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The Redemptive Power of Theatre and the Pursuit of Justice in Our Country’s Good
CHEN Jing-xia
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DOI:10.17265/1539-8072/2019.01.005
Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, China
This paper aims to understand Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good in the context of theatre in crisis in the 1980s Britain and attempts to find the contemporary resonance of this history play. Through exploring the adaptation and workshop of the play, discussing the transformative influence of rehearsals on the convicts in the Australian penal colony, and expounding on theatre as an important venue for rehabilitation and justice in contemporary society, the paper intends to disclose the playwright’s commitment to theatre, her reassertion of the social role of theatre in contemporary Britain and her critique of Mrs. Thatcher’s philistinism which impaired art, particularly theatre, to a great degree.
theatre in crisis, transformative influence, rehabilitation, justice, Mrs. Thatcher
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