Socialist Ensembles

This work examines theatre and political culture in Cuba and Nicaragua, revealing the tensions and negotiations among different dimensions of society that characterize the socialist project.

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Most discussions of socialist development within nation-states focus exclusively on the state, leaving civil society out of the picture. By looking into the realm of theatre in two socialist states, Randy Martin finds a way of broadening this view. An ethnography of theatre and political culture in Cuba and Nicaragua, his work reveals the tensions and negotiations among different dimensions of society that characterize the socialist project. Theatre, Martin shows us, is a particularly elastic expression of aesthetic and organizational form that can prefigure broader social developments. The critical sensibility displayed there, taking its cues from cultural processes beyond the stage, is indicative of the ongoing reformation of the socialist project. Martin considers Nicaragua through the Sandanista and Chamorro administrations, and Cuba from the time of reform, known as rectification through the withdrawal of Soviet aid.