Call for Papers
Signs of the Scene, III, 5
Thematic Dossier
Theatre, Revolution, and the Construction of Democracy
Coord. José Pedro Sousa and Ariadne Nunes

From ancient Greece to the present day, theatre has thrived in democratic contexts, participating in the life of the polis and engaging citizens. While tragedies such as Aeschylus’ Agamemnon or Sophocles’ Antigone problematize issues that affect the governance of the city—contributing to the civic awareness that democratic systems require without questioning the nature of the regime or mode of government—a comedy like Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, by staging a revolutionary process, represents a qualitative leap in questioning the prevailing system, its dogmas, and institutions.

Throughout the history of theatre and performance, the democracy/revolution binary has been the theme or pretext of a vast dramatic corpus, explored across diverse genres and modes—from experimental theatre to musicals, from documentary to epic. Georg Büchner’s Danton’s Death and Claude Prin’s Ceremonial for a Fight are examples of this universal repertoire, rooted in two decisive revolutionary moments for contemporary times and modern democracies: the French Revolution and the Paris Commune.

There is also theatre produced in revolutionary contexts or emerging as a consequence of new political and socio-cultural coordinates. As Enzo Traverso observes in Revolution: An Intellectual History, “most revolutions contain or engender aesthetic turns” (2021: 16). One of the most emblematic cases is the October Revolution and the various artistic movements it inspired—Suprematism and Constructivism. In theatre, it suffices to recall Lunacharsky’s writings and the aesthetic revolution embodied by Meyerhold’s biomechanics, inseparable from Mayakovsky’s committed dramaturgy. In the Portuguese context, it is important to remember Luiz Francisco Rebello’s complex programme for theatre, which manifests in dramaturgical, historiographical, pedagogical, and legislative terms.

While theatre and performance studies have a robust bibliographic tradition regarding theatre and revolution (see Itzin 1980, Wiltshire and Cowan 2018), more recently—perhaps as a consequence of current political polarization—there has been a growth in publications exploring the relationship between theatre and democracy. Monographs such as Democracy, Theatre & Performance: From the Greeks to Gandhi by David Wiles, and The Playbook: A Story of Theatre, Democracy and the Making of a Culture War by James Shapiro, help expand analytical and methodological horizons. Wiles reflects on performative practices as inherent elements of democratic praxis throughout history and across diverse geographies (for example, the importance of oratory in public speeches during the French Revolution or Gandhi’s “de-westernized” pacifist performativity in the struggle for India’s democratic independence). Shapiro, meanwhile, focuses on the brief history of the Federal Theatre (1935–1939) in the United States. Created during the New Deal, this project sought to revitalize a collapsed industry and employ a class devastated by the 1929 crash, while recognizing that theatre should be state-funded for fulfilling a crucial mission in preserving democracy—a mission undermined by the House of Un-American Activities Committee’s witch hunts, which foreshadowed McCarthyism. Today, the activities of the Belarus Free Theatre in promoting freedom of expression through performance and activism demonstrate how the performing arts continue to contribute to building a more just society under adverse conditions (see Kompelmakher 2023).

This issue of Signs of the Scene aims to critically examine the processes of democratic construction in (pre- and post-) revolutionary periods and the role theatre and performance played, or the place they occupied, in these circumstances. Whether from a global diachronic perspective or through local micro-historical projects, the thematic dossier of Signs of the Scene, III, no. 5, seeks to offer new avenues for studying the intersection between theatre, revolution, and the construction of democracy.

Suggested topics include:

Theatre: revolution, memory, and democracy

The place of theatre and performance in revolutionary processes or transitions to democracy

Revolution and democracy as performative practices

Technological revolutions and democracy through/in theatre

Democratic practices in the creation, management, and production of performing arts

Revolutionary theatrical poetics and aesthetics or those of revolutions

Equality, diversity, and inclusion in theatrical and performative practices

The role of theatre in engaging with, preserving, and defending democracy


Texts can be submitted until September 30, 2025, to sinaisdecena@gmail.com

They must follow the submission guidelines available at:
https://revistas.rcaap.pt/sdc/about/submissions