This book explores the relationship between politics and Shakespeare performance in East Germany before, during and after reunification in 1990. The book examines political and aesthetic censorship before reunification, and financial difficulties in its aftermath, asking what role Shakespeare played for Germans both within and beyond the theatre.
This book explores the relationship between politics and Shakespeare performance in East Germany before, during and after reunification in 1990. Analysing a wide range of case studies from Berlin as well as more peripheral towns and cities, the author argues that the capacity for political intervention in Shakespeare performances in East Germany was limited by a number of factors, including the influence of the government and an underlying distrust of the public. However, East German theatre practitioners proved useful to the 1989 protest movement precisely because they occupied a unique position at the interface of dissidence and state power. Using Shakespeare performance as a lens, the book examines political and aesthetic censorship before reunification and the enormous financial difficulties theatre faced in its aftermath, asking what role Shakespeare played for Germans both within and beyond the theatre.
CONTENTS: Introduction: Shakespeare and the Wende - East German Shakespeare in the 1980s - Shakespeare and the Politics of the Wende - Post-Reunification Shakespeare - «Must I Remember?»: Memorializing GDR Theatre.
«"Deutschland ist Hamlet", declared the revolutionary poet Ferdinand von Freiligrath in 1844. [...] Emily Oliver, in
Shakespeare and German Reunification, introduces the subject via the shadowy machinations of cultural politics.»
(The Times Literary Supplement TLS, June 2018)
Emily Oliver is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Warwick. Her research focuses on Anglo-German cultural relations in the twentieth century. She is currently heading the research project «Broadcasting Nations: A History of the BBC German Service (1938-1999)».
Über den Autor
Emily Oliver is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Warwick. Her research focuses on Anglo-German cultural relations in the twentieth century. She is currently heading the research project «Broadcasting Nations: A History of the BBC German Service (1938-1999)».
Inhaltsverzeichnis
CONTENTS: Introduction: Shakespeare and the Wende - East German Shakespeare in the 1980s - Shakespeare and the Politics of the Wende - Post-Reunification Shakespeare - «Must I Remember?»: Memorializing GDR Theatre.
Klappentext
This book explores the relationship between politics and Shakespeare performance in East Germany before, during and after reunification in 1990. Analysing a wide range of case studies from Berlin as well as more peripheral towns and cities, the author argues that the capacity for political intervention in Shakespeare performances in East Germany was limited by a number of factors, including the influence of the government and an underlying distrust of the public. However, East German theatre practitioners proved useful to the 1989 protest movement precisely because they occupied a unique position at the interface of dissidence and state power. Using Shakespeare performance as a lens, the book examines political and aesthetic censorship before reunification and the enormous financial difficulties theatre faced in its aftermath, asking what role Shakespeare played for Germans both within and beyond the theatre.
