Text & Presentation 2005

TEXT & PRESENTATION, 2005 ALSO BY STRATOS E. CONSTANTINIDIS MCFARLAND AND FROM Text and Presentation, 2004 (2004)...

Author: Stratos E. Constantinidis

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TEXT & PRESENTATION, 2005

ALSO

BY

STRATOS E. CONSTANTINIDIS MCFARLAND

AND FROM

Text and Presentation, 2004 (2004) Modern Greek Theatre: A Quest for Hellenism (200¡)

TEXT & PRESENTATION, 2005 Edited by Stratos E. Constantinidis

The Comparative Drama Conference Series, 2

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Jefferson, North Carolina, and London

ISSN ¡054-724X / ISBN-¡3: 978-0-7864-2580-8 (softcover : 50# alkaline paper)

©2006 The Executive Board of the Comparative Drama Conference. All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover image ©2005 Clipart.com Manufactured in the United States of America

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Box 6¡¡, Je›erson, North Carolina 28640 www.mcfarlandpub.com

Acknowledgments This issue of Text & Presentation and the 29th Comparative Drama Conference were funded, in part, by the Department of Theatre and the College of Arts, Media, and Communication at California State University– Northridge; the Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts at Loyola Marymount University–Los Angeles; the Department of Greek and Latin, the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, the Department of English, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, the Department of African American and African Studies, and the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures at The Ohio State University. This publication would not have been possible without the commitment and expertise of our editorial board: Marvin Carlson (City University of New York, Graduate Center), William Gruber (Emory University), Harry Elam (Stanford University), William Elwood (Southern Connecticut State University), Les Essif (University of Tennessee–Knoxville), Jan-Lüder Hagens (University of Notre Dame), Karelisa Hartigan (University of Florida), Graley Herren (Xavier University, Cincinnati), William Hutchings (University of Alabama–Birmingham), David Krasner (Yale University), Je›rey Loomis (Northwest Missouri State University), Helen Moritz (Santa Clara University), Jon Rossini (University of California–Davis), Elizabeth Schar›enberger (Columbia University), Tony Sta›ord (University of Texas, El Paso), Ron Vince (McMaster University), Kevin Wetmore (California State University–Northridge), Katerina Zacharia (Loyola Marymount University–Los Angeles). I am also grateful to a significant number of additional specialists who participated in the anonymous review of the many manuscripts submitted to me for publication consideration. I would like to thank our associate editor, Kiki Gounaridou (Smith College), who assisted with the proofreading of this volume, and our book review editor, Verna Foster (Loyola University Chicago) who solicited, edited, and proofread the book reviews. The past editors of Text & Presentation deserve recognition for their contribution in establishing the reputation and standards for this annual publication: Karelisa Hartigan (¡980–¡993), Bill Free (¡993–¡998), and Hanna Roisman (¡998–¡999). v

vi

Acknowledgments

The inclusion of photos in some of the articles of this volume was made possible with the permission of the following copyright owners: Stratos E. Constantinidis for the photograph in the Preface; Christy Siegler and Sarah Warren for the poster in Gregory Reid’s article; Sung Rno and Stephanie Y. Wong for the poster in Kyoung-hye Kwon’s article; Kenneth Elliott for the photograph by George Dudley in his article; Taesok Oh for the photograph in Youngjoo’s article; and T. Charles Erickson for the photograph in Miriam Chirico’s article. Last but not least, I want to thank the Executive Board of the Comparative Drama Conference and the hundreds and hundreds of scholars who presented the results of their research–both creative and analytical–at the Comparative Drama Conference, an annual three-day event which is devoted to all aspects of theatre scholarship.

Contents Acknowledgments Preface

v 1

1. Aristophanes and the Theatre of Burlesque 3 J. Michael Walton 2. The Dramatic Force of Questions in Early Modern 15 Drama Joel Tansey 3. The Globalization of “Riverbed Beggars” 28 John D. Swain 4. Constance Ledbelly’s Birthday: Construction of the Feminist 43 Archetype of the Self in Ann-Marie MacDonald’s Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) Laura Snyder 5. Waking Up with Ka‡rs: The Challenge of Maintaining 56 the Social Fabric in The Iceman Cometh Michael Schwartz 6. A Prolegomenon to Comparative Drama in Canada: 66 In Defense of Binary Studies Gregory J. Reid 7. Olga Taxidou’s Medea: A World Apart in Tbilisi, 81 Georgia, in ¡997 Vassiliki Rapti 8. A Politics of the Heart: The Use of Alienation and Yeats’s 93 The Dreaming of the Bones Patrick Query 9. Tian Han, Western Theatre, and Japan: The Problem with 106 Source-Based and Target-Based Intercultural Models Siyuan Liu vii

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Table of Contents

10. “Improvisation of Local Character”: Representations of Tragedy in the Absence of Theatre Lillis Ó Laoire

119

11. Kimchi and Corn: Asian American Liminality in Sung Rno’s Cleveland Raining Kyounghye Kwon

132

12. “Fair Fierce Women”: From the Rat-Wife and Peg Inerny to Cathleen Ni Houlihan Miglena Ivanova

145

13. Crossover Cross-Dressing: Vampire Lesbians and the Assimilation of Ridiculous Theatre Kenneth Elliott

159

14. Poets and Ghosts Before Breakfast: O’Neill, Keats, and Le Fanu Brian Desmond

169

15. Playing with History in a Private Space in Taesok Oh’s Gynewah Gyrung yee and Apsana Dang yugra Ogeuma Miryora Young joo Choi

183

16. “Metaphors Made Flesh”: Embodying Allegory in Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses Miriam Chirico

195

17. Frank Castorf ’s Vision of America: The Pathology of Cultural Roles in a Mediatized Society Klaus van den Berg

212

18. Samuel Beckett: A Review Essay Anne Marie Drew

223

Review of Literature: Selected Books W. B. Worthen, Shakespeare and the Force of Modern Performance David Bevington

229

Terry Eagleton, Sweet Violence: The Idea of the Tragic Suzanne Gossett

231

Table of Contents

ix

Stephen Greenblatt, Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare Kiki Gounaridou Erroll G. Hill and James V. Hatch, eds., A History of African American Theatre John Rogers Harris Penny Farfan, Women, Modernism, & Performance M. Beth Meszaros Harry J. Elam, Jr. The Past as Present in the Drama of August Wilson N. Graham Nesmith Edith Hall, Fiona Macintosh, and Amanda Wrigley, eds., Dionysus Since 69: Greek Tragedy at the Dawn of the Third Millennium John Thorburn John Conteh-Morgan and Tejumola Olaniyan, eds. African Drama and Performance Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr.

234

Index

251

236

238 241

244

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Preface Text & Presentation is an annual publication devoted to all aspects of theatre scholarship and represents a selection of the best papers presented at the Comparative Drama Conference. For the past 28 years, participants to the Comparative Drama Conference have come from 35 countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Cyprus, Denmark, Egypt, England, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Slovenia, South Africa, Taiwan, Tanzania, Turkey, and the United States of America. This volume of Text & Presentation features seventeen research papers, one review essay, and eight book reviews. The papers included here were among a total of ¡24 research papers which were presented and discussed at the 29th Comparative Drama Conference. The presentations, which were divided into 50 sessions of 75 minutes each, were discussed by ¡39 program participants at The Warner Center Marriott, Woodland Hills, in Los Angeles, California, during a three-day period, March 3¡–April 2, 2005. The four concurrent sessions per day were complemented by three plenary sessions and a show. The keynote address, “Athens in Tokyo: Adaptations of Greek Drama in Postwar Japan,” was given by Professor J. Thomas Rimer (University of Pittsburgh) on April ¡. Professor Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei (University of California — Los Angeles) and Professor John Russell Brown (Middlesex University) responded to the keynote address. The second plenary session — A Conversation with Taesok Oh — was a roundtable-talkback. It was moderated by Professor John Russell Brown (Middlesex University) on April ¡. The respondent was Professor Robert Graves (University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana). The translator for Taesok Oh was Ah-jeong Kim (California State University — Northridge). The final plenary session, Author-Meets-Critic, on April 2 was devoted to the discussion of one of the books (The Stage Life of Props) that was reviewed in Text &Presentation, 2004 (pp. 2¡9–22¡). Its author, Andrew Sofer (Boston College), discussed his book with the following critics: Professor Michael Zampelli S. J. (Santa Clara University) and Colleen Lanki (University of British Columbia). 1

2

Preface

The show, Taesok Oh’s Why Did Shim Ch’ong Plunge into the Indang Sea Twice? was performed by the Mokwha Repertory Company of South Korea in the Studio Theatre of Nordho› Hall at the California State University–Northridge on March 3¡. In addition, staged readings of three new plays were presented by their authors with a cast drawn from conference attendees. For the next ten years, Los Angeles will be the new home of the Comparative Drama Conference under the most able and inspiring direction of Professor Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr. (Figure ¡), and Professor Katerina Zacharia. The Executive Board welcomes research papers presenting original investigation on, and critical analysis of, research and developments in the field of drama and theatre. Papers may be comparative across disciplines, periods, or nationalities, may deal with any issue in dramatic theory and criticism, or any method of historiography, translation, or production. Text & Presentation is edited by scholars appointed by the Executive Board of the Comparative Drama Conference, of which it is the o‡cial publication. Text & Presentation is indexed in the MLA International Bibliography. Stratos E. Constantinidis January 2006

