COntemproary r theare review on Brecht

8132019 COntemproary r theare review on Brecht

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Contemporary Theatre Review

Publication details including instructions for authors and subscriptioninformation

httpwwwtandfonlinecomloigctr20

Theater Historiography Critical

InterventionsSophie Nield

a

a Royal Holloway University of London

Published online 27 Jun 2013

To cite this article Sophie Nield (2013) Theater Historiography Critical Interventions Contemporary

Theatre Review 232 245-247 DOI 101080104868012013779418

To link to this article httpdxdoiorg101080104868012013779418

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Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men (1988) forexample) It is also striking that two key texts of desire ndash Roland Barthesrsquos A Lover rsquo s Discourse (1978) and Jacques Derridarsquos The Post Card (1987) ndash do not attract attention The collectionis also notable for its focus on theorists and casestudies drawn predominantly from western philoso-phical and artistic traditions Here it would havebeen worth considering even if brie1047298 y the implica-tions of this selection especially in relation to othercultural formations histories and traditions Giventhe admirable historical scope covered by the bookfrom Attic tragedy to one of Caversquos performancesfollowing the release of Dig Lazarus Dig (2008) and the care that many of the authorstake to engage with the historical and cultural spe-ci1047297cities of their chosen cases studies I would have

welcomed a re1047298ection on shifts (or otherwise) in thedeathdesire dynamic that the book implicitly tracks especially as the introduction notes that theessays lsquore1047298ect changing attitudes to sexual desireand deathrsquo (p 10)

Eroticism and Death in Theatre and Performance will be of interest to students and academics inter-ested in the topics artists genres and periods cov-ered by the book Readers may wish though for astronger sense of the collectionrsquos position on rela-tions between eroticism death and theatre andre1047298ection on the theoretical and methodologicalconcerns that inform the book

copy Catherine Silverstone

Theater Historiography Critical Interventions edited by Henry Bial and Scott Magelssen

Ann Arbor University of Michigan Press 2010ix + 302pp ISBN 9780472051335 (paperback)

Sophie Nield Royal Holloway University of London

This timely and intelligent collection of new essayssituates itself in the perceived space between thea-tre historiography and performance studies

Rooted in a sense of disciplinary evolution theuseful introduction from the two editors Henry Bial and Scott Magelssen tracks the emergence of theatre historiography out of a broadly empiricaltheatre history practice Making the importantand appropriately historicising observation that the turn to questions of the writings of historiesas opposed to their material substance chimes withthe emergence into the academy of lsquounhistoriedrsquo

(p 2) communities and voices ndash particularly thoseof women and minority groups ndash the editors note

that lsquobecause the embodied traditions of suchpopulations did not seem to 1047297t the category of ldquotheaterrdquo as conventionally de1047297ned in the Euro-

American tradition a signi1047297cant number of scho-lars chose instead to pursue their research underthe broader heading of ldquoperformancerdquorsquo (p 2)This for Bial and Magelssen seems to have givenrise to a polarised disciplinary context in whichlsquoperformance studies diverged from theater history to the point where the two disciplines often seemto be rivals wielding competing assumptionsterms and methodsrsquo (p 2)

The work then of this volume is twofold The1047297rst agenda is to create a stage on which these twoapparent lsquorivalsrsquo can speak to each other The sec-ond is to expose the ways in which performancestudies and theatre history are already working inadjacent and often complementary ways and thusto point to a potentially shared road ahead The

volume is organised into 1047297 ve sections which speak to and across each other in productive and illumi-nating ways The editors themselves suggest someprovocative chimes between contributions that occurred to them in the curation of the volumeand also invite readers to 1047297nd their own routesthrough and between the essays across the volumeas a whole At the same time the organisations of the sections would seem to suggest for this readera useful route-map through the intellectual terrainof the collection

The 1047297rst sectionlsquoUnearthing the Past rsquo traversesevidential dilemmas and occlusions Beginning withOdai Johnsonrsquos fascinating account of the lsquocurse

tabletsrsquo

buried by slaves labouring under the yokeof Rome the section makes a plea for the lsquopreserva-tion of enchantment rsquo ndash a phrase deployed by EllenMacKay in her essay on unlikely evidence (p 23)Robert Shimkorsquos wonderfully lively piece on

William Davenant rsquos lsquootherrsquo career as a pirate andHeather S Nathanrsquos exploration of the histories of Jewish actors also do far more than simply repre-sent previously undiscovered narratives The point here is to make a case for inventive and creativestrategies of encounter with the historical pastShimkorsquos challenge to allow ourselves to bebeguiled by the lsquoaffective powers of the archiversquo

