Theatre and War 1933-1945: Performance in Extremis

by Michael Balfour (Editor)

• New

  Paperback
  2001

  $41.99

  One evening in 1934, on the River Arno in Florence, an air squadron, an infantry, a cavalry brigade, fifty trucks, four field and machine gun batteries, ten field radio stations, and six photoelectric units presented a piece of theatre. One of eleven extraordinary essays in Theatre and War describes this mass spectacle in which two thousand amateur actors performed before an audience of twenty thousand. The authors of this volume assess the function of theatre in times of world crisis, exploring themes of Fascist aesthetic propaganda in Italy and Germany, of theatre re-education programmes in the Gulag's of Russia, of cultural 'sustenance' for the troops at the front and interned German refugees in the UK, and cabaret shows as a currency for survival in Jewish concentration camps.