Professor Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr., the new Director of the Comparative Drama Conference, welcomes the participants of the 29th Comparative Drama Conference at the Warner Center Marriott and California State University– Northridge during Session No. 32 (plenary) in Los Angeles, California, on April ¡, 2005

¡ Aristophanes and the Theatre of Burlesque J. Michael Walton Abstract This paper proposes that the very di›erent British and American forms of “burlesque” o›er complementary aspects of the spirit of Aristophanic comedy within English-speaking theatre — American bawdy in the twentieth century contributing a dimension that Victorian propriety made impossible in England in the nineteenth. The main body of the article considers two Extravaganzas by the immensely popular English nineteenth-century dramatist, James Robinson Planché. These two comedies, The Golden Fleece; or Jason in Colchis and Medea in Corinth and “The Birds” of Aristophanes, were performed in London in the successive Easter seasons of ¡845 and ¡846. They were initially inspired by the Potsdam production of Sophocles’s Antigone by Ludwig Tieck, with music by Mendelssohn, which had eventually reached Covent Garden in January, ¡845. The first Planché piece contains in its second half a direct parody of Euripides’s Medea. The second, even in its expurgated form, can be claimed as the first translation of any Aristophanes play to be seen on the English-speaking public stage.

The comparatively recent renewal of interest in plays on classical themes within the repertoire of the English-speaking theatre of the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (see in particular, Hall and Macintosh, 2005), has, unsurprisingly, concentrated on tragedy. Aristophanes, for reasons both scatalogical and parochial, has remained largely out of the loop; Menander, more so, because not a single whole play survived until the unexpected publication of the Bodmer manuscripts of Duskolos in ¡957 and Samia in ¡969. Translations of Aristophanes can be traced back to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as we shall see, but for the most part the texts were bowdlerized to the point of misrepresentation. Nor, so extraordinarily comprehensive was Aristophanes’s dramatic method, were there any obvious heirs to the comedian. The strongest claim to the mantle belongs, perhaps, to Vladimir Mayakovsky, whose series of “circus” plays after the Bolshevik Rev3

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Text & Presentation, 2005

olution of ¡9¡7, and “speculative-fiction” comedies such as The Bedbug (¡929) and the Bathhouse (¡930), created a similar cocktail of the fantastic, the farcical, and the fiercely political.¡ There is, however, one playwright who, within the strictures of taste imposed by his time, demonstrated similar ambition to, and was directly influenced by, the Greek comic playwright. This is James Robinson Planché whose Aristophanic “burlesques” are the subject of this article. “Burlesque” may seem an uncomfortable term to describe Greek Old Comedy, if only because it will conjure di›erent forms of entertainment, according to whether the reader’s background is in the theatrical styles of America or of Great Britain. My contention, however, will be that, di›erent as those two forms of “burlesque” may be, they o›er complementary dimensions of the Aristophanic, and tie both English and American traditions into the earliest translations of Aristophanes in the English language. American burlesque brings to mind low comedians and strippers where, in the words of Douglas Gilbert, “the height of humor centered about the apertures of the human body” (5). Martin Collyer’s history of the subject makes no attempt to pretend that burlesque in America was sociologically anything much more than that (4). He does point to a kind of distinctive rapport with the audience that suggests less the sleaze of a Soho or Las Vegas strip-club than the kind of joie-de-vivre to be found in William Friedkin’s ¡968 film, The Night They Raided Minsky’s. The burlesque stage was also, of course, where the likes of Red Skelton, Abbott and Costello, Bert Lahr (who starred in Minsky’s with Jason Robards, Jr., and Britt Eckland), Sophie Tucker, Phil Silvers, and Lenny Bruce learned their trade, and where the skills of “First Banana” were earthbound and formulaic in their requirements. Collyer does maintain that “Burlesque can be claimed as any comment made broadly, satirically, mockingly, but consistently retaining an underlying truth” (4). In the stage burlesque he found not only satire and parody but also a self-awareness which depends on what I might describe as “a contract of unreality” between audience and performers. Such can certainly be found in every aspect of Greek Old Comedy, as it has come down to us. For those who might agree with Collyer that burlesque reflected “the American male’s sexual uncertainty of himself ” (4), there is no denying something similar in the more obviously “drag” plays of Aristophanes, especially Thesmophoriazousai and Ekklêsiazousai (the best translation of which might be Women in Control). Though it may be less easy today to admit this than to discuss Aristophanes’s enthusiasm for bodily functions, there is a kind of hard-headed innocence in a show that only exploits those who, performers or punters, are willing to acknowledge the exploitation, and which makes no attempt to cover up or glamorize its own social subtext (see also Schwartz 84–97).

¡. Aristophanes and the Theatre of Burlesque ( J. Michael Walton)

5

English burlesque, by contrast, was born in the newly legitimate theatre of the Restoration with its female actors, and had its heyday in the eighteenth, and especially the nineteenth, century as parodies of serious plays. Edith Hall published a survey of burlesques of classical mythology in Victorian popular theatre (Hall ¡999:336–366). Fiona Macintosh investigated the incidence of burlesque versions of Medea in the light of the social history of Victorian England; two of which, Robert Brough’s Medea, or The Best of Mothers, with a Brute of a Husband and Mark Lemon’s Medea; or a Libel on the Lady from Colchis, opened on the same day in rival London theatres in ¡856 (Hall and Macintosh 2000:75–99). Eleven years earlier James Robinson Planché had written and staged his extravaganza on the story of Jason and Medea. “Call it what you will, it is undeniably burlesque,” he wrote in his Preface (8): he also happens to be the first to have brought Aristophanes to the British stage. It is these two plays of his, The Golden Fleece: or Jason in Corinth and Medea in Colchis, and “The Birds” of Aristophanes, on which I now want to concentrate. The Golden Fleece was first performed at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, London, in March, ¡845. It is in two parts, the second of which keeps closely to the shape of Euripides’s Medea, though omitting the murder of the children and thus removing the need for Aegeus. Planché’s “The Birds” of Aristophanes, was also performed at the Haymarket, just over a year after The Golden Fleece. This is a short and unsurprisingly sanitized version of Aristophanes Birds which had first been performed in Athens in 4¡4 BC, but Planché concludes with a transformation scene to Olympus, and the intervention of Jupiter to restore “conventional” morality. The Harvard Birds of ¡883 was claimed in the program as the first production of an Aristophanes comedy since classical times. The originality of Planché, however, both here and in his Theseus and Ariadne or The Marriage of Bacchus (225–260) is to parody both classical tragedy and comedy, in a manner which at least replicates, perhaps reconstructs, Greek Old Comedy within a Victorian context. The linking of the Planché plays has added significance. The first translation of Aristophanes into English is usually identified as by Thomas Randolph of the Wealth (Plutus), published in ¡65¡ as Hey for Honesty, Down with Knavery. This is a pretty free use of the term “translation” (see Walton 2006: ch. 2). Subsequent translations of Clouds by Thomas Stanley (¡655) and Wealth by Henry Burnell (¡659) have a better claim, but there was no Birds until ¡8¡2, published in a translation attributed somewhat defensively to “A Member of One of the Universities.” There were further published translations of Birds by the Rev. Henry Cary (¡824); John Warter (¡830); Charles Wheelwright (¡837); and John Hookham Frere (¡839). None of

6


these had any expectations of performance; nor, indeed, in the prevailing morality of Victorian England, any likelihood of being translated, much less published, in their entirety. The latest, that by the Right Honourable John Hookham Frere, holds a special position in the history of English literature. Frere was an Etonian who founded a satirical magazine called The Antijacobin and wrote a number of literary parodies and burlesques. His career in the Foreign O‡ce was short-lived and his time in the Diplomatic Service regarded as not diplomatic enough, despite his high connections. He was not yet fifty when he retired to the island of Malta with his wife and devoted some of his life to translating Aristophanes, principally because he was unsatisfied with earlier translations. In a review of Thomas Mitchell’s translations published in the Quarterly Review in ¡820, Frere criticised Mitchell for using old-fashioned language such as might be found, not in a nineteenth-century comedy, but “in the style of our ancient comedy in the beginning of the sixteenth century.”2 Frere’s own translation of Birds was published in Malta, for private circulation in ¡839, and subsequently with three other plays (Acharnians, Knights and Frogs) in ¡840, an edition so popular it was frequently reprinted in The World’s Classics series in the twentieth century. Such was the Aristophanic literary legacy inherited by Planché in ¡845 resulting in his publication the following year of: The “Birds” of Aristophanes. A dramatic experiment in one act, “Being an Humble Attempt to Adapt the said ‘Birds’ to this Climate, by giving them New Names, New Feathers, New Songs, and New Tales.”3

