Subversive Stages : : Theater in Pre- and Post-Communist Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria / / Ileana Alexandra Orlich.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Central European University Press eBook-Package 2017
• VerfasserIn: Orlich, Ileana Alexandra,
• MitwirkendeR: Komporaly, Josefina,; Komporaly, Jozefina,
• Place / Publishing House: Budapest ;, New York : : Central European University Press, , [2022]; ©2017
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (238 p.)

Exploring theater practices in communist and post-communist Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, this book analyzes intertextuality or "inter-theatricality" as a political strategy, designed to criticize contemporary political conditions while at the same time trying to circumvent censorship. Plays by Romanian, Hungarian and Bulgarian dramatists are examined, who are "retrofitting" the past by adapting the political crimes and horrifying tactics of totalitarianism to the classical theatre (with Shakespeare a favorite) to reveal the region's traumatic history. By the sustained analysis of the aesthetic devices used as political tools, Orlich makes a very strong case for the continued relevance of the theater as one of the subtlest media in the public sphere. She embeds her close readings in a thorough historical analysis and displays a profound knowledge of the political role of theater history. In the Soviet bloc the theater of the absurd, experimentation, irony, and intertextual distancing (estrangement) are not seen as mere aesthetic language games but as political strategies that use indirection to say what cannot be said directly.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Table of Contents -- Foreword. The Ghosts of History Redux: Intertextuality, Rewriting, Adaptation -- Introduction -- Part 1 THE RUSSIAN AND FRENCH MASTERS -- I. The Political Ghosts and Ideological Phantasms of Nic Ularu’s The Cherry Orchard, A Sequel -- II. Adapting Molière and Jules Verne to Soviet Censorship: The Alchemical Politics of Bulgakov’s A Cabal of Hypocrites and The Crimson Island -- III. György Spiró’s The Impostor: Rethinking Molière’s Tartuffe for Communist Hungary -- Part 2 SHAKESPEARE IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE -- IV. Stalinist “Traitors” and “Saboteurs”: Matéi Vișniec’s Richard III Will Not Take Place or Scenes from the Life of Meyerhold -- V. Staging Hamlet as Political No Exit in Géza Bereményi’s Halmi -- VI. Nedyalko Yordanov’s The Murder of Gonzago: Reading Bulgaria’s Communist Political Culture through Shakespeare’s Hamlet -- Part 3 INSERTING GOD INTO POLITICS -- VII. Specters of State Power, History, and Politics of the Stage: Vlad Zografi’s Peter or The Sun Spots -- VIII. Inserting God into the Communist Personality Cult: Stefan Tsanev’s The Other Death of Joan of Arc -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index