Robert Cohen - Theatre, Brief Version-McGraw-Hill Education (2016)

276 Chapter 10 Global Theatre Today
catastrophic weapons seem to multiply in North
Korea, and both religious animus and a new cold
war seem to be re-emerging in various parts of the
Eurasian continent. The dangerous theatre, perhaps,
has changed from a warning into a reflection.
One of the most gripping contemporary plays about urban British
violence is Mark Ravenhill’s shockingly titled Shopping and Fucking.
Andrew Clover is the besieged actor in the original London production,
at the Royal Court Theatre, in 1996. © ArenaPal/Topham/The Image Works
its Manhattan Theatre Club American premiere. Theatre
today continually treads on toes—and sometimes the toes
kick back.
The dangerous theatre, however, seems less startling
today than it was in the first decade of this century.
Perhaps the reason is the radically increased
violence on television—not only in blood-soaked dramas
like Breaking Bad, Homeland, Game of Thrones,
The Walking Dead and the like, but even evening network
broadcasts like Criminal Minds, CSI, and Law &
Order: SVU—most of which invariably feature murder
and willfully offensive language. Perhaps we have simply
moved into a “safe” dangerous age—where America
admits to torturing suspected enemies, unending wars
seem to break out throughout the Middle East, hideous
diseases pop up throughout sub-Saharan Africa,
A THEATRE OF COMMUNITY
Although most of the theatre discussed and pictured in
this book was created by trained professional artists,
we must never forget that theatre’s origins are located
in performances created not by theatre professionals
but by social communities—religious and ethnic—
whose works were intended not for the entertainment
of spectators but for the benefit, and often the rapture,
of their own participants. The African dancedrama,
the Egyptian resurrection plays, the Greek
dithyrambs, and the medieval Quem Queritis trope
were basically celebrations of their societies’ cultures,
and their performers were the primary celebrants.
Such theatres—whose works are created not only for
a community but by it—continue today. They eventually
may attract audiences, attain box office income,
and pay professional salaries, but they are primarily
expressions, celebrations, and sometimes critiques of
the cultures of their creators.
In twentieth-century America, several “workers’ theatres”
in the 1930s created theatre pieces by and for the
American laborer. The most famous, Clifford Odets’s
Waiting for Lefty, was produced in 1935 by the Group
Theatre, which became one of the country’s first prominent
theatre ensembles dedicated to social causes. Other
such theatre ensembles followed, many devoted not
merely to creating theatre works by and for members
of their community, but also to touring their productions
to localities previously unserved by the theatre at
all, including Luis Valdez’s El Teatro Campesino (the
“farmworkers’ theatre,” mentioned earlier) and the Free
Southern Theatre founded in New Orleans by the playwright
John O’Neal in 1965. The Los Angeles Poverty
Department, a theatre company based in the Skid Row
neighborhood of LA, dedicates itself to working with
members of the community, such as the homeless and
displaced, who lack a voice in mainstream theatre.
Applied drama refers to theatre that works with disenfranchised
or traditionally marginalized communities to
help explore and express their identities. One remarkable
example of this work has been theatre in prisons. Across
the country, inmates have participated in productions of
Shakespeare or original work, oftentimes with stunning
results. The renowned classical theatre director Arin