Living Newspaper

Living Newspaper is a theatrical form presenting factual information on current events to a popular audience. Historically, Living Newspapers have also urged social action and reacted against naturalistic and realistic theatrical conventions in favor of the more direct, experimental techniques of agitprop theatre, including the extensive use of multimedia. The term is most often associated with the Living Newspaper productions of the Federal Theatre Project, a New Deal work-relief program established under the Works Progress Administration.
The Federal Theatre Project wrote and presented a number of Living Newspapers on social issues of the day, including Triple-A Plowed Under, Injunction Granted, One-Third of a Nation, Power and Spirochete. Controversy over political ideology contributed to the disbanding of the Federal Theatre Project in 1939, and a number of Living Newspaper plays already written or in development were never performed, including several that addressed race issues.

History

The developers of the WPA Living Newspapers built upon theatrical forms they had encountered in Bolshevik Russia, Germany, and European workers' theatre. Living-Newspaper-like performances appeared in Bolshevik Russia as early as 1919, using a variety of devices to present news and propaganda to the illiterate. As the form matured in Russia, workers' groups put on highly regionalized Living Newspapers, treating issues of public interest and concern. Zhivaya Gazeta reached its peak from 1923 to 1928; Hallie Flanagan, director of the Federal Theatre Project, had visited the country and witnessed workers' performances during this period, in 1926. The Blue Blouse theatre groups, which employed satire and demanding acrobatics to bring news to the public, particularly captured Flanagan's attention. The work of Russian theatre artists Vsevolod Meyerhold and Vladimir Mayakovsky, active during this time, also influenced the form, as did the work of German theatre artists Bertolt Brecht and Erwin Piscator.

Living Newspaper division of the Federal Theatre Project

Establishment of the NY Living Newspaper Unit and ''Ethiopia''

The Living Newspaper program began very shortly after the establishment of the Federal Theatre Project. Following her appointment as National Director of the FTP in July 1935, Hallie Flanagan, a professor and playwright at Vassar College, and playwright Elmer Rice set to work planning the organization and focus of the FTP. The New York Living Newspaper Unit came from this meeting. Allied with the American Newspaper Guild, this first and most active of the Living Newspaper Units employed out-of-work journalists and theatre professionals of all types, providing hourly wages for many reporters and entertainers left unemployed by the Depression.
The research staff of the Living Newspaper Unit quickly compiled their first Living Newspaper, Ethiopia, which went into rehearsal in 1936. It never opened to the public. The federal government issued a censorship order prohibiting the impersonation of heads of state onstage; the order effectively scuttled the production, which dramatized the invasion of Ethiopia by Italy and featured Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and other real-life figures prominently as characters. Elmer Rice withdrew from the FTP in protest.

Controversy: ''Triple-A Plowed Under'' and ''Injunction Granted''

Left with no script and the pressing need to provide its performers with a play, the Unit drew up another Living Newspaper, Triple-A Plowed Under, within a matter of weeks. Morale had dropped after the cancellation of Ethiopia, and the original director of Triple-A Plowed Under left in frustration; Joseph Losey, known for his support of the Communist Party and recently returned from a visit to Moscow, replaced him. Triple-A Plowed Under dramatized the plight of Dust Bowl farmers and suggested that farmers and workers unite to cut out the "middlemen"—dealers and other commercial interests. The "Triple-A" in the title came from the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, which the play criticized. Like other Living Newspapers to follow, it employed the Voice of the Living Newspaper, a disembodied voice that commented on and narrated the action; shadows; image projections; elaborate sound design, with sound effects and music; abrupt blackouts and scene changes; and other non-realistic devices to keep the audience's attention and support the message of the play.
Highlights of 1935 followed Triple-A Plowed Under. An uncharacteristic Living Newspaper as it had no point of view, it strung together the year's events through the device of a universal chorus of average citizens—most notably a jury in the trial of Bruno Hauptmann. Despite a few effective scenes, it was the least successful of the Living Newspapers.
Though Triple-A had clearly criticized government decisions and supported the laborer over the "merchant," the Unit's third Living Newspaper, also directed by Losey, explicitly supported workers' organizations and angered members of the federal government. Injunction Granted, which opened four months after the close of Triple-A, lampooned big business men such as H. J. Heinz and newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst and called for unions to join the Congress of Industrial Organizations, a major, militant workers' association. It aroused government concern during rehearsal; and Hallie Flanagan urged Losey to re-write parts of the script, but the play made it to the stage largely unaltered. The piece ran on over-the-top satire and explicit bias: Heinz was introduced holding a giant pickle; Dean Jennings of the Newspaper Guild trounced Hearst in a boxing match; and a clown served as master-of-ceremonies for the entire production, according to Cosgrove. Injunction Granted drew massive criticism and closed early. Losey soon left the Unit and the FTP, though Flanagan offered to give him another chance.

