The National Stage

by Kruger, Loren

• ISBN13: 9780226454979
• ISBN10: 0226454975
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1992-06-01
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

The idea of staging a nation dates from the Enlightenment, but the full force of the idea emerges only with the rise of mass politics. Comparing English, French, and American attempts to establish national theatres at moments of political crisis--from the challenge of socialism in late nineteenth-century Europe to the struggle to "salvage democracy" in Depression America--Kruger poses a fundamental question: in the formation of nationhood, is the citizen-audience spectator or participant? The National Stage answers this question by tracing the relation between theatre institution and public sphere in the discourses of national identity in Britain, France, and the United States. Exploring the boundaries between history and theory, text and performance, this book speaks to theatre and social historians as well as those interested in the theoretical range of cultural studies.

Author Biography

Loren Kruger teaches drama and cultural studies at the University of Chicago. She is the translator of The Institutions of Art: Essays by Peter Christa Bürger.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Theatrical Nationhood and Popular Legitimation

National Stage, Public Sphere From Ideological State

Apparatus to Legitimate Institution Placing the Occasion: The Institution of Theatre

Impure Autonomy and the Dramatic Text Hegemony High and Low: The Place of Popular Theatre

"Theatre to Contain a People"

National Popular Theatre in Republican France Theatre as "Rapprochement": Michelet and Popular Unity

The People Advance: Social(ist) Theatre and Popular

Sovereignty Theatre to Contain a People: The Orchestration of Rolland

Danton on Display: The People in Attendance Theatre as Public Service

"Our National House": Patronizing the English National Theatre

A National House for the Middle Class: Wilson to Arnold Barker's Schemes and Estimates for a National Patron Strife at Court: Staging

National Reconciliation "Our National House": Debates on a National Theatre

"A People's Theatre": Art, Democracy, and the Federal Theatre

"Theatre as a Weapon": The Dramaturgy of Class Struggle

"A Theatre Is Born": The Art of the Weapon

"The Greatest Achievement Is the Creation of an Audience"

"The Most Native Form": The Living Newspaper and the Nation

Conclusion

Notes

Index

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