Table Of ContentGlobal Insights on Theatre Censorship
Theatre has always been subject to a wide range of social, political, moral
and doctrinal controls, with authorities and social groups imposing
constraints on scripts, venues, staging, acting and reception. Focusing on a
range of countries and political regimes, this book examines the many forms
that theatre censorship has taken in the twentieth century and continues to
take in the twenty-first, arguing that it remains a live issue in the contempo-
rary world. The book re-examines assumptions about prohibition and state
control, and offers a more complex reading of theatre censorship as a con-
tinuum ranging from the unconscious self-censorship built into social struc-
tures and discursive practices, through bureaucratic regulation or unofficial
influence, up to detention and physical violence. An international team of
contributors offers an illuminating set of case studies informed by both new
archival research and the first-hand experience of playwrights and direc-
tors, covering theatre censorship in areas such as Spain, Portugal, Brazil,
Poland, East Germany, Nepal, Zimbabwe, the United States, Ireland and
Britain. Focusing on right-wing dictatorships, post-colonial regimes, com-
munist systems and Western democracies, the essays analyze methods and
discourses of censorship, identify the multiple agents involved, examine the
responses of theatremakers, and show how each example reveals important
features of its political and cultural contexts. Expanding understanding of
the nature and effects of censorship, this volume affirms the power of the-
atre to challenge authorized discourses and makes a timely contribution to
debates about freedom of expression through performance.
Catherine O’Leary is Reader in Spanish at the University of St Andrews
(UK). She was the Co-Investigator on the Theatre Censorship in Spain,
1931–1985 project funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research
Council (2008–11) and co-organiser of the Art Made Tongue-Tied by
Authority: Theatre Censorship around the World conference. Catherine
has published widely on contemporary Spanish theatre and censorship.
Her works include a monographical study of the theatre of Antonio Buero
Vallejo (Tamesis, 2005) and, more recently, articles on Fernando Arrabal
(JILAR, 2008), Antonio Buero Vallejo (Bulletin of Spanish Studies, 2011),
Sean O’Casey (ADE Teatro, 2012) and Carlota O’Neill (Bulletin of Spanish
Studies, 2012). She has also published on women’s writing and on memory.
Diego Santos Sánchez is Alexander von Humboldt Researcher at the
Institut für Romanistik, Humboldt University of Berlin (Germany). His
work focuses on twentieth-century Spanish theatre. He is the author of El
teatro pánico de Fernando Arrabal (The Panic Theatre of Fernando Arrabal)
(Tamesis, 2014) and numerous articles on theatre censorship and exile dur-
ing the Franco regime. He has participated in various research projects on
these topics, including Theatre Censorship in Spain, 1931–1985 at Durham
University (funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, UK), for
which he was Research Associate. In addition, he is founding President of
BETA: Asociación de Jóvenes Doctores en Hispanismo and Editorial Board
Member of 452ºF: Journal of Literary Theory and Comparative Literature.
Michael Thompson is Senior Lecturer in Hispanic Studies at Durham
University (UK). He was the Principal Investigator on the Theatre Censor-
ship in Spain, 1931–1985 project funded by the UK Arts and Humanities
Research Council (2008–11) and co-organiser of the Art Made Tongue-
Tied by Authority: Theatre Censorship around the World conference. He
is the author of Performing Spanishness: History, Cultural Identity and
Censorship in the Theatre of José María Rodríguez Méndez (Intellect,
2007), and has published numerous articles and book chapters on Spanish
theatre and censorship. He is also interested in theatre translation and is co-
author of the second edition of the textbook Thinking Spanish Translation
(Routledge, 2009).