So, here is my context. Centuries of neglect of Aristophanes because, Wealth apart, he was regarded as unsuitable in the classroom, too parochial and obscene: no play of his, including Wealth, that could be regarded as suitable for any stage, especially the British stage bedeviled by a censorship that would keep rude words to do with bodily functions away from the sensitive ears of the theatre-going public until as late as ¡968 (see Findlater, ¡967 passim). But, in the nineteenth century, the vogue for the works of the classical authors, including the dramatists, found itself matched by an enthusiasm for stage parody, and the farcical treatment of subjects that elsewhere might be given serious consideration. Such was the demand for new material that novels and dramas, even police and newspaper reports, might find themselves staged for a public that had been forced, largely by law, into a diet of revue and musical pastiche. The celebrated production of Sophocles’s Antigone with music by Mendelssohn reached Covent Garden via Potsdam, Berlin and Paris on 2 January ¡845.4 By February E.L. Blanchard’s burlesque version of Antigone


7

was already playing down the street at the Strand Theatre; and at Easter, Planché’s The Golden Fleece or Jason in Colchis and Medea in Corinth opened at the Haymarket; the following Easter, and April, ¡846, saw the first night of Planché’s “The Birds” of Aristophanes. In the frontispiece of the published text of The Golden Fleece Planché invoked the serious Antigone as the reason for his interest in the Greeks: I could not resist the temptation to burlesque [my italics]— not the sublime poetry of the Greek dramatist [in Planché’s case Euripides and Medea rather than Sophocles and Antigone], I should have deemed it profanation — but the modus operandi of that classical period, which really illustrates the old proverbial observation that there is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous [7].

The relationship between original and parody does seem to contain something of that between ancient Greek tragedy and Greek satyr play, which the scarcity of satyr material must relegate to conjecture. What we do know is that the ancient satyr-play was anchored in mythology, whereas the ‘burlesque’ of Aristophanes might include parody of living individuals who were sitting in the audience; or of recent productions, Euripides’s Helen, for example, in Aristophanes’s Thesmophoriazousai. Planché actually invokes the Potsdam Antigone when Medea complains of Jason: He leaves me to darn his stockings, and mope in the house all day Whilst he treats her to see “Antigone,” with a box at the Grecian play [30].

The Euripidean plot remains mostly untouched: MEDEA: Does Glauce spurn my gifts? NURSE: Oh would she had —

She took ’em in, as you have her. I’m glad To hear it. Tell me all, how do they fit her? NURSE: Fit her! She’s frying in them like a fritter. MEDEA: She stole my flame, and now in flames she lingers, And with my wedding ring she’s burnt her fingers The tyrant Creon, too, does he not frizzle?.... Enter JASON JASON: How now? What more of ill Has Jason now to dread? The King’s a cinder; My match is broken o›— my bride is tinder; And I am left, a poor unhappy spark, To go out miserably in the dark [39]. MEDEA:

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The first part of the play is inspired by the “third and fourth books of ‘The Argonautics,’ a poem by the late Apollonius Rhodius, Esq.,” and relies heavily on anachronism and pun. Choruses have a musical form similar to what might be expected in an English Pantomime, or even one of the Savoy operettas of the latter part of the nineteenth century. W. S. Gilbert consistently parodied the dramatic styles of the time, notably in Patience, The Yeomen of the Guard, and Ruddigore, the supreme parody of Gothic melodrama. Planché o›ers plenty of songs, with titles such as “John Anderson” (sung by Medea), “The Tight Little Island” (The Chorus), and a Posthorn Gallop by the whole company for the finale. As in English pantomime, the principal boy and principal girl were both played by women, Madame Vestris as Medea, and Miss P. Horton as Jason. The following year Horton would appear as the Nightingale in “The Birds” of Aristophanes. Amongst Planché’s macaronics, the following o›er some flavour of the piece and the author’s gift for outrageous rhymes: AIR — JASON:

I am as brisk and lively lad As ever sailed the seas on Cretheus was old Aeson’s dad, And I’m the son of Aeson With a yeo, yeo, yeo, yeo etc. A martyr to rheumatic gout. A feeble king was he, sir; So uncle Pelias kicked him out, And packed me o› to sea, sir. With a yeo, etc. [¡4]. Enter MEDEA JASON: Gods! A goddess sure I gaze on. AEETES: My daughter, sir, Medea, Mr Jason!.... MEDEA: (aside) O Jason, thy face on I wish I ne’er had looked, sir! So spicy and nice he Is — I’m completely hooked, sir! His glance like a lance, Right through my heart he throws, O! Enraptured! I’m captured By that fine Grecian nose, O! [¡6]. JASON: My dear Medea! O Medea, my dear! How shall I make my gratitude appear? If I succeed I swear to Greece I’ll carry you, And there, as sure as you’re alive, I’ll marry you. MEDEA: Enough; I take your word, and you my casket. My heart was Jason’s ere he came to ask it. But, oh, beware! I give you early warning.


OFFICER: AEETES: OFFICER: AEETES: OFFICER: AEETES:

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If, your pledged faith and my fond passion scorning, You with another venture to philander, To the infernal regions o› I’ll hand her, And lead you such a life as on my word will Make e’en the cream of Tartarus to curdle. (20) My lips refuse Almost, O King, to tell the horrid tale. My heir apparent. Dead as a doornail. Say in what manner hath his spirit fled? The fist of Jason punched his royal head.... That fatal punch — I feel it in my noddle. And down to Pluto I but ask to toddle [27].

The second half of The Golden Fleece follows closely the Medea of Euripides — up to a point. The Chorus introduces the play with a useful exposition which tells the audience: The King of this state is called Creon. By the way, no relation to him you may see on The throne of old Thebes, the car[d] celebrated By Antigone check’d and Eurydice mated; No, this is another guess [sic] sort of a person Whose daughter, fair Glauce’s, a girl to write verse on [28].

The Nurse (“Psuche, a good old soul”) enters with: Oh, that the hull of that fifty-oared cutter, the Argo, Between the Symplegades, never had passed with its cargo. Indeed, I may say that I wish, upon Pelion, the pine trees Of which it was built had remained, as they were, very fine trees; [28].

Give or take the doggerel, these lines from the Nurse are actually an accurate translation of the opening lines in Euripides, not the only such passages in the play. Much of the structure follows Euripides closely. Medea is first heard lamenting o›-stage; the Chorus are sympathetic; Creon arrives (“You are a dab, I know at hocus pocus/But o› this point you’ll find it hard to choke us”); she begs a day’s leave before exile with the children which he grants (“Well, for their sakes I’ll grant that brief delay,/You can’t much mischief make in one short day”); the first scene with Jason is recognizably close parody of the original; Aegeus is cut, and the play moves rapidly to the dispatching of Glauce with the poisoned robe; the children return and exit with Medea into the house as she goes o› to “flog” (rather than kill) them.

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Jason returns, and Medea appears above “in a chariot drawn by two fiery dragons.” Euripides finally retreats in disarray as Medea reveals that the boys are alive, but she is going to send them to a Greek Grammar School. She then entrusts herself to the mercy of the audience. And the Chorus sing the final number: O› she goes, sir — o› she goes, sir! Highty-tighty! Highty-tighty! Goodness knows, sir, all her woes, sir, Made her flighty, made her flighty [4¡].

The distance to be traveled to Aristophanes and The Birds might not seem great. To Planché’s credit his Birds is su‡ciently close to the Aristophanes for it to be included as a “translation” rather than as a “version” in the listing of all the translations of Greek plays into English (Walton 2006 Appendix), but, if it qualifies as a translation it does so only just, and by virtue of the comparatively serious approach the playwright takes. In the Preface to the first edition of “The Birds” of Aristophanes Planché claimed it as: a humble attempt to imitate or paraphrase (but not burlesque [my italics] or travesty) such portions of the Comedy of “The Birds” as were capable of being adapted to local and recent circumstances ... “an experiment” ... undertaken with the view of ascertaining how far the theatrical public would be willing to receive a higher class of entertainment than the modern Extravaganzas of the English stage, or the “Revue” of the French [7].

There is a much reduced cast. The two central characters change their names, for no discernible reason, from Peisetairos and Euelpides (“Persuader” and “Optimist”) to Jackanoxides and Tomostyleseron. The plot follows the simple line of Aristophanes with two discontented Athenians looking for somewhere new to live, again introduced by an expository Chorus: Enter JACKANOXIDES and TOMOSTYLESERON following a RAVEN and a MAGPIE. CHORUS [not of BIRDS]: Now to begin — two citizens are these Of— we’ll say — any town, in short, you please, Who, being discontented with their station, As people may be found in every nation, Seek from the sovereign of the birds to know Where, for the better, they had best to go. The rest, in their words, they will make plain,


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If not, the birds I’ll cut, and come again! [88].

They meet the King of the Birds: TOMOSTYLESERON: What sort of life is it among the birds? KING [of the Birds]: Why, much like that which you desire to lead; They neither pay for water nor for seed; Do little work except make their own beds; With politics have never plagued their heads; With fashionable tailors run no scores; Have no tax-gatherers knocking at their doors; Bet on no races — dabble in no stocks; Need not a carriage, nor an opera-box;.... Sometimes a rival in a passion flies out, And pecks, occasionally, a friend’s eyes out. But barring little accidents like those, Nothing can be more peaceful, heaven knows! [90].