(p 32) and Nathanrsquos invocation of a de1047297nitively improvisatory historiography infuse these encoun-

ters with energy and excitementThe second section lsquoThe Stakes of

Historiography rsquo picks up on the call of the 1047297rst and grounds the volume in a demand for complex-ity of vision in our relationships with historicalmaterial Branislav Jakovljevicrsquos account of the

ways in which the Theatre of the Absurd lsquo wastransformed from a critical to a historiographicalparadigmrsquo (p 67) allows him to explore how this

245



work lsquonarrativizes and historicises the present rsquo (p68) His argument runs counter to the old com-monplace of the present overwriting any truth of the past with its own agendas and would on thesurface appear to offer instead the possibility of aproperly critical presentism Lest this seem too posi-tive though Jakovljevicrsquos contribution is immedi-ately followed by EJ Westlakersquos rigorous analysis of the legacies of racist ethnographies in the archivereminding us that attention must be paid to what

was embedded in these records at the time AlanSikesrsquos piece then serves almost to synthesise thesetwo proposals as he re-reads the Licensing Act of 1737 through the lsquomultiple political valenciesrsquo (p97) of class and sexual anxiety in eighteenth century culture circulating around the increasing legislativeregulation of sodomy The sense that we must 1047297ndevidence in the historical record while recognisingthat the perspective which prompts us to look may only be available from the vantage point of histor-ical distance is indicative of the call of the volumeas a whole as it invites us to deploy in tandemstrategies that have tended to be viewed as anti-thetical to each other Erin B Mee and JohnFletcher ask us to re1047298ect a little upon our ownbiases Meersquos account of the rewriting of Indiarsquostheatre history through acts of decolonisationreminds us that the intellectual apparatus of analysismay well be a product of a contested momentFletcher queries the embedded ethical choices inactivist scholarship and pedagogic choices asking

why there tends not to be a concentration on acti- vist performances of the far-right

The third section lsquo

Historiography for the New Millenniumrsquo is to an extent the lsquohow torsquo of thebook Sarah Bay-Cheng asks lsquo what might a digitalhistoriography look likersquo (p 129) situating thedebate very visibly in our own moment of technol-ogy new media and the drive to document what isafter all a famously ephemeral medium of exchange Harvey Youngrsquos fascinating account of the work of Robert S Duncanson a 19th century lsquofree black artist rsquo (p 138) invites us to consider

visual rather then textual resources in this instanceby 1047297nding life experience mapped into landscapepainting and sharing for a time the eye-view of a

singular artist Pieces from Wendy Aram andJonathan Chambers open up space to consider thehistorical relativity of seemingly lsquonaturalrsquo questionsof humanism physical biology and death conclud-ing this section with much food for thought if not actually for the worms

The 1047297nal two sections work together to elucidatepractices of making and teaching particular to bothperformance studies and theatre historiographycontinuing the work of 1047297nding common groundand shared agendas Section Four lsquoPerformance as

historiography rsquo examines the historical questionsthat inhere in the theatrical encounter itselfMechele Leon explores the disruption of represen-tation in the myth that Moliere died on stage by reading this legend against the theatrical phenom-enon of lsquocorpsingrsquo explored in Nicholas Ridout rsquos

work1 Ridout has a piece immediately followingthis which tracks the ways in which a particularencounter with the theatre of Alvis Hermanis andthe New Riga Theatre opened up for him ques-tions about how the audience lsquoso often a collectionof individuals keen to imagine themselves in somekind of collective or even as a community rsquo 1047297ndsitself instead lsquodivided by the very collective act that is supposed to be the point of its gatheringrsquo(p 188) Suk-Young Kim then offers some usefulperspectives on the management of testimony inrecording trauma before Scott Magelssen closesthe section with a witty and engaging piece onpedagogy noting that the process of learning andteaching is not nor was never lsquoabout a 1047297delity tothe ldquolived past rdquorsquo (p 211)

The 1047297nal section lsquoTheater History rsquos Disciplinersquois perhaps the most explicitly political as it bringsinto visibility our own historical context as theatrescholars and wage-workers in the increasingly neo-liberalised groves of academe Margaret Werry points to the limitations of our inherited Westernparadigms of interpretation rooted as they are intropes of representation James Peck proposes afocused intradisciplinary strategy applying Brecht rsquoslsquonotbut rsquo to a terri1047297c analysis of the gender politicsof Anne Old1047297eldrsquos exclusion from the management

of the Haymarket Theatre in the early 18th

centuryPatricia Ybarra makes a brave and compelling cri-tique of the impact of neoliberal disciplines of labour in the academy excavating the personalintellectual histories of some of the senior scholarsin our 1047297eld in order to historicise the experience of those of us who have arrived later and found that the accelerated cycle of labour time does not neces-sarily serve the labour of making history After apiece from Judith Sebesta and Jessica Sternfeld onproductive relationships between music and theatreHenry Bial closes the volume with a stylish riff onthe lsquoPSrsquo in which we must recognise that lsquo we can

rarely write all we wish torsquo

(p 276) He drawstogether the work of the preceding contributionsand redrafts the relationship between theatre histor-iography and performance studies no longer oppo-sites or rivals but sets of materials strategies andspaces of exchange which enrich our singular 1047297eld

