Description: This is the first comprehensive guide to British theatre's engagement with the First World War over the last century, from 1900 to the Armistice Day centenary in 2018. Considering theatre as both an industry and literary-cultural artform, it provides a contextual grounding in the prelude to the conflict and coverage of post-war plays as well as wartime performances. Lively chapters from leading scholars explore diverse genres and practices, from Shakespeare to melodrama, while focusing on topics including regionality, national identity, propaganda, commemoration, gender, censorship and international influences. Presenting original scholarship in an accessible and engaging manner, this Companion establishes theatre as a vital means of understanding wartime experiences, and a central feature in commemoration and remembrance.
Brief description: Helen Brooks is Professor of Cultural and Creative History at the University of Kent. Prior to working on First World War theatre she published widely on eighteenth-century theatre. Her book Actresses, Gender, and the Eighteenth-Century Stage: Playing Women was published in 2014. She is an editor of the Exeter Performance Studies series and was associate editor of the Wiley Encyclopaedia of British Literature: 1660-1789. She was a co-investigator with the Gateways to the First World War centre (2014-2019).
Review Quotes: 'This kaleidoscopic volume offers a welcome re-evaluation of the ways in which the First World War changed theatre-making and play-going in Britain. There will be much here for students to explore and more seasoned researchers to discover, from how the theatre supported, resisted, and dealt with the many challenges of the conflict to how theatre has continued to respond to the war in the century that has followed.' Brad Kent, Université Laval