They agree, as in the original, to create a new city of Birds. Much of the talk is of caviare, the Times, Easter, balloons, the Houses of Parliament, Tories and Whigs, and a torturedly rhymed, but prescient, sentiment for ¡845 from the Chorus in a parabasis: CHORUS: Good sensible folks, if there be any here,

Inclined at these classical fancies to sneer, Be just, if not generous.... Why should not the fowls in the air build a palace, When there’s hope of a submarine railway to Calais? In the days of Queen Bess, did our forefathers dream Of the glories of gas, and the marvels of steam? And if an Utopia man could secure, In Harmony birds would beat Owen, I’m sure5 [98].

There are references to Pindar as well as to Shakespeare, and as many jokes about birds (and as feeble) as in Aristophanes. If, in his updating, Planché might seem to show less respect for Aristophanes than he had for Euripides the parodos of the Chorus ends as in the Greek: Toro, toro, toro, tinx Kickabau, kickabau Toro, toro, toro, loli, lolix,

to which the playwright appends the footnote: “As any translation of the above might weaken the force and beauty of the original, it has been thought

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advisable to request the Chorus to sing it in Greek,” a principle to which Mitchell and most later translators have subscribed (though not Hookham Frere). The big change occurs at the end when the King of the Birds challenges Jackanoxides (Peisetairos) and then reveals himself as Zeus, or rather Jupiter. After a sudden transformation scene to Olympus, complete with its twelve Olympians, Jupiter o›ers a moral and political warning against any who might dare to challenge the authority of the gods: KING: Why, then, change the life they led that nature by? JACKANOXIDES: Because I thought them born for better things. KING: You thought! Vain fool, know Jove, who gave them wings,

JACK: KING:

JACK:

COCK: JUPITER:

Put, in his wisdom, limits to their flight;.... Think you he gave to man the power of reason To stir inferior beings up to treason? To snatch from out his hand the regal rod, And make each goose believe itself a god? Or gave to godlike man that reason’s use, That he with wings should make himself a goose? Hollo! How dare you talk this way to me, King of the Birds although you chance to be? Peace, worm!— The King of gods and men behold! (changes to Jupiter) The scene at the same time changes and discovers OLYMPUS, with the principle DEITIES enthroned. (falls on his knees) Jupiter’s self! By Jupiter, I’m sold! Oh, Tomostyleseron — where, where are you now? A large COCKATOO appears at the wing. Merciful powers, can this be — (in a melancholy tone) Cockatoo! Observe, ye deities, these desperate fools, Who fain would rise and push us from our stools. These brittle things — these images of clay; Poor shadowy shapes -mere creatures of a day. Who, born to trouble, would from trouble fly, Yet know not how, unless they scale the sky; [¡07].

Whether or not this bizarre restoration of pagan orthodoxy is in the spirit of Athens, or of Victorian London, can be argued. What we do have in Planché, I would maintain, Harvard and the vulgarity of American burlesque notwithstanding, is the first genuine attempt to find and renew the spirit of Aristophanes onstage since, at the latest, the fourth century B.C. Though tempered by the restraints of Victorian propriety, Planché o›ered a genuine farrago of comic verse, contemporary politics and theology, satire, and sheer nonsense which are the hallmark mark of English burlesque. Tie


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that into the boisterous vulgarity of the American burlesque-house with its low comedians, its under-dressed girls, and its innuendo, and you have a fair replication of the ingredients that made Aristophanes in his own time such a rare and unrepeatable dish. UNIVERSITY OF HULL

Notes 1. The Russian Issue of The Drama Review (T-57) o›ers both the context and examples of Mayakovsky’s “circus” plays. These are not in included in Daniels, ¡968. 2. Frere wrote the review of Thomas Mitchell’s “A Translation of the Comedies of Aristophanes” in The Quarterly Review under the bye-line of “W” [short for Whistlecraft, his nom-de-plume]. Though it has been suggested that Mitchell might be the anonymous “Member of One of the Universities” responsible for the ¡8¡2 Birds, the style of his acknowledged translations suggests otherwise. 3. The “Birds” of Aristophanes. A dramatic experiment in one act, ‘Being an Humble Attempt to Adapt the said “Birds” to this Climate, by giving them New Names, New Feathers, New Songs, and New Tales’ [sic] by James Robinson Planché, was originally published in London by G. S. Fairbrother and W. Strange in ¡846. It was reprinted in James Robinson Lacy’s Acting Edition, Vol. 20 (¡864), with a number of revisions from the first edition. The versions referred to here are as printed in the Samuel French edition of ¡879. 4. A full account of this production and the Greek revival in general can be found in Hall and Macintosh (2005), esp. chapter ¡2. 5. The philanthropist Robert Owen established a “settlement” in New Harmony, Indiana, in ¡824. He persuaded his five children to go and live there, and then returned to Britain himself to live Newtown in Wales.

References Cited Aristophanes Comedies. Translated into English (Clouds translated by Richard Cumberland, ¡786/¡797, Plutus by Henry Fielding and William Young, ¡742, Frogs by Charles Dunster, ¡785, Birds by “A Member of One of the Universities”). London: A.J. Valpy for Lackington, Allen & Co., ¡8¡2. Collyer, Martin. Burlesque. New York: Lancer Books, ¡964. Daniels, Guy, trans. The Complete Plays of Mayakovsky. New York: Washington Square Press, Inc. ¡968. Findlater, Richard. Banned! A Review of Theatrical Censorship in Britain. London: MacGibbon & Kee, ¡967. Frere, John Hookham, trans. Aristophanes: Frogs, Acharnians, Knights, Birds. Malta: The Government Press, ¡839; Acharnians, Knights and Birds. London: William Pickering, ¡840. Gilbert, Douglas, American Vaudeville. New York: Dover Books, ¡940.

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Hall, Edith. “Classical Mythology in the Victorian Popular Theatre.” International Journal of the Classical Tradition, Winter (¡999): 336–366. Hall, Edith, Fiona Macintosh and Oliver Taplin, eds. Medea in Performance ¡500–2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Hall, Edith and Fiona Macintosh, eds. Greek Tragedy and the British Theatre ¡660–¡9¡4. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Macintosh, Fiona. “Medea Transposed: Burlesque and Gender on the Mid-Victorian Stage.” In eds. Hall, Macintosh and Taplin. Medea in Performance ¡500–2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Planché, James Robinson. The Extravaganzas of J.R. Planché, Vol. III. Including The Golden Fleece or Jason in Colchis and Medea in Corinth, 5–42, “The Birds” of Aristophanet, 79–¡08, and Theseus & Ariadne; or The Marriage of Bacchus, 223– 260. London: Samuel French, ¡879. Randolph, Thomas. Hey for Honesty, Down with Knavery. Translated out of Aristophanes, his Plutus. London: F.J. [F. Jaques), ¡65¡. Schwartz, Michael. “Spectacles in Terpsichorean Disrobing: Antecedents and Ideologies of the Striptease,” in ed. Stratos E. Constantinidis, Text and Presentation, 2004. Je›erson, N. Carolina and London: McFarland &Company Inc. (2004), 84–97. The Drama Review (Russian Issue). Vol. ¡7, no. ¡ (T-57), March, ¡973. “W” [short for Whistlecraft, Frere’s nom-de-plume]. A review of Thomas Mitchell’s A Translation of the Comedies of Aristophanes. The Quarterly Review, Vol. XXIII, July, ¡820; reprinted in The Plays of Aristophanes, Vol. 2. London, J.M. Dent & Sons, ¡9¡¡, vii-xlii. Walton, J. Michael. Found in Translation: Greek Drama in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2006.

2 The Dramatic Force of Questions in Early Modern Drama Joel Tansey Abstract This essay proposes a method for analyzing questions in drama. Any question has two dimensions: knowledge (Who knows what, when, and how much?) and power (Who asks and who is obligated to respond?). When a question is not answered, we get an imbalance of knowledge among those present, which leads to dramatic irony, as well as to an instability of power, which, in turn, leads to dramatic conflict. Much can be learned about a genre, institution, or epoch by looking at what is put into question and how the questions are put. The Renaissance, with its explorations, skepticism, and rhetoric of invention, fostered the dramatic and dialogic genres to which the act of questioning is native. Various interrogative practices such as those of catechism, inquisition, and scholasticism coexisted, and when adapted to the stage, served to enrich dramatic irony, dramatic conflict, and metatheatre.