1 See Nicholas Ridout Stage Fright Animals and Other Theatrical Problems (Cambridge and New York CambridgeUniversity Press 2006)

246



This collection does excellent work in setting out markers for the path ahead

copy Sophie Nield

Changed for Good A Feminist History of the Broadway Musical by Stacy Wolf

Oxford and New York Oxford University Press2011 xii + 306 pp ISBN 9780195378245(paperback)

John M ClumDuke University

Where would a feminist history of the Broadway musical begin Perhaps with the 1047297rst great Broadway divas ndash performers like Lillian RussellFannie Brice and Marilyn Miller or perhaps with

a history of the musicalrsquo

s presentation of empow-ered female characters from Hannah Glawary in The Merry Widow (1905) to Elphaba in Wicked (2003)

with a look as well at how performance in a musicalempowers even female characters the script victi-mizes It is a giant subject I begin with this ques-tion because the title of Stacy Wolf rsquos Changed for Good A Feminist History of the Musical is a misno-mer Although Wolf links her discussions of musi-cals to the history of feminism her book is not really a history Like her earlier book A Problem Like Maria Gender and Sexuality in the American Musical Changed for Good is a lesbian reading of

musicals similar to the gay male queerings of themusical contained in works by DA Miller DavidSavran and myself among others The question her

work poses is how the American musical whosenarrative trajectory is heteronormative usually endingin marriage can allow space for lesbian spectatorshipOne way into such a lesbian queering is through thefemale-female duet Though these duets are usually about men they are moments when women singtogether creating lsquoa homosocial or homoeroticchargersquo as lsquothe musicalrsquos attention radically shifts toaccommodate the two women and their song dis-places the heterosexual couplersquo (p 33) Wolf is at her

best in discussing these moments Wolf engages in a decade-by-decade study begin-

ning with Guys and Dolls (1950) and ending withWicked One might argue with 1950 as a startingpoint but Wolf rsquos choice may be a result of the fact that she devoted a great deal of attention to Mary Martin and Ethel Merman ndash two of the divas of thepre-1950 musical ndash in A Problem Like Maria That book focused on performers while Changed for Good attempts to balance text (book score lyrics)

with the physical reality of the performer Wolf chooses a few shows from each decade that epito-mise the roles of women in that period Her interest is particularly in homosocial female relationshipsfrom Sarah and Adelaide in Guys and Dolls toGlinda and Elphaba in Wicked Chapter Twofocuses on single women in musicals of the 1960sand the ways in which song and dance empower theheroine even when the narrative punishes her forher independence Chapter Three looks at theensemble in musicals of the 1960s and 1970sChapter Four casts its lens on the vapid heroinesof 1980s megamusicals and Chapter Five focuseson African-American and Latina women in musicalsof the past twenty years The 1047297nal two chaptersdiscuss aspects of Wicked

I found myself arguing with some of Wolf rsquosassertions For instance in her discussion of Company (1970) the only Stephen Sondheimmusical to engage her attention Wolf assertslsquoThat masculinity is taken for granted means that the men get less to say or sing in the show but themusical displaces its anxiety about heterosexuality onto the women and places them in uncomforta-bly self-destructive rolesrsquo (p 104) I would arguethat in Company the female charactersrsquo show-stop-ping numbers empower them in performance andin almost every scene the women are strongerphysically and intellectually than their husbandsUltimately the women in Company like the her-oines of most musicals know what they want ndashmarriage ndash and get it unlike the central malecharacter who has no idea what he wants until his

eleven-orsquoclock number Nor does Bobby

lsquostateemphatically that he is not homosexualrsquo (p 103)

He admits to having slept with men but triespolitely to evade Peterrsquos proposition

The pedant in me was bothered by someerrors Pipe Dream was not a hit but had theshortest run of any Rodgers and Hammersteinmusical (246 performances compared to 358 for

what Wolf calls the lsquoless successfulrsquo Me and Juliet [p 31]) The quasi-romantic ending of My Fair Lady was sanctioned by Shaw for the end of the1938 1047297lm version of Pygmalion There are noscenes in Hitchcock rsquos Vertigo of lsquomen together in

intense working relationshipsrsquo

(p 29) More cru-cially Wolf mentions lsquothe double plots that appearin many mid-century musicals from Rodgers andHammerstein onrsquo (p 35) but actually the doubleplot was a staple of musicals and operettas through-out the twentieth century (see The Merry Widow for instance)

Structurally a disproportionate amount of spaceis devoted to Wicked which does raise one of themajor issues for a scholar-critic of musical theatre