Routledge Advances in Theatre and Performance Studies
1 Performing Embodiment in 9 Shakespeare, Theatre and Time
Samuel Beckett’s Drama Matthew D. Wagner
Anna McMullan
10 Political and Protest Theatre
2 The Provocation of the Senses after 9/11
in Contemporary Theatre Patriotic Dissent
Stephen Di Benedetto Edited by Jenny Spencer
3 Ecology and Environment in 11 Religion, Theatre, and
European Drama Performance
Downing Cless Acts of Faith
Edited by Lance Gharavi
4 Global Ibsen
Performing Multiple 12 Adapting Chekhov
Modernities The Text and its Mutations
Edited by Erika Fischer- Edited by J. Douglas Clayton &
Lichte, Barbara Gronau, Yana Meerzon
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of Space
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Edited by Erika Fischer-Lichte
Postmodern Stage of
and Benjamin Wihstutz
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14 Music and Gender in English
Renaissance Drama
6 Feminist Visions and
Katrine K. Wong
Queer Futures in
Postcolonial Drama
15 The Unwritten Grotowski
Community, Kinship, and
Theory and Practice of the
Citizenship
Encounter
Kanika Batra
Kris Salata
7 Nineteenth-Century 16 Dramas of the Past on the
Theatre and the Imperial Twentieth-Century Stage
Encounter In History’s Wings
Marty Gould Alex Feldman
8 The Theatre of Richard 17 Performance, Identity and the
Maxwell and the New York Neo-Political Subject
City Players Edited by Matthew Causey
Sarah Gorman and Fintan Walsh
18 Theatre Translation in 26 The Politics and the
Performance Reception of Rabindranath
Edited by Silvia Bigliazzi, Tagore’s Drama
Peter Kofler, and Paola Ambrosi The Bard on the Stage
Edited by Arnab Bhattacharya
19 Translation and Adaptation in and Mala Renganathan
Theatre and Film
Edited by Katja Krebs 27 Representing China on the
Historical London Stage
20 Grotowski, Women, and From Orientalism to
Contemporary Performance Intercultural Performance
Meetings with Dongshin Chang
Remarkable Women
Virginie Magnat 28 Play, Performance, and Identity
How Institutions Structure
21 Art, Vision, and Nineteenth- Ludic Spaces
Century Realist Drama Edited by Matt Omasta
Acts of Seeing and Drew Chappell
Amy Holzapfel
29 Performance and
22 The Politics of Interweaving Phenomenology
Performance Cultures Traditions and Transformations
Beyond Postcolonialism Edited by Maaike Bleeker,
Edited by Erika Fischer-Lichte, Jon Foley Sherman, and Eirini
Torsten Jost and Saskya Iris Jain Nedelkopoulou
23 Theatre and National Identity 30 Historical Affects and the
Re-Imagining Conceptions Early Modern Theater
of Nation Edited by Ronda Arab,
Edited by Nadine Holdsworth Michelle M. Dowd, and
Adam Zucker
24 Nationalism and Youth in
Theatre and Performance 31 Food and Theatre on the
Edited by Angela Sweigart- World Stage
Gallagher and Victoria Edited by Dorothy Chansky
Pettersen Lantz and Ann Folino White
25 Performing Asian 32 Global Insights on Theatre
Transnationalisms Censorship
Theatre, Identity and the Edited by Catherine O’Leary,
Geographies of Performance Diego Santos Sánchez and
Amanda Rogers Michael Thompson
Global Insights on Theatre
Censorship
Edited by Catherine O’Leary, Diego
Santos Sánchez and Michael Thompson
First published 2016
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Contents
List of Figures xi
Foreword xiii
LISA APPIGNANESI
Preface xvii
Acknowledgements xix
Introduction: Censorship and Creative Freedom 1
CATHERINE O’LEARY
Theatre Censorship Apparatuses: Summaries of the
Systems Discussed in this Volume 24
DIEGO SANTOS SÁNCHEZ AND MICHAEL THOMPSON
PART I
First-Hand Experiences of Censorship
1 The Dictator’s Gift of Censorship 35
FERNANDO ARRABAL
2 The Strategy of Communist Censorship in Poland
towards the Most Critical and Subversive Student
Theatre Productions of 1978 and 1979 43
JULIUSZ TYSZKA
3 Between the Silence of Submission and the Challenges of
Authenticity: Theatrical Censorship in Franco’s Spain (1939–75) 58
PATRICIA W. O’CONNOR
4 Theatre Censorship in South Asia: Hegemony and Ambivalence 68
ABHI SUBEDI
5 Silence One Story and Another is Born: Experience of
Censorship in Iran and the UK in 2010 79
LISA GOLDMAN
viii Contents
PART II
Censorship in Authoritarian Regimes
6 Who was Afraid of Fernando Arrabal?
The Architect and the Emperor of Assyria in Yugoslavia 95
DENIS PONIŽ
7 Hide and Seek: Selected Stratagems of Polish Independent
Theatre Companies 109
JOANNA OSTROWSKA
8 Der Georgsberg: The Economy as Theatre in the
German Democratic Republic 124
BARRIE BAKER
9 Bowdlerised Shakespeare Productions in Hungary and Portugal 137
ZSÓFIA GOMBÁR
10 Theatre Censorship in Portugal during the Estado Novo:
Policies, Censors, Organisation and Procedures 149
ANA CABRERA
11 An Overview of Theatre Censorship in Brazil (1925–1970) 162
MAYRA RODRIGUES GOMES AND ELIZA BACHEGA CASADEI
12 Mapping Translated Theatre in Spain through
Censorship Archives 176
RAQUEL MERINO ÁLVAREZ
13 Regime Loyalty and Rebellion: Re-Inventing the
Colonial Censorship Nightmare in Zimbabwe 191
PRAISE ZENENGA
PART III
Censorship in Democratic States
14 Stage Irish Neutrality: Theatre Censorship during the
‘Emergency’, 1939–45 211
DONAL Ó DRISCEOIL
15 Not Recommended for Licence: British Theatre
Censorship under the Lord Chamberlain 221
STEVE NICHOLSON
Contents ix
16 Freedom of Speech and Hair: The Legal Legacy 234
JOHN H. HOUCHIN
17 Anthony Neilson’s Stitching and the High Moral Ground:
A Case Study from Malta 245
VICKI ANN CREMONA
Conclusion: The Power of Theatre 259
MICHAEL THOMPSON
Contributors 269
Selected Bibliography of Studies in English
of Theatre Censorship 276
Index 279
