McLaughlin, J. A. (2014) The censor without, the censor within: the resistance of Johnstone’s improv to the social and political pressures of 1950s Britain. Panel Presentation presented to: Theatre & Performance Research Association (TaPRA) Conference 2014, Royal Holloway, University of London, 03-05 September 2014. (Unpublished)
Presentation (598kB) |
| Item Type: | Conference or Workshop Item (Panel Presentation) |
|---|---|
| Abstract: | Keith Johnstone's improv, popularly known through the Theatresports format, was forged in the cultural and historical context of 1950s Britain. In this paper I will argue that Johnstone's incarnation of theatrical improvisation was defined by its reaction to the normalising forces exerted by the social elite upon the broader population and by civilised society upon the individual. Johnstone's improv was a reaction against the Lord Chamberlain’s power to censor the British stage and a challenge to the internalised 'censor' British society of the time implanted in the minds of his students, stunting their creative imaginations. Johnstone borrowed elements of professional wrestling to break down the regimented conventions of the theatre space and enliven the spectator-performer relationship. As well as echoing Roland Barthes’ idealistic analysis of professional wrestling (Barthes, 1984: n.p.), Johnstone’s improv shares Barthes’ critique of the authority of the author and allows meaning to be generated out of the encounter between performers and spectators in the instant of the performance’s emergence. Through these processes, Johnstone’s improv defies the censor without (The Lord Chamberlain) by rooting out the censor within (the socially learnt inhibitions to the creative imagination). By delineating the political and social pressures at play in the historical context of 1950s Britain and the ways that the stylistic conventions of Johnstone's improv resist and subvert these forces, I will demonstrate the emancipatory power latent in this mode of popular performance. This is a particularly timely analysis given the increasing authority of free market economics to dictate what appears on contemporary British stages, and the internalised censor that panoptical CCTV and social media is implanting within the minds of British citizens today. |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Improv, comedy, Keith Johnstone, censorship, Lord Chamberlain, Royal Court Theatre, Incubators, Loose Moose |
| Subjects: |
P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN2000 Dramatic representation. The Theater > PN2044.G6 Censorship P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN2049 Theater and society. Applied drama P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN2000 Dramatic representation. The Theater > PN2061 Art of acting > PN2071.15 Improvisation (Acting) |
| Creators: | McLaughlin, James A |
| Faculties, Divisions and Institutes: | University Faculties, Divisions and Research Centres - OLD > Faculty of Arts, Science & Technology |
| Date: | 4 September 2014 |
| Date Type: | Presentation |
| Page Range: | pp. 1-11 |
| Event Title: | Theatre & Performance Research Association (TaPRA) Conference 2014 |
| Event Dates: | 03-05 September 2014 |
| Event Location: | Royal Holloway, University of London |
| Event Type: | Conference |
| Language: | English |
| Status: | Unpublished |
| Refereed: | No |
| Related URLs: | |
| References: | Barthes, Roland. (1977). ‘The Death of the Author’, from Image, Music, Text. (trans. Stephen Heath). London: Harper Colins. Barthes, Roland. (1984). Mythologies (trans. Annette Lavers). London: Vintage. http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~ikalmar/illustex/Barthes-wrestling.htm. [Accessed 28 April 2014] Dudeck, Theresa Robbins. (2013). Keith Johnstone: A Critical Biography. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama. Foucault, Michel. (1975). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. (trans. Alan Sheridan). New York: Vintage Books. Freshwater, Helen. (2009). Theatre Censorship in Britain: Silencing, Censure and Suppression. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Johnstone, Keith. (1979). Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre. London: Routledge. Johnstone, Keith. (1999). Impro for Storytellers: Theatresports and the Art of Making Things Happen. London: Faber and Faber. Leep, Jeanne. (2013). Theatrical Improvisation: Short Form, Long Form, and Sketch-Based Improv. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan. Nicholson, Steve. (2011). The Censorship of British Drama, 1900-1968, Volume Three: The Fifties. Exeter: Exeter University Press. Nicholson, Steve. (2014). The Censorship of British Drama, 1900-1968, Volume Four: The Sixties. Exeter: Exeter University Press. Wickstrom, Maurya. (2012). Performance in the Blockades of Neoliberalism: Thinking the Political Anew. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan. |
| URI: | http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/id/eprint/7337 |
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