It is not surprising that questions should occur with great frequency in a dialogic genre like drama. Early modern sources recognize questions as explicit markers of high emotion, su›ering, disbelief, surprise, or wonder.¡ Short questions and answers serve to perturb and quicken the pace of a line. Questions create suspense as they activate our expectation of response. Questions are a means to plausibly motivate a messenger speech or soliloquy. Insofar as questions imply the presence of an interlocutor, they serve to verify the illusion of presence, of here-and-now-ness, in theatre. The interactivity of question and answer helps give substance and credibility to a spirit on stage: Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus conjures up Mephistopheles with “Quid tu moraris?” (What are you waiting for?) (¡.3.20), or asks of a devil’s apparition, “What sight is this?” (2.¡.¡46), or interrogates the seven deadly sins with “What art thou?” (2.2.¡¡4 ›.). 15

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However, there is a more subtle dynamic latent in questions that has to do with the status of their answers, and it acts as an important motor of drama. A direct question typically does two things at once: like a subjunctive, it brings some degree of uncertainty into play, while simultaneously, like an imperative, it creates the obligation to respond.2 What we have in any question is, on the one hand, an epistemological dimension (who knows what, how much, and when they know it — characters or audience). On the other, we have a social dimension (who is present, who asks and imposes the obligation to respond, and who is asked). Generally speaking, a questioner is in a weak position in that s/he admits uncertainty or a need for corroboration, yet at the same time s/he compensates by imposing an obligation upon another to answer. The questionee is in a weak position in that s/he is under obligation, yet has the power to decide what sort of reply to give, if any at all. This balancing of knowledge and power among interlocutors that is implicit in a question may, however, change according to context. Take a question “Where is the Louvre?” asked by a tourist and answered by a native. There is a balance among equals: the native knew, the tourist didn’t, but now answered knows since the native honored his obligation. However, put the same question on an exam, and the teacher is in doubly strong position: he knows the answer and he obligates a response. The student, lower in rank, might not know the answer, and is thus in a doubly weak position. Their social rank and institutional roles are unequal, and this tips the power/knowledge balances of the question. A question then, depending on context, will suggest a certain distribution — along sliding scales — of greater or lesser knowledge and power among those present. We get an imbalance in this knowledge and instability in this power when a question is not su‡ciently answered. In theatre this imbalance will produce dramatic irony and this instability, dramatic conflict. Moreover, when a question remains unanswered, an opportunity opens up where a director or actor can supply an alternative response in movement or gesture, or where the audience may, as in a rhetorical question, be invited to reply in silence. The question left unanswered on stage opens a gap for metatheatre insofar as it acknowledges the presence of the audience and o›ers an opening for response. Take for instance the closing lines of La Celestina where Pleberio laments: Why did you not allow me to save you? Why had you no pity for your well loved mother? Why such cruelty for your aged father? Why did you forsake me, knowing I had to leave you soon? Why did you a·ict me and leave me sad and alone in this vale of tears? [Rojas ¡62].

2. The Dramatic Force of Questions in Early Modern Drama ( Joel Tansey)

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The unanswered questions end the play on unstable ground when the audience is meant to feel the turbulence of Pleberio’s emotions. These moments can be very charged; nowhere in theatre is this kind of opening more feared and savored than when a suspended question on stage is answered aloud by a wag in the gallery. Just as certain kinds of questions and answers function in a genre such as theatre, so certain kinds of questioning function in a given time and place in certain practices and institutions. Take just three examples of such recognized styles of questioning in the early modern period: catechism, inquisition, and scholasticism. In catechism, with great frequency, a doctrinal assertion is matched to a question so as to preclude any other answer, for instance “Who made me? God made me.” In inquisition, the question is framed so as to contain a presupposition that will trap the accused into inadvertent confession. A manual for inquisitors revised in the sixteenth century advises: “Do not ask ‘Did you kill so-and-so?’ but rather ‘What did you do?’ ... The accused must be ignorant of the specific nature of the charge against him” (Eymerich ¡23). If the accused answers the question, s/he admits to doing something and thus inculpates him/herself by accepting the presupposition. The alternative is to refuse su‡cient answer to the authority which is also undesirable. If the accused did nothing, s/he risks fabricating a lie. In either case s/he risks punishment. The accused is doubly weak because the inquisitor, doubly strong, both knows the accusations and holds the power to punish. The degree to which the inquisitorial and judicial style of interrogation was recognized in the early modern period might well be measured by the widespread use of the word “question” as synonym of “torture.” In his manual of argumentation, the Dialectique of ¡555, Petrus Ramus includes among the figures of speech the following definition: “Question is when, by torture and force, some confession is extorted” (Ramée 97). In this enigmatic definition, Ramus (perhaps, as a Protestant, using irony here) puts emphasis on the power of a question to get an answer in the form of testimony against oneself, and in this he reflects the concern of the inquisition and the catechism to use questions to guide the interlocutor into answering in a specific way. The methods of the scholastic disputation, by contrast, are more open, their argument by contradiction more critical, and the interlocutors more equal, but they nevertheless are structured to arrive at a final and single answer, typically indirect, impersonal, passive, and binary: e.g. “Whether God exists?”3 The pragmatics, or speech context, are suppressed and made neutral, as befits their content which is typically concerned with the universal, static, and eternal, and not with the particular or the here-and-now.

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What all three institutions strive for is to use a question to get an answer that will stabilize and verify knowledge; they want the question to be converted and narrowed into a single assertion. However, at the same time in early modern Europe, a more open-ended kind of questioning is developing among the humanists that evades assertion, calls for multiple answers, or defies response. Erasmus says, playing on Luther’s title, “[I am far] from delighting in ‘assertions’” (Erasmus 37). At a very practical level, the use of questions is a means to avoid making assertions that inquisitors or Luthers might take for heresy; indeed, the interrogative genres of dialogue and theatre, much prized by the humanists, give some shelter to them, and permit them to disseminate ideas without asserting them. For the rhetoricians of the period, the rediscovery of ancient topical rhetoric leads to a new interest in the use of questions.4 For the skeptics, the open question is a vehicle to resist answer and thereby to suggest that knowledge is impossible; take for example the opening line of Bacon’s Essays: “What is truth? said jesting Pilate and would not stay for an answer” (Bacon 7¡). For adherents of the ideal of the docta ignorantia (learned ignorance), the act of questioning, as an admission of uncertainty, is the first step toward knowledge of the world through its many particulars, and, to this end, they exploit the here-and-now pragmatics that are implicit in interrogative expression. Take for instance a handful of famous questions from the period: Montaigne’s motto “What do I know?” (59¡), Sanches’s signature closing “What?” (¡72, 290), and Alberti’s “What next?” ( Jarzombek 63); all of them alike call for multiple answers rather than imposing one, and engage with the world around them. As against the universalizing, impersonal, indirect, adversarial, or assertive styles of catechism, inquisition, or scholasticism, this open kind of questioning is deliberately and conspicuously used in humanist literature. Early in the Book of the Courtier, the company decides to proceed in the scholastic manner by contradicting one another, but, as they dispute about physical training, Gonzaga decides to change the method of discussion: But if I kept silent, I should neither be exercising the privilege I have of speaking nor satisfying the desire I have learning something. And I may be pardoned if I ask a question when I ought to be speaking in opposition ... [since] ... Messer Bernardo ... has violated the laws of our game by asking instead of gainsaying. [Castiglione 39–40]

In this passage, Gonzaga abandons the disembodied scholastic style and moves the discussion into the more open question of how the body might be trained, thereby exploiting the interrogative pragmatics of here-and-now to match the topic of discussion, the human body.5 Like Bacon’s new phi-


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losophy and Faustus’s craving to interact with the world, these open questions clear the way for scientific, experimental method as they exploit the pragmatics of questions to highlight the here-and-now. However, it is to be remembered that not all humanists sought to reject the scholastic method, nor that all rejecters of the method were humanists, the case of Luther in point: he condemns the theologians who “generate endless questions, the one rising from the other.... They beget as their o›spring another question. That is, they produce one doubt after another” (Luther ¡973:223). Moreover, Luther assails Erasmus for his dislike of “assertions” by replying, “Take away assertions and you take away Christianity” (Luther ¡972:2¡). Ironically, Luther says this just before launching a series of doubt-inducing, rhetorical questions that accuse Erasmus of skepticism. There are cross-currents in this interrogative activity of the period indeed, but this serves as evidence that people, no matter their persuasions, were aware of the significance of the act of questioning. Keeping these styles of questioning in mind as we read early modern plays, we will get a rich layering of ironies and conflicts where our expectations are upset, the question does not get answered, the accused interrogates the judge, the scholar is proven ignorant, or the humanist, inhuman. Authority is reversed; the power and knowledge relationships are disrupted. Like the humanistic interrogatives that outmaneuver institutional questioning, dramatic questioning thrives where the answer is deferred or multiplies, power is destabilized, and knowledge comes from experience rather than inference. The following excerpts from early modern plays will serve to illustrate some of the force and variety of these interrogative strategies. As a first example, let us examine a play where questions have an explicit role as Harry Levin has pointed out; Shakespeare opens Hamlet with a question and a deferred answer:6 BERNARDO: FRANCISCO:

Who’s there? Nay answer me, Stand and unfold yourself [¡.¡.¡–2].