The turnaround: ''Power'' and ''One-Third of a Nation''

With the censorship of Ethiopia and the negative reaction to Injunction Granted, the Living Newspaper Unit had twice attracted criticism from the government that funded it. In order to continue as a federal program, it became more retrospect and less politically radical in its choice of topics but did not give up its dedication to reportage on major social issues and calls for social change.
Its first production following Injunction Granted demonstrated this new emphasis. Opening early in 1937, Power clearly supported the policies of the New Deal and the Works Progress Administration. Power chronicled the search of the public consumer for affordable electric power and held up the Tennessee Valley Authority project as an example of where such power could come from. The play also introduced the "little man" figure to the Living Newspaper—a character who represented the consumer and the public, appearing throughout the play, asking questions and receiving explanations. Power garnered a positive reception, running for 140 performances and then converting to a scaled-down travelling form for outdoors summer performances throughout the city.
"In Power, the struggle inherent in all Living Newspapers becomes, through the character of the Consumer, more explicit," wrote Hallie Flanagan. "It is the struggle of the average citizen to understand the natural, social and economic forces around him, and to achieve through these forces, a better life for more people."
The next Living Newspaper also met with public and critical success. Over the summer of 1937, Flanagan oversaw the Federal Theatre Project Summer School at Vassar College; the 40 theatre artists invited to this program developed the first version of a Living Newspaper on tenant housing which grew to become One-Third of a Nation. In its finished form, One-Third of a Nation opened early in 1938 and ran for 237 performances, making it the most successful of the Living Newspapers. The play abandoned some of the experimental nature of the earlier Living Newspapers, using a very realistic set to display the filth and dangers of a tenant slum, but retained the episodic format and multimedia displays that characterized the form. The production received praise from critics and may have helped push through housing legislation. It eventually opened in major cities throughout the country, and was adapted for a 1939 feature film by Paramount Pictures. It was the first Federal Theatre Project play to be sold to the film industry. One-Third of a Nation was revived in 2011 by the Metropolitan Playhouse in New York City.

The end of the FTP and the Living Newspaper Unit

Despite its rising success and less radical tone, the tide of government opinion turned against the Federal Theatre Project – and the Living Newspapers in particular – in 1938. Established in this year, the House Un-American Activities Committee began an investigation of the FTP, focusing on its alleged Communist sympathies and anti-American propagandism. Flanagan defended the FTP and the Living Newspapers, holding that the program had presented propaganda, yes, but "... propaganda for democracy, propaganda for better housing," not propaganda against the government. Despite her defense of the program and President Roosevelt's protests, Congress disbanded the FTP – and with it, the New York Living Newspaper Unit – on July 30, 1939.
The end of the FTP and the Unit left many complete and partially developed Living Newspaper scripts unperformed and unfinished. Among these were three by African-American playwrights that dealt with race issues and racism, including Liberty Deferred, by Abram Hill and John Silvera, which followed the history of slavery in the U.S. and addressed the lynchings of African-Americans in the South. Some historians suggest that Congress shut down the Federal Theatre Project partially to stifle the voices of African-American theatre professionals and criticism of racism in the U.S., or that the FTP delayed production of these plays out of fear of just such a reprisal.
The Living Newspaper project has influenced progressive theatre in the 21st century. A good example of a theatre company performing in the style of the Living Newspaper is the progressive whose piece, The Tea Party Project, was performed in Washington DC in July 2010.