Communist playwrights?

[Rudi]

Hey Comrades

Would anybody be able to recommend to me any communist playwrights, or, playwrights who were communists? The only communist playwright I have read is Brecht; I was hoping that someone could recommend a playwright who was less well known e.g. someone from the old soviet union.

Thanks

[Ocean Seal]

I don't really know much about plawrights. But George Bernard Shaw was one, although he was a reformist Fabian "socialist".

[Rudi]

Yeah, I actually really enjoyed Pygmalion, however, I am more interested in discovering playwrights who were somewhat more "hardline communists". lol ; or playwrights who were influenced by marxism for example. I also forgot to mention Sartre who wrote Nekrassov and Les Mains Sales, the latter more of a critique of the PCF but still probably my favorite play.

[LewisQ]

Dario Fo would be another one. He's a PRC supporter and veteran Italian leftist. His play Accidental Death of an Anarchist, about the murder of Pinelli by the police in strategy-of-tension-era Italy, is worth reading/seeing (although in truth, despite its political context, it's a pretty straight farce for the most part.)

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Berthold Brecht.

[bezdomni]

Bertolt Brecht (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertolt_Brecht)

Probably the greatest Marxist playwright to ever live.

Jean-Paul Sartre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Sartre)

No Exit and Dirty Hands are two of my favorite plays by Sartre. The first is a classic work of "pure" Existentialism, while the latter is more directly related to communism and explores the concept of bad faith in a different way altogether.

Karl Wittfogel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_August_Wittfogel)

I don't know anything about this guy, but he was a playwright and a Marxist for some period of time.

Vladimir Mayakovsky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Mayakovsky)

I am more familiar with Mayakovsky's poetry than with his plays, but he was the great genius of Soviet revolutionary literature.

[A member on this forum goes by Majakovskij, a different transliteration of his name from Russian].

Tomoyoshi Murayama (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomoyoshi_Murayama)

Just found out about this guy. Seems interesting.

I strongly recommend reading Sartre, Brecht and Mayakovsky. They were tremendously great writers.

[Agent Ducky]

Arthur Miller wasn't necessarily communist, but he definitely had some anti-capitalist messages in his plays.
(I just wrote a whole essay about anti-capitalist messages in his play Death of a Salesman) Yeah.

[bezdomni]

Arthur Miller wasn't necessarily communist, but he definitely had some anti-capitalist messages in his plays.
(I just wrote a whole essay about anti-capitalist messages in his play Death of a Salesman) Yeah.

His play After the Fall (1964) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_the_Fall_(play)) deals directly with McCarthyism and his problems with HUAC.

It also details the origin and decline of his relationship with Marilyn Monroe.

[Agent Ducky]

His play After the Fall (1964) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_the_Fall_(play)) deals directly with McCarthyism and his problems with HUAC.

It also details the origin and decline of his relationship with Marilyn Monroe.

Yeah, I was researching that that the HUAC was all over his case and stuff. Damn, it would've sucked to be a leftist back then.

[bezdomni]

Yeah, I was researching that that the HUAC was all over his case and stuff. Damn, it would've sucked to be a leftist back then.

J. Robert Oppenheimer also had lots of problems with them due to his communist sympathies and detailed knowledge of the U.S. nuclear program.

[Sasha]

His play After the Fall (1964) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_the_Fall_%28play%29) deals directly with McCarthyism and his problems with HUAC.


so is the crucible (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crucible)

[RedSunRising]

Ibsen was a socialist wasnt he?

[Rakhmetov]

Danton's Death by George Buchner


Here is a wiki article on communist writers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Communist_writers

Edit: and Woyzeck

[praxis1966]

Ibsen was a socialist wasnt he?

Like most things, I think it's all a matter of perspective as to whether he was or whether he wasn't.


Ibsen wrote for and about the middle class and life in the suburbs and small towns. He focused on characters and psychological conflicts rather than dramatic situations. His central theme was the duty of the individual towards himself, not the out-of-date conventions of bourgeois society. "I have really never had a strong feeling for solidarity," Ibsen said to Brandes in 1871. Ibsen's anarchistic individualism made a deep impression on the younger generation outside Norway, where he was considered a progressive writer. In his home country, however, Ibsen was seen as a moral preacher and more conservative than Björnson. Ibsen's discipline or successor was George Bernard Shaw (http://kirjasto.sci.fi/gbshaw.htm), who dramatized with flair and wit generally accepted ideas into uncompromising plays.

(source (http://kirjasto.sci.fi/ibsen.htm))

[Madvillainy]

sean o'casey?

http://en.internationalism.org/wr/292_1916_rising.html

[RedSunRising]

sean o'casey?

http://en.internationalism.org/wr/292_1916_rising.html

Sean O'Casey definitely.

But that article on him leaves a lot to be desired.

[Old Mole]

August Strindberg was a socialist, and his works often contained much critique of society.

[RedSunRising]

Like most things, I think it's all a matter of perspective as to whether he was or whether he wasn't.


I realize there is a ton of middle class individualism in Ibsen but I think its more complex than that. He did make some pro-socialist statements as well, and Im nearly sure Marx liked him, didnt Marx's wife or daughter translate his plays first into English?

Anyway he is my favourite playwright.

[Old Mole]

It seems to me that Ibsen has been debated quite alot in the workers movement:
http://marxists.org/subject/art/lit_crit/ibsen_debate/index.htm
BTW Marx enjoyed Ibsen and his daughter translated some of Ibsens works

[praxis1966]

I realize there is a ton of middle class individualism in Ibsen but I think its more complex than that. He did make some pro-socialist statements as well, and Im nearly sure Marx liked him, didnt Marx's wife or daughter translate his plays first into English?

Anyway he is my favourite playwright.

Well, from what I've read he did have some socialist sympathies at the very least... But it looks like you know a lot more about him than I do so I'll defer to your expertise. Shit, man, I've only ever read Ghosts. Never got much farther than that.

[DienBienPhu]

BRECHT.














It's sufficient. :)

[Rudi]

I did state above that I have already read both Brecht and Sartre, reading absolutely everything of the latter. Has anyone read Nekrassov by Sartre? It's a pro communist anti-bourgeois press play.

[Rowan Duffy]

Marc Blitzstein (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Blitzstein)

Stanislawa Przybyszewska (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislawa_Przybyszewska)