This is a brilliant way to open this play, with a question of identity. The same question is repeated fourteen lines later. The play itself is loaded with questions. “Question” and its related words occur sixteen times out of ¡90 times in all of Shakespeare’s plays. Only six plays begin with a question, four of them histories. The two sentinels are the observers, the verifiers; it is their job to know who is there, but at first they don’t know; this sets the mood of danger and prefigures the appearance of the Ghost. In this they are similar to Horatio, a scholar, whose job it is to know, but who is unable to make the Ghost

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respond. Francisco defers his answer to Bernardo and throws back the equivalent of a question, “Nay, answer me.” This creates suspense, and throws the knowledge and power balance o›. Once reassured by the answers that these are reliable witnesses, we are ready to accept their vision of the Ghost. Further, this interrogative exchange provides an opening for metatheatre. For instance, Bernardo might look out at the audience as he asks “Who’s there?” This question, moreover, enacts what any audience is asking at the beginning of a play. These questions continue through Scene Five, which I here abridge to reveal the interrogative and imperative underpinnings: HAMLET: GHOST: HAMLET: HAMLET: GHOST: HAMLET: GHOST: HAMLET: GHOST:

... Speak. I’ll go no further. Mark me.... Speak. I am bound to hear.... What? I am thy father’s spirit.... Murder? Murder most foul.... My uncle? Ay.... [¡.5.¡–4¡]

One might well say that the entire first act up to this point is driven by questions that are posed but not answered, for example just three of the many relevant lines: Horatio: “By heaven I charge thee speak”; Marcellus: “’Tis gone and will not answer”; Hamlet: “It will not speak. Then will I follow it.” By Scene Five, the Ghost is given substance by participating in the interactivity of question and answer. We realize the Ghost sequentially: first he is seen silent, then described by Horatio as pale, staring, bearded; then he beckons, next he is heard, and now he is interacting and responding. In early modern painting and theatre theory, it isn’t enough to present or represent something; you must make it real by showing it in process and in action.7 This substantiation is furthered by the change from third to second to first person which works in tandem with the interrogative to produce a more vivid sense of “here-and-now”: at first the characters speak of the Ghost in the third person, “this thing,” and “it,” but then address it directly in the second person. Soon the “questionable” Ghost is responding, “Mark me,” in the first person with accusative “me.” Finally, giving an answer, he declares himself with the full presence, agency, and authority of the nominative “I,” all of which is reinforced by the word “father.” As the Ghost character reaches his full realization, note the kind of answers he is giving: he is verifying Hamlet’s expressions of surprise. He is thus lent credibility because Hamlet looks to him for corroboration — not


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once but three times, as if to overrule a double take: “What? I am thy father’s spirit.... Murder? Murder.... My uncle? Ay.” Like the sentinels, once the question is answered, the Ghost is cast in the role of reliable witness. Notice also how the question prepare and help substantiate the Ghost’s long narrative that follows. The Ghost never asks a question, he only answers. The e›ect of this is that he is not susceptible to the uncertainty implicit in the act of asking; rather he is cast as knowing and authoritative, which is underlined later on by his imperative, “Swear.” Metatheatrically, this substantiation by interrogative exchange gives us the equivalent of a stage-within-a-stage where both playgoers and players are witnessing the same spectacle: the coming-into-being of a ghostly figure from a third reality alien equally to the stage-world and the audience. In contrast to the authoritative figure of the Ghost, Polonius, also Hamlet’s elder, has a very di›erent interrogative role. He is asking the question in ignorance and is rebu›ed by Hamlet: POLONIUS: HAMLET: POLONIUS: HAMLET: POLONIUS:

... What do you read my Lord? Words, words, words. What is the matter, my Lord? Between who? I mean the matter that you read, my Lord [2.2.¡90–¡94].

Hamlet violates decorum by giving insu‡cient, though true, answer to his elder. The questioner is forced to restate his question. Hamlet refuses the social obligation imposed by the questions, and by the respectfully repeated “my Lord” of Polonius. Hamlet answers this question with his own question; he forces Polonius, at first the questioner, to retreat into explaining himself in the declarative. Polonius, seemingly the wise elder, is proven obtuse by his pedantic insistence on pursuing the question as he misses the figurative force of Hamlet’s replies. We see a similar rebu› and appropriation of the role of questioner in many plays such as Marguerite de Navarre’s L’Inquisiteur (57 ›.), and especially vividly in the Merchant of Venice (again abridged here): Shylock: Bassanio: Shylock: Bassanio: Shylock: Bassanio: Shylock: Shylock:

I’ll not answer that.... Are you answered? This is no answer, thou unfeeling man, To excuse the current of thy cruelty! I am not bound to please thee with my answers. Do all men kill the things they do not love? Hates any man the thing he would not kill? Every o›ense is not a hate at first. What, wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice? ... I stand for judgment. Answer, shall I have it? [4.¡.42–¡03].

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They answer questions with questions. Their questions are about the act of answering. They jockey for the position of questioner. Shylock takes the initiative and forces Bassanio into the position of questionee. It is significant that Shylock should take this initiative in questioning since he represents the people who had been most conspicuous victims of the Inquisition, and here he reverses the role. A similar role reversal takes place in Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus: FIRST SCHOLAR: How now, sirrah: where’s thy master? WAGNER: God in heaven knows. SECOND SCHOLAR: Why, dost not thou know then? WAGNER: Yes, I know; but that follows not.... SECOND SCHOLAR: Then you will not tell us? WAGNER: You are deceived, for I will tell you. Yet if you were not dunces you would never ask me such a question [¡.2.4–¡5].

Note the play of who knows and who does not: Wagner, a mere servant, outwits the savants with their own methods of argument. To a simple hereand-now question of location, he replies with a “universal” sort of answer: “God knows.” Notice that he defers the answer creating suspense and conflict while prolonging an imbalance of knowledge. Here again, the reputedly wise are left ignorant, their inferences denied, their questions unanswered, and their status impugned. Just as Wagner confounds the scholars by structuring his responses in their style, so does Hamlet stymie his own will by structuring his problem in a scholastic manner: To be or not be–that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to su›er The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune Or take arms against a sea of troubles And by opposing end them [3.¡.56–60].

By casting his thoughts in the binary, indirect mode of scholastic argument, Hamlet throws himself into contradiction: two alternatives are each amplified, but, in this case, lead to no resolution. The contradictions instead point back to Hamlet himself. Hamlet, as both questioner and questionee, is split, literally in disputation with himself, both pro and contra, both to be and not to be. By using the quaestio mode, Hamlet enacts the very “pale cast of thought” that he is denigrating. He is caught in a play of opposites where his means of expression itself defeats his intent to act. He uses the static, universalizing verb “to be.” He does not say “Shall I kill myself or not?”


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which would be an act. Instead, he casts his thought in terms of a state or not a state, and thus he dooms himself to inaction. He asks himself a disembodied, impersonal question in the infinitive, yet it is his own body, his own suicide, he is deliberating about. So again he precludes action by omitting to mention its agent and its object — reflexively — himself. This indirect question with neither answer nor interlocutor reminds us how very alone Hamlet is, which creates all the more tension since the interrogative does not deliver on its promise of an answer and the presence of another. By transplanting a question of action into scholastic abstraction, Shakespeare brilliantly dramatizes the ironies and conflicts that Hamlet is facing alone. Hamlet is unable on his own to come to a resolution on his scholastic question, but a failure to get an answer is much more vivid when there is an outright refusal from another character, especially when the question posed comes straight out of catechism: FAUSTUS: MEPHISTOPHELES:

Well I am answered. Tell me, who made the world? I will not [2.2.66–67].

Again the characters talk about the act of answering. Here, the social order is upset insofar as Mephistopheles, the supposed servant, refuses to obey his new master by answering. Faustus is giving an exam question, toying with and testing his servant. And in this he appropriates the role of teacher in a catechism. This intensifies the conflict and irony not only because it is blasphemous to refuse such a question, but also because the early modern audience for whom the catechism was the first exposure to education, on hearing such a chain of question and answer broken, would certainly have felt, if unconsciously, a certain gap, even discomfort. Again Mephistopheles is questioned to slightly di›erent e›ect: FAUSTUS: MEPHISTOPHELES: FAUSTUS: MEPHISTOPHELES:

FAUSTUS:

First I will question thee about hell. Tell me, where is the place that men call hell? Under the heavens. Aye, but whereabouts? ... Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed In one self place, for where we are is hell, And where hell is there must we ever be.... I think hell’s a fable [2.¡.¡¡3–¡20].

Faustus, to di›erent e›ect than Polonius, persists in a line of questioning, which Mephistopheles evades. This evasion could provide a director or actor with a metatheatrical opportunity using a gesture to encompass the audience for the line, “Where we are is hell.” Note that Faust’s question is one of location, of here-and-now, but Mephistopheles’s reply is abstract and uni-

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versalizing. Moreover, it is blasphemous in that it ascribes to hell the omnipresence which is an attribute of God’s. Now, what is striking here is that Faustus, when he calls hell a fable, has just rejected the presupposition of his earlier question, that hell exists, and this puts him into conflict with himself. Keeping to this matter of presupposition, let us look now at how Lope de Vega presents the Judge interrogating the witnesses: JUDGE: PASCUALA:

Who murdered the Comendador? ... My Lord, Fuente Ovejuna [Vega ¡996:24¡ ›.; ¡985:¡29 ›.].

