The staged war: The dramatization of the Vietnam War in German, French, British and American theatre

This dissertation examines German, French, British and American political theatre about the Vietnam war. Whereas in recent years much criticism has been written on the subject of Vietnam, very little has covered either theatre or European critiques of the war. I have chosen the Vietnam war as an example of how political theatre changes in different countries within the context of their contemporary culture. I discuss the main themes of that theatre, stressing national variations and their motivations. For example, my analysis of plays by Rolf Hochhuth, Peter Weiss and Gunter Grass suggests that they reflect both an assessment of the United States\u27 policies in Vietnam and a concern with Germany\u27s own history. I also examine the staging forms of specific performances, showing how they are influenced by theatre\u27s ambiguous relation to mass media, especially television. The Vietnam war has been called the first television war, transforming the war into a series of spectacular images. These images, reproduced in photographs, films, videos, and other documents, dominated Vietnam war protest theatre in all countries. Affected by their mass reproduction they could hardly be regarded as direct signs of actual events, but as spectacular works they were appreciated for their own sensational or aesthetic appeal. I look at how these documents function in the Vietnam plays: either as testimonies of the truth , or as stimuli of a reaction to the spectacularization of the war by the mass media, their inclusion in theatre thus seeks to re-contextualize the war. Finally, my dissertation examines the broader problem of the social role of theatre in the later part of the twentieth century. I discuss the nature of theatre as a political medium and why, as a result of historical and cultural factors, it has been marginalized in the United States while playing an important role in Europe