. 24Google Scholar. See also Turner, Victor, From Ritual to Theatre (New York: PAJ Publications, 1982), p. 11Google Scholar.

17. Best, op. cit, p. 70, n. 14.

18. Kershaw, op. cit., p.33,35, n. 16.

19. Ibid., p. 34–5, 28–9. Cf. Esslin, Martin, The Field of Drama (London: Methuen, 1987), p. 21Google Scholar.

20. Bruner, Jerome S., Toward a Theory of Instruction (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 127Google Scholar.

21. For a useful explication of factors contributing to the projection of certain ideological tendencies in the work of the RSC, see Alan Sinfield, ‘Royal Shakespeare: Theatre and the Making of Ideology’, Political Shakespeare: New Essays in Cultural Materialism, ed. Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield (Manchester: Manchester University Press), p. 158–81.

22. Bolton, Gavin, ‘Although – a Response to The Arts 5–16’, NATD Broadsheet, VII, No. 3 (Winter 1990), p. 9Google Scholar.

23. See Hornbrook, David, ‘Drama Education and the Politics of Change’, Parts 1 and 2, New Theatre Quarterly, I, No. 4 (1985), p. 346–58, II, No. 5 (1986), p. 16–25Google Scholar. See also subsequent symposia in the same journal, II, No.7, p. 283–8 and No. 8, p. 369–75 (1986), and numerous articles in the pages of2D (1986 onwards), as well as Hornbrook's, books Education and Dramatic Art (Oxford: Black-well, 1989)Google Scholar and Education in Drama: Casting the Dramatic Curriculum (London: Falmer Press, 1991).

24. Bolton, Gavin, ‘Piss on His Face’, NATD Broadsheet, IX, No. 2 (Summer 1992), p. 6Google Scholar.

25. Blah Blah Blah publicity for The Winter's Tale, Leeds, 1991.