The Judge, in using the singular “who” (quién rather than the plural quienes), assumes that an individual person killed the Comendador, when in fact it was the whole village of Fuente Ovejuna. The dramatic irony is that we and the villagers know the truth, but the Judge, who succeeds in his duty of eliciting a true answer, fails in his duty to recognize the truth when he hears it. He has been duped, not by the witnesses, but by his own inquisitorial game of presupposition. As with Hamlet’s scholastic question, the manner of the framing precludes the Judge from resolving the matter. Thinking the replies of Pascuala and the others false, the Judge persists in his questioning, much like Polonius missing the point; he continues to torture the witnesses, and abuses his power while overlooking the collective agency of the people. His power proven pointless and his knowledge faulty, the Judge like Pilate asking “What is truth?” fails in his social obligation to serve justice. At the same time, Pascuala and the others fulfill all their social obligations. In their responses, unlike those of Hamlet, Mephistopheles, or Shylock, there is no breakage of the social hierarchy: Pascuala recognizes the Judge’s social rank, calling him “my Lord”; she tells him the truth; her answer is both logically su‡cient and grammatically appropriate because it replies in the singular. Moreover, because the Judge will not accept her answer, her true response does not betray her fellow villagers. Pascuala’s observance of these social demands throws into higher relief the worthiness of the people and the injustice of the Judge. This example from Lope de Vega marks the apogee of irony and conflict raised by the questions we have examined above. In our earlier examples, replies are insu‡cient, deferred, or precluded; questions answer questions and social rank is upset. Here, however, the answer is true and su‡cient, and the power relations respected. The result is that the irony and conflict are doubly strong. In this case the social hierarchy being upheld is condemned, and the questioner, wanting to know, remains in ignorance imposed


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upon him by himself: the Judge, in a variation on the Socratic contradiction, does not know that he does not know. In conclusion, I propose two things, one theoretical, one practical. Practically, for the director, actor, and critical reader: simply look at every question mark. Does the question get answered? If so how? Does it serve the ironies and conflicts of the drama? Does it open any metatheatrical gaps? Are there any resonances of institutional styles of questioning which might deepen the ironies and conflicts? Theoretically, if one examines what is put into question, and how the questions are put in a given genre, institution, or society, one could use these to help construct a sort of epistemology and sociology for each, playing them o› against one another to reveal tensions implicit in the questions they ask. In this way, the interrogative structuring of thought and speech, understood as dialectic of knowledge and power, could prove a useful tool for the interpretation of texts, performances, and the societies that produce them. FIVE COLLEGES

Notes 1. See for instance Aubignac: “[Questioning] is the mark of an agitated spirit” (48¡). 2. There is a rich theoretical literature related to questions dating back to Plato. The word is sometimes taken as synonymous with doubt, torture, scholastic method, the act of research, or any inquiry whatsoever. To use the terms with somewhat more precision than customarily in literary criticism, I list here seven modern views of what a question is or does. A question: ¡) implies the presence of an interlocutor, 2) has no truth value, 3) is an incomplete proposition, 4) is an information request. 5) indicates some degree of uncertainty, 6) is an imperative to respond. And 7) we cannot know the meaning of a statement unless we know the questions to which it is an answer. Among hundreds of works citable, I will recommend Walton’s for a lucid overview in English of key issues relevant to literature. It has a fine bibliography. 3. For a relatively compact account of the scholastic quaestio, see Lawn. 4. For discussion of interrogatives in Renaissance rhetoric, see Mack. 5. Altman has an excellent discussion on Castiglione and interrogatives (64 ›.). 6. I am certainly not the first to have recognized the important role of interrogatives in Shakespeare. For Hamlet, see Levin (especially ¡9–43). For Othello, see Rudanko (especially ¡¡–33), and Moisan. Also see Altman. 7. Hénin discusses the early modern development of the idea that, in portraiture and theatre, character is better conveyed by action than by static representation (¡64 ›.).

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References Cited Altman, Joel B. The Tudor Play of Mind: Rhetorical Inquiry and the Development of Elizabethan Drama. Berkeley: University of California Press, ¡978. Aubignac, François Hédelin, Abbé d.’ Pratique du théâtre. Ed. Hélène Baby. Paris: Champion, 200¡. Bacon, Francis. “Of Truth.” The Essayes of Counsels, Civill and Morall. Ed. Michael Kiernan. 7¡–73. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, ¡985. Castiglione, Baldesar. The Book of the Courtier. Trans. Charles S. Singleton. New York: Anchor Doubleday, ¡959. Erasmus, Desiderius. “On the Freedom of the Will: A Diatribe or Discourse.” Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation. Ed. and trans. E. Gordon Rupp and A. N. Marlow. 35–97. Philadelphia: Westminster, ¡969. Eymerich, Nicolau and Francisco Pena. Le Manuel des inquisiteurs. Ed. and trans. Louis Sala-Molins. Le Savoir historique 8. Paris: Mouton, ¡973. Hénin, Emmanuelle. Ut Pictura theatrum: Théâtre et peinture de la Renaissance italienne au classicisme français. Geneva: Droz, 2003. Jarzombek, Mark. On Leon Battista Alberti: His Literary and Aesthetic Theories. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, ¡989. Lawn, Brian. The Rise and Decline of the Scholastic “Quaestio disputata.” Leiden: Brill, ¡993. Levin, Harry. The Question of Hamlet. Oxford: Oxford University Press, ¡959. Luther, Martin. Bondage of the Will. Luther’s Works vol. 33. Ed. Philip S. Watson. Philadephia: Fortress, ¡972. _____. “Lectures on I Timothy.” Luther’s Works vol. 28. Ed. Hilton C. Oswald. 2¡5–384. St. Louis: Concordia, ¡973. Mack, Peter. Renaissance Argument: Valla and Agricola in the Traditions of Rhetoric and Dialectic. Leiden: Brill, ¡993. Marguerite de Navarre. L’Inquisiteur. Théâtre profane. Ed. V. L. Saulnier. 48–8¡. Geneva: Droz, ¡963. Marlowe, Christopher. Marlowe’s Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus: A Conjectural Reconstruction. Ed. W. W. Greg. Oxford: Clarendon, ¡950. Moisan, Thomas. “Repetition and Interrogation in Othello.” Othello: New Perspectives. Eds. Virginia Mason Vaughan and Kent Cartwright. 49–73. London: Associated University Presses, ¡99¡. Montaigne, Michel de. “An Apology for Raymond Sebond.” Complete Essays. Ed. and trans. Michael Screech. 489–683. London: Penguin, ¡99¡. Ramée, Pierre de la. (Petrus Ramus). Dialectique (¡555). Ed. Michel Dassonville. Geneva: Droz, ¡964. Rojas, Fernando de. La Celestina. Trans. Lesley Byrd Simpson. Los Angeles: University of California Press, ¡955. Rudanko, Martti. Pragmatic Approaches to Shakespeare. Lanham: University Press of America, ¡993. Sanches, Francisco. That Nothing Is Known. Eds. Elaine Limbrick and Douglas F. S. Thomson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ¡988. Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: Norton, ¡997.


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_____. The Merchant of Venice. The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: Norton, ¡997. Vega, Lope de. Fuente Ovejuna. Life Is a Dream and Other Spanish Classics. Ed. Eric Bentley. Trans. Roy Campbell. 65–¡35. New York: Applause, ¡985. Vega, Lope de. Fuente Ovejuna. Ed. Francisco Lopez Estrada. 7th ed. Madrid: Castalia, ¡996. Walton, Douglas. Question-Reply Argumentation. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, ¡989.

3 The Globalization of “Riverbed Beggars” John D. Swain Abstract Zainichi-Koreans (resident–Koreans in Japan), a marginalized group, struggles to define itself while resisting its assimilation by the hegemonic Japanese center. The Zainichi-Korean theatre company Shinjuku Ryôzanpaku reflects this struggle. Although Japanese hegemony has co-opted and reclaimed every step the troupe has taken away from the center, it has never been fully able to reclaim the nomadic identity that is expressed by the appellation “riverbed beggars,” initially reserved to describe the actors in pre–Meiji Japan. Shinjuku Ryôzanpaku’s 2004 production of The Lower Depths: The Blush of Youth, an adaptation of Maxim Gorky’s play, expanded the idea of actors as “riverbed beggars” to include recent immigrants in Japan. This production, by taking the concept beyond Japanese borders, globalizes part of the pre-modern Japanese imaginary that was used to “preserve” Japanese culture. It links the nomadic identity of Zainichi-Koreans to other marginalized groups, and treats all of these groups as “riverbed beggars,” forcing Japanese theatre practitioners to reassess a key identification. [R]esurgent cultural nationalism has promoted the sense of the specificity of Japanese identity among the educated ... mainly through the process of symbolic boundary-marking of “our own realm” [Yoshino ¡992:2¡6].

