Historical Context (3) (Post-war)

Post-war means "occurring or existing after a war". The time period is 1950 to present.

ENSA (Entertainment National Service Association)

• Ensured soldiers that were fighting had good entertainment

Problems:

• Actors moving into TV and film so less into theatre
• "subsided theatre" - no profit coming through to the company and it runs by funds given to them by Patrons.

Plays/Musicals:

• Post-war theatre was big in America -- Authur Miller (A View From a Bridge) and Tennessee Williams (Cat on a hot tin roof)
• West Side Story (1950s) and A Chorus Line (1975)

Practitioners:

• Jean Littlewood - Founder of Theatre Workshops
• Bertolt Brecht - dramaturgy and theatrical production
• Brian Way - Theatre in Education

Actors:

• Richard Todd - Casted in "For Them That Trespass" (1949)
• Norman Wisdom
• Sir Alec Guinness (Obi-Wan-Kenobi)
• Lenny Bruce
• Marcel Marceau

Staging & Techniques:

• Proscenium Arch (most common)
• Thrust
• Verfremdungseffekt - Breaking the fourth wall

 How it changed drama:

• centerpointing object - object passed between actors