247



Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men (1988) forexample) It is also striking that two key texts of desire ndash Roland Barthesrsquos A Lover rsquo s Discourse (1978) and Jacques Derridarsquos The Post Card (1987) ndash do not attract attention The collectionis also notable for its focus on theorists and casestudies drawn predominantly from western philoso-phical and artistic traditions Here it would havebeen worth considering even if brie1047298 y the implica-tions of this selection especially in relation to othercultural formations histories and traditions Giventhe admirable historical scope covered by the bookfrom Attic tragedy to one of Caversquos performancesfollowing the release of Dig Lazarus Dig (2008) and the care that many of the authorstake to engage with the historical and cultural spe-ci1047297cities of their chosen cases studies I would have

welcomed a re1047298ection on shifts (or otherwise) in thedeathdesire dynamic that the book implicitly tracks especially as the introduction notes that theessays lsquore1047298ect changing attitudes to sexual desireand deathrsquo (p 10)

Eroticism and Death in Theatre and Performance will be of interest to students and academics inter-ested in the topics artists genres and periods cov-ered by the book Readers may wish though for astronger sense of the collectionrsquos position on rela-tions between eroticism death and theatre andre1047298ection on the theoretical and methodologicalconcerns that inform the book

copy Catherine Silverstone

Theater Historiography Critical Interventions edited by Henry Bial and Scott Magelssen

Ann Arbor University of Michigan Press 2010ix + 302pp ISBN 9780472051335 (paperback)

Sophie Nield Royal Holloway University of London

This timely and intelligent collection of new essayssituates itself in the perceived space between thea-tre historiography and performance studies

Rooted in a sense of disciplinary evolution theuseful introduction from the two editors Henry Bial and Scott Magelssen tracks the emergence of theatre historiography out of a broadly empiricaltheatre history practice Making the importantand appropriately historicising observation that the turn to questions of the writings of historiesas opposed to their material substance chimes withthe emergence into the academy of lsquounhistoriedrsquo

(p 2) communities and voices ndash particularly thoseof women and minority groups ndash the editors note

that lsquobecause the embodied traditions of suchpopulations did not seem to 1047297t the category of ldquotheaterrdquo as conventionally de1047297ned in the Euro-

American tradition a signi1047297cant number of scho-lars chose instead to pursue their research underthe broader heading of ldquoperformancerdquorsquo (p 2)This for Bial and Magelssen seems to have givenrise to a polarised disciplinary context in whichlsquoperformance studies diverged from theater history to the point where the two disciplines often seemto be rivals wielding competing assumptionsterms and methodsrsquo (p 2)

The work then of this volume is twofold The1047297rst agenda is to create a stage on which these twoapparent lsquorivalsrsquo can speak to each other The sec-ond is to expose the ways in which performancestudies and theatre history are already working inadjacent and often complementary ways and thusto point to a potentially shared road ahead The

volume is organised into 1047297 ve sections which speak to and across each other in productive and illumi-nating ways The editors themselves suggest someprovocative chimes between contributions that occurred to them in the curation of the volumeand also invite readers to 1047297nd their own routesthrough and between the essays across the volumeas a whole At the same time the organisations of the sections would seem to suggest for this readera useful route-map through the intellectual terrainof the collection

The 1047297rst sectionlsquoUnearthing the Past rsquo traversesevidential dilemmas and occlusions Beginning withOdai Johnsonrsquos fascinating account of the lsquocurse

tabletsrsquo

buried by slaves labouring under the yokeof Rome the section makes a plea for the lsquopreserva-tion of enchantment rsquo ndash a phrase deployed by EllenMacKay in her essay on unlikely evidence (p 23)Robert Shimkorsquos wonderfully lively piece on

William Davenant rsquos lsquootherrsquo career as a pirate andHeather S Nathanrsquos exploration of the histories of Jewish actors also do far more than simply repre-sent previously undiscovered narratives The point here is to make a case for inventive and creativestrategies of encounter with the historical pastShimkorsquos challenge to allow ourselves to bebeguiled by the lsquoaffective powers of the archiversquo

(p 32) and Nathanrsquos invocation of a de1047297nitively improvisatory historiography infuse these encoun-

ters with energy and excitementThe second section lsquoThe Stakes of

Historiography rsquo picks up on the call of the 1047297rst and grounds the volume in a demand for complex-ity of vision in our relationships with historicalmaterial Branislav Jakovljevicrsquos account of the

ways in which the Theatre of the Absurd lsquo wastransformed from a critical to a historiographicalparadigmrsquo (p 67) allows him to explore how this

245



















246




copy Sophie Nield






















247



















246




copy Sophie Nield






















247




copy Sophie Nield






















247

COntemproary r theare review on Brecht

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Transcript of COntemproary r theare review on Brecht