In many European countries mass theater was a widespread expression of "community art" that became increasingly popular shortly before World War I. From Max Reinhardt's lavish open-air spectacles to socialist workers' Laienspiel (lay theater), theater visionaries focused on ever larger groups for entertainment as well as political agitation.
Despite wide research on the Soviet and German cases, examples from the Low Countries have hardly been examined. However, mass plays in Flanders and the Netherlands had a distinctive character, displaying an ideological heterogeneity not seen...
In many European countries mass theater was a widespread expression of "community art" that became increasingly popular shortly before World War I....
