Staging Political Plays
As it is still election season and people are still voting, I’m doing another blog on my thoughts about political plays. This one will be on the ways that plays are political.
Plays can be explicitly political. In 411 B.C.E, the play Lysistrata by Aristophanes was originally performed in Athens. It is an example of a politically explicit play. The point of the play is that most wars are bad. The plot involves the main character using an unconventional tactic to end the war.
On the other hand, The Crucible, a 1953 play by Arthur Miller, is implicitly political. On its face it is a history play. Its story is about the witch trials in Massachusetts in the seventeenth century. Unlike Lysistrata, its point is not the same as its subject matter. It’s actually about Joe McCarthy and the HUAAC.
Plays are made up of the text and the interpretation of the text by actors and the director, so plays can be explicit when they are written but implicit when they are performed later. The staging can turn explicit into implicit.
For example, Shakespeare wrote during during the Tudor Monarchy. His political plays are explicit. His point, especially in Richard III, is that the Tudor monarchy is good and that of York is bad. Setting the play in modern times in modern dress makes the play an implicit political play.
Hip Hop is Political
Hip Hop is uniquely suited to telling political stories. It is an art formed by a specific set of political circumstances.
Rhymes Over Beats is a political theater company.
Please Vote.