DAVID EDGAR: PLAYWRIGHT AND POLITICIAN (BRITAIN, SOCIAL REALISM, AGITPROP).
Item
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Title
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DAVID EDGAR: PLAYWRIGHT AND POLITICIAN (BRITAIN, SOCIAL REALISM, AGITPROP).
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Identifier
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AAI8423108
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identifier
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8423108
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Creator
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SWAIN, ELIZABETH ANNE.
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Contributor
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Daniel Gerould
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Date
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1984
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Theater
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Abstract
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David Edgar is a socialist, a member of Britains Labour Party, and a political playwright. At the age of thirty-six he has had some forty plays professionally produced on three continents. He is at the heart of Britains political theater movement. This study examines all of his stage plays, beginning with his earliest agitprop work and ending with his 1983 play, Maydays, presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company. I discuss Edgars use of form, his subject matter, and his political viewpoint, in order to examine his different methods of political playwriting. I have separated his works into six general but distinct theatrical approaches, and I include a theoretical and/or historical overview where appropriate in order to discover how he balances political message with effective dramaturgy. I have attempted to define Edgar's social realist form, since it exemplifies a form now favored by many of his colleagues.;Chapter II discusses developments in British theater since 1956, placing Edgar within the "second wave" political theatre movement that began around 1968. The following chapters cover his agitprop plays, his documentaries, his shorter "interludes," his parodies for which I use the term "playing with theatre," his social realist plays, and his adaptations, which include the award-winning Nicholas Nickleby. I have devoted separate chapters to Destiny and Maydays.;A reading of Edgar's plays provides a minihistory of both Britains sociopolitical climate since World War II and of the political theater movement itself, with its different methods and changing venues. The plays range from the blatant didacticism of the agitprop work to the subtler mimesis of his social realist form. They also reflect the growing need of the socialist writer to reach a larger audience and the changing sociopolitical circumstances that necessitated new methods.;I have tried to evoke the effect of Edgar's plays and to examine his dramaturgical evolution. In the end what is most vital about Edgar's work is his unquestioning commitment to the lot of humanity, with its mistakes and possibilities, and his belief that theater is a living forum in which to express that commitment.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Theatre
