The itinerant “fringe” or “experimental” theatre groups supported by the Arts Council of Great Britain can be divided into those concerned solely with esthetic expression and those that aim at social efficacy. The latter can be further divided into those with “political” intentions and those with “social” objectives. There are revolutionary socialist theatre groups, often comprised of Marxists, who play almost exclusively for trade union members at meetings and workingmen's clubs, attempting to raise political awareness with respect to the worker in a capitalist society and to stimulate discussion about political problems. And there are theatre groups that do not consider their work overtly political who make plays dealing with the problems of certain constituencies such as teachers, children, old people, prisoners, women, or gays, sometimes involving them in theatrical activities as a kind of therapy.

In 1976-77 the largest Arts Council subsidy received by a “fringe” or “experimental“ group went to the Welfare State Theatre, which refuses to be placed in any of these categories.

Chinese theatre must be judged on its own terms—as a weapon of the revolution. “Content first, then art” is the dictum. The revolution has given the theatre an abundance of themes. In return, the theatre fulfills its purpose by helping to educate the people and by debating important issues. It is, after all, part of the state machinery. It is also a superb example of didactic art that is popular at all levels of society.

One of the secrets of the theatre's success lies in the sheer depth of involvement on the part of all concerned. In Peking, an instructor told a visitor: “We educate our artists not for art's sake, but wholeheartedly to serve the people. We don't lock them up in classrooms, either, but let them go out to the workers, peasants and soldiers to learn from them as well. If they're going to portray revolutionary characters on the stage, they must first learn to become good revolutionaries themselves.”

El Teatro de la Esperanza began as a student group composed of Chicanos attending the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1969. Then known as Teatro Mecha, the Teatro left the ranks of a student organization, called M.E.Ch.A., in order to get more fully involved in Santa Barbara's Chicano community, in the summer of 1971. This move proved to be an asset for both the community and the Teatro, for the group took part in the acquisition and remodeling of a 22,000 square foot warehouse which soon became La Casa de la Raza (The House of the People).

Prior to 1965, there was little unity of sociopolitical direction among Chicanos and Mexicans in the United States, and the Casa was a symbol of the effort to address the problems of this bilingual minority. The Casa maintains a line of communication with the barrio by offering over thirty programs ranging from a free health clinic to an office of information for undocumented workers, otherwise known as illegal aliens.

The Theatre Populaire Romand (Romand Popular Theatre) or TPR celebrated its fifteenth anniversary in 1976. For a professional, completely autonomous troupe whose politics and administration are independent from any control by authorities, this is a record rarely equaled in Switzerland or even in Europe.

This remarkable endurance owes much to the will and determination of the troupe's director, Charles Joris, who has always established and maintained solid and homogeneous groups despite the internal crises and the periodic defections inherent in an enterprise of this sort. But strong will and a coherent theatrical project do not register in a void. The most eminent characteristic of the TPR is precisely its long-term political vision: the concrete insertion of its theatrical activity into the life of the region, of the territory where it has chosen to work.

In April-May 1972, in twelve different towns in Abruzzo, Giuliano Scabia carried out a series of “actions” with young people; each lasted three days. The project, Perhaps a Dragon Will Be Born, was supported by the Teatro Stabile of I'Aquila and by other local cultural organizations. Both in the planning stage and in the organizational stage, these actions showed many of the elements that characterized Scabia's subsequent work: an open laboratory, an empty scheme, puppets, daily newspapers, posters, meetings, great images, etc.

The Living Newspapers are among the most famous productions of the Federal Theatre Project (1935-39). Across the nation, tens of thousands of citizens saw various “editions” of these topical dramas. They were exciting theatre and effective documentary. They experimented with such stage devices as levels, masks, lighting, projection, and a loudspeaker, and they enlivened the “reporting of actual truth” through episodic scenes that were sometimes realistic, sometimes expressionistic. Since the closing of the Federal Theatre and the virtual death of the Living Newspaper, documentaries have generally become less theatrical and more detached.

Though the stated intent of the Living Newspaper was merely to dramatize the news, most observers found a clear editorial viewpoint. The plays usually ended with the mention of a specific piece of legislation or a critical case currently in the courts that the audience should support.

The Greek resistance movement, supported and directed by EAM (Ethnikon Apeleftherotikon Metopon—the National Liberation Front) in the mountains of Greece under the German occupation of World War II, spawned a popular resistance theatre that schooled itself among the people and brought a measure of political enlightenment to peasants in the mountain villages, who had small exposure to theatre. Those who went to market saw some Karaghiozis—Greek shadow puppet theatre—and those who attended religious festivals occasionally saw Lenten plays. Secular theatre was sometimes performed in tents in provincial villages and refugee settlements.

Because, in the beginning, artists would not come into the mountains to write songs for the struggle or to dramatize events, the andartes, or mountain fighters, began to write and perform. Their intention initially was to familiarize the people with their work and to develop friendly territories in which they could operate freely.

According to Jorge Luis Borges, Abulgualid Mohammed Ibn Ahmed Ibn Mohammahd Ibn Rushd, better known as Averroes, was thinking—something like one thousand years ago, more or less—about a difficult question concerning Aristotle's Poetics. As you probably know, Averroes was a specialist on Aristotle, mainly on the Poetics. As a matter of fact, Western civilization had lost this book and had rediscovered it only through the mediation of Arab philosophers. Averroes did not know about theatre. Because of the Muslim taboo on representation, he had never seen a theatrical performance. At least, Borges, in his short story The Quest of Averroes, imagines our philosopher wondering about two incomprehensible words he had found in Aristotle, namely “tragedy” and “comedy.” A nice problem, since Aristotle's Poetics is nothing else but a complex definition of those two words, or at least of the first of them.