Yu  Zhuang

Theatre Thaw in Leningrad: the Western Play ‘Telephone Ring’ on stage Comedy Theatre in the 1956

Authors

Yu Zhuang

Keywords:

Theatrical censorship, «Thaw», «Telephone Ring», foreign plays, Comedy theater, ideology.

Abstract

This paper aims to study the history of the supervision of national censorship institutions to Leningrad drama in 1950s. In 1956, the Leningrad Theater performed, F. Knott’s drama – «Telephone Ring» (Dial M for Murder), who was a British playwright. Soviet official medias paid much attention on the play just after the first night. The medias’ big criticism also made the censorship agencies paid close attention to this drama. During this period, there was a fault or contradiction between the social and cultural construction. This situation at that time was inevitable, because the Soviet Union's censorship system had been established. The Soviet Culture Management agency was highly concerned about the performance of the theaters, even at that thaw time when the new leadership had just been established, and the cultural policy was no longer tough.

Theatre Thaw in Leningrad: the Western Play ‘Telephone Ring’ on stage Comedy Theatre in the 1956