Reading the Old Left in the Ewan MacColl and Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop and Beyond: in Joan Littlewood’s engagements with the 1960s
type: CreativeWork
description: Based on archival research, recent Joan Littlewood centenary events and contemporary scholarship on the Theatre Workshop of Joan Littlewood and Ewan MacColl, this dissertation proposes to take sides with the radical class politics of the Old Left, or Communism, to read the legacy of MacColl-Littlewood collaboration in theatre, and its continuing impacts on Littlewood’s post-theatrical work in the 1960s’ New Left. This is to demystify the ‘genius’ aura bestowed upon Joan Littlewood; to re-instate Ewan MacColl’s contribution to the legacy of this ground-breaking theatre famously known as that which revolutionized the West End; to retrofit Theatre Workshop as a sample ensemble of the larger frame of the radical left-wing interwar theatres while acknowledging the independent evolution of their work into 1950s, and to further complicate the thematically and textually oriented analytical narratives’ efforts to analyze Theatre Workshop productions. The project aims to contribute to recent discussions that recognize and object to the tendencies in scholarship and journalism to neutralize the communist tenets that shaped this theatre and actively informed its evolving dynamics from agit-prop forms to their last show Oh What a Lovely War. It defends the vital necessity of re-adjusting the interpretive lens that regards the historical left-wing theatrical endeavors as radical failures in our growingly authoritarian times, much as Chantal Mouffe defends agonistics (taking adversarial positions) as opposed to apolitical attitudes or assuming antagonisms in the presence of radical positions of class or culture (or religion, race, ethnicity, and gender). Discussing the shortcomings of late decades’ response to the class politics from the historical, philosophical and theatrical angle, this research aims to bind the interwar leftwing theatrical legacies of the Workers’ Theatre Movement and the local traditions of British popular performance with the Theatre Workshop stage and Littl…
abstract: Based on archival research, recent Joan Littlewood centenary events and contemporary scholarship on the Theatre Workshop of Joan Littlewood and Ewan MacColl, this dissertation proposes to take sides with the radical class politics of the Old Left, or Communism, to read the legacy of MacColl-Littlewood collaboration in theatre, and its continuing impacts on Littlewood’s post-theatrical work in the 1960s’ New Left. This is to demystify the ‘genius’ aura bestowed upon Joan Littlewood; to re-instate Ewan MacColl’s contribution to the legacy of this ground-breaking theatre famously known as that which revolutionized the West End; to retrofit Theatre Workshop as a sample ensemble of the larger frame of the radical left-wing interwar theatres while acknowledging the independent evolution of their work into 1950s, and to further complicate the thematically and textually oriented analytical narratives’ efforts to analyze Theatre Workshop productions. The project aims to contribute to recent discussions that recognize and object to the tendencies in scholarship and journalism to neutralize the communist tenets that shaped this theatre and actively informed its evolving dynamics from agit-prop forms to their last show Oh What a Lovely War. It defends the vital necessity of re-adjusting the interpretive lens that regards the historical left-wing theatrical endeavors as radical failures in our growingly authoritarian times, much as Chantal Mouffe defends agonistics (taking adversarial positions) as opposed to apolitical attitudes or assuming antagonisms in the presence of radical positions of class or culture (or religion, race, ethnicity, and gender). Discussing the shortcomings of late decades’ response to the class politics from the historical, philosophical and theatrical angle, this research aims to bind the interwar leftwing theatrical legacies of the Workers’ Theatre Movement and the local traditions of British popular performance with the Theatre Workshop stage and Littl…
author: KARLIDAG, Fatine Bahar
language: en_US
keywords: Avant-garde, Communism, Politics, Theatre, West End, Workers' Theatre Movement, Theater, Theater history, Performing arts
date published: 2017-08-11
date modified: 2026-07-24T05:58:01Z
provider: University of Washington
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Washington

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/1773/40029