ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines some of the broad forms and movements of playwriting – the dramaturgical imaginary, one might say – that dominated the years before 1989. Nonetheless, a few convictions shape this account: first, while the emergence of directors’ theatre in the 1970s is one of the most distinctive and important features of Europe’s theatre in the postwar years. Second, related, the play has been a locus of constant theatrical experimentation since the Second World War, Europe’s playwrights showing an undimmed interest in finding new subjects, structures, forms, and styles in which to capture and interrogate the contemporary world. Third, the play, for reasons that we will discuss, has often been at the sharp end of confrontations between the theatre and the state, between artists and government. Genet’s work is deeply engaged with class and gender politics in Les Bonnes, the sexual politics of power in Le Balcon, and anti-racist and anti-colonial politics in Les Negres and Les Paravents.
