Re-valuing Swedish outdoor theatre

The modern outdoor theatre in Sweden was created around 1910. A description of outdoor theatre is usually characterized by a governing dichotomy between good theatre of high aesthetic quality versus bad, entertainment of low quality. This article is inspired by a postnarrativist interpretation of historiography when seeking a re-valuation of the historical material regarding outdoor theatre. By mapping and connecting different source materials, outdoor theatre is treated as an important phenomenon challenging earlier historiographical narratives. A juxtaposition of ideas about theatre as education and theatre as entertainment offers an in-depth analysis that emphasises the relationship between outdoor and indoor theatre around the beginning of the 20th century and calls for new ways of studying the intertwined relationship between art and entertainment. Mikael Strömberg is a post-doctoral researcher in performance studies, working in the field of research on popular entertainment, entertainment as communication, and Swedish outdoor theatre.