Book review: Theatre of good intentions: challenges and hopes for theatre and social change by Dani Snyder-Young (2013)

Abstract

If you work in community theatre, applied theatre or theatre for social change, and you believe you are transforming society, then you may find Dani Snyder-Young's book Theatre of Good Intentions: Challenges and Hopes for Theatre and Social Change confronting and perhaps depressing. You may want to throw in the towel after reading it. On the other hand, if you have stopped gazing at your navel, and realise that in fact your work is constantly limited by hegemonic, patriarchal and power structures —both internalised and also inherent in the contexts that you work in— then you will find that this book supports the thoughts you have harboured about the limitations, failures and challenges of your work in relation to actual social change. Are my utopian ideals and desires of any use, you may ask? The purpose of the book is “to examine what theatre can and can't do” (Snyder-Young 2013: 2).