Theatre History Overview - Part 94 - Workers' Theatre Movement

The Workers' Theatre Movement (WTM) is part of Political Theatre. WTM was an international project that took place mainly in Germany, the former USSR, the United States, and Britain. The movement took place during the 1920s and the 1930s.

The term "workers' theatre" is one that is used to define any type of theatre that is from the working class or about the working class people. When it comes to the WTM in Britain, some say that Tom Thomas was the founder of the movement. Others say that Christina Walshe started it in 1926 during the miners' lockout. Then, Tom Thomas gave it new life in 1928.

The WTM in Britain never really got past showing the contrasting differences between workers in the capitalist system. However, it ignored the tradition of British worker's folk songs. Even though the movement in Brtian was low on creativity, a magazine called Red Stage was produced from 1931 to 1935. In 1936, the British WTM dissolved.

In the United States, even though some of the WTM had began during the great depression, it was one of the major reponses to it. The plays did not have to be written by workers themselves. They could be written by those sympathetic towards their situation, too. A major feature was that the plays never had pesimistic images of the furture. ONe of the techniques used was mass recitation. This was when the actors would be on stage and they would chant couplets that were either rhymed or unrhymed.

During the WTM in the United States, three phases occurred.

1. Amateure workers' theatre
   • Began in 1920s with immigrant drama clubs.
   • Defense of the underpriviledged within ethnic neighborhoods.
   • Written and produced by workers
2. Left-wing Professional Commerical Theatre
   • Attracted working class audiences
   • Full-length social problem dramas were performed in stationary places
3. Federal Theatre Project
   • Began in 1935.
   • Absorbed amateur theatre groups
   • Represented a “new frontier in America, a frontier against disease, dirt, poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, and despair, and at the same time against selfishness, special privilege, and social apathy.”

The WTM in the United States ended around the same time that it ended in Britain.

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