In the ¡960s, the underground (angura) theatre movement in Japan used the nickname, “riverbed beggars” (kawara kojiki), that was initially reserved for actors from the Edo period (¡603–¡868), to construct for its participants the identity as outsiders within Japan. Of course, Japanese actors can never be fully outside their own culture. However, the Zainichi-Koreans,1 the Korean diaspora in Japan, are, by definition, outcast and nomadic, and are continually resisting acculturation. Director Kim Sujin’s e›orts to reinscribe an outsider status to these Koreans took a new turn when, in 2004, 28

3. The Globalization of “Riverbed Beggars” ( John D. Swain)

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his Zainichi-Korean theatre company, Shinjuku Ryôzanpaku, produced an adaptation of Maxim Gorky’s The Lower Depths (¡902). The adaptation, The Lower Depths: The Blush of Youth / Shinjuku Ryôzanpaku ban, donzoko sakuragai hen (Kajiwara and Shinofuji 2003) extended riverbed-beggar status to all immigrant groups in Japan. Stuart Hall wrote that “diaspora identities are those which are constantly producing and reproducing themselves anew, through transformation and di›erence” (¡990:235). To bolster the diaspora image of Zainichi-Korean identity, Kim Sujin turned to Gorky’s play that depicts the dregs of Russian society circa ¡902. The overlapping and shifting patterns of self-identification in various diaspora groups in Japan became more complicated because the nickname “riverbed beggars” was connected to a Western take of the “Other.” Korean diaspora in Japan constantly found ways to counter the symbolic boundary-making of cultural nationalism in postwar Japanese theatre. Japanese theatre practitioners from Kara Jûrô in the ¡960s to Hirata Oriza today, produce compelling shows and are lauded for their engagement with the international community. At the same time, they also seem to build boundaries that essentialize the Japaneseness of their own theatre. In an e›ort to prove that their theatre is equal to Western forms, they engaged in cultural boundary-making in the manner of nihonjinron (“discourse on the Japanese”) during the ¡970s and the ¡980s. Carol Gluck describes how nihonjinron intellectual constructs purport to explain why self-defined properties of Japaneseness are unavailable to others who are not “pure” (junsui) Japanese (Gluck ¡998:262). It would seem that the riverbed-beggar nickname is one such property. I will focus on Kara Jûrô because the imagery of blood purity is central to his work. Kara and others during the angura theatre movement in Japan in the ¡960s wanted to revive the riverbed-beggar nickname as a means of emphasizing their status as outsiders and overcoming the limits of shingeki (new theatre). Shingeki had become the commercial mainstream form after the Second World War, and for the angura practitioners it represented all of the negative aspects of the social status quo, including Westernization and modernization. Kara referred to his troupe as riverbed beggars to emphasize their status as migrants and outcasts of a semi-religious status. These same adjectives could also describe Korean diasporic theatre. Edo is the benchmark era against which Japanese popular imagination measures the advent of modernity. Edo stands for the signifier of “traditional” Japan. In Japanese myth and history, Japanese actors served some of the same social and religious functions that Korean actors did. They were entertainers and shamans, liminal beings who connected the physical with the spiritual world, cleansing spiritual pollution. During the Edo era, actors

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were of the same “non-human” (hinin) class as Koreans and other outcasts (Morris-Suzuki ¡998:83). However, the status of actors as outcasts has changed since the Edo era, but the status of Koreans as outcasts in Japan has not. The Japanese nickname helped Shinjuku Ryôzanpaku to remain marginal and transgressive by preserving aspects of his identification with nomadic Zainichi-Koreans. While Shinjuku Ryôzanpaku appropriated the idea of riverbed beggars in ¡987 to link this modern Korean status as an outsider to the pre-modern view of actors as riverbed beggars, Kim Sujin expanded the idea of riverbed beggars to embrace the problems of a global diaspora. Leaders of the angura movement in Japan — such as Kara Jûrô and Satô Makoto — attempted to discover a theatrical form that was more immediate and visceral than shingeki, reflecting Japanese origins. They did not try to reproduce or re-invent some lost tradition. Instead they created a new and vibrant form of expression that fruitfully influenced and interacted with other theatrical forms globally. However, the cultural nationalist discourse embedded in the revival of the riverbed beggars has not been generally acknowledged. This is no doubt because so many angura theatre artists were staunch supporters of the political left. Recent scholarship is beginning to unpack the sometimes hidden cultural nationalist nostalgia inherent in angura’s references to a lost, mythic past.2 Angura is now part of the Japanese theatrical status quo, and Shinjuku Ryôzanpaku is, in turn, wielding the soubriquet of riverbed beggars against the mainstream to give Korean diasporic theatre a sense of its own voice within Japan. Shinjuku Ryôzanpaku’s version of The Lower Depths can be viewed as a celebration of pluralism in Japanese society. It applies the notion of riverbed beggars to Zainichi-Koreans and more recent immigrants to Japan, moving the concept beyond the borders of Japan, producing a more inclusive identification grounded in Japan. For a group on the margins of Japanese society to create such a global concept out of the idea of riverbed beggars disrupts the reified concept of national seclusion. Furthermore, in the process of (re)defining his own Zainichi-Korean identification within the Japanese contact zone, Kim Sujin called into question one’s status as outsider which has been claimed by angura theatre practitioners since the ¡960s.

Re-imagining the Japanese Body Theater in Japan in the ¡960s and ¡970s addressed issues resulting from the loss of the Second World War, the atom bomb, the Emperor’s rejection


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of divinity that created a vacuum at the spiritual center of Japan, and lack of a real political voice after the left’s failure to prevent the renewal of the Japan/U.S. Security Treaty (Ampo) in ¡960. Although many key playwrights of the era, such as Betsuyaku Minoru, Shimizu Kunio, Terayama Shûji, Kara, and Satô, were searching for identity and interrogating Japan’s past, I concentrate my attention on Kara because of his particular links to Korea.3 Kara was committed to questioning Japanese colonial and wartime actions in Korea, and he laid the blame for the loss of Japanese identity in part to Westernized modernization. The butô artist Hijikata Tatsumi shared some of these artistic and political viewpoints. Among them were the desires to “throw o› the mantle of Westernism, to rediscover and redefine what it meant to be Japanese” (Sanders ¡988:¡48). Hijikata wanted Japan to recognize “the presence of its outcasts, its so-called non-people: the vagrants, prostitutes, whoremongers, drunks, homeless, and impoverished” (¡48). This objective would have made room for those social groups that had been marginalized by Japan’s imperialism if it were not for Japanese nationalism. During their postwar e›ort to rediscover what it meant to be Japanese, a strain of Japanese nationalists conceived of themselves as a pureblooded “race,” and eliminated the possibility of drawing Zainichi-Koreans into Hijikata’s conception of non-people. Furthermore, Koreans probably did not enter into his self-essentializing conceptualizations of the Japanese body (¡52). These attitudes were consistent with nihonjinron agenda for an idealized Japanese “race” which would be defined by inviolable bloodlines and culture. Angura practitioners applied the idea of riverbed beggars to actors and other marginalized groups, but not to foreigners in Japan.

Double Erasure Kara suggests in his ¡972 play, A Tale of Two Cities (Nitô monogatari), that Japan and Korea are inextricably linked; and he imagines the indeterminate sea between the two countries as facilitating, rather than hindering, contact. This is not simply an Asian rendering of Dickens’ novel. Near the play’s end, a blood-red carousel horse carries o› Riiran, mortally wounded by her own hand, on an eternal journey back and forth across the Straits of Korea. Her blood, shed for sake of both nations, seems to symbolize the essential sameness of Japanese and Koreans. Riding o›, she declares, “I am the immortal Woman plying the Straits of Korea!” (Kara ¡973:¡07). Riiran was played by Ri Reisen, then Kara’s wife and the lead actress of his Situation Theatre (Jôkyô gekijô). Ri portrayed a shaman-like character who eternally linked the fates and the peoples of Japan and Korea across

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a body of water, imagined not as a barrier, but as a conduit. But Ri’s identification as a Zainichi-Korean and a woman, is masked and co-opted by Kara. Kara, as head of the troupe as well as the troupe’s resident playwright and director, speaks for both women and Koreans. Consequently, the gender and ethnicity of Ri (the actor) and Riiran (the character) are subsumed into a Japanese patriarchal subject position. Kara is a Japanese insider who co-opts outsider status, using a real outsider, Ri, to do so. Ri loses her status as Zainichi-Korean Other, and is submerged in the angura discourse of theatre as a site and practice of otherness. In this way, Kara and other angura leaders who challenged the political, social and cultural status quo, also re-inscribed the discourse of hegemonic, neo-colonial Japanese patriarchy. The moment the Second World War ended, Zainichi-Koreanness (that is, residency in Japan as opposed to Korean residency in Korea) was located outside the frame of reference that was available to most Japanese. In the attempt to make Koreans visible, Kara and the theatre practitioners of the ¡960s re-erased Zainichi-Koreans. The forthright and conciliatory conception of Japanese/Korean relations in A Tale of Two Cities seemed plausible to the hegemonic Japanese because Kara utilized the Zainichi-Korean ethnicity of his wife to legitimatize himself as a spokesperson for Koreans and, incidentally, Zainichi-Koreans oppressed by the Japanese Empire. Kara’s personal relationships, socialist convictions, and sincere e›orts to re-conceptualize postwar Japanese culture and society, do not entirely counterbalance the fact that Korean and ZainichiKorean subject positions were marginalized in this production. By addressing the unfortunate results of Japanese colonialism, Kara seems to imply that marginalized Zainichi-Koreans can (re)claim exclusive cultural territory. However, defining exclusive territory solidifies boundaries, and (re)claiming this cultural territory actually re-inscribes the centre and strengthens Zainichi-Korean marginalization.

A Tale of an Erased Zainichi-Korean Ri Reisen played most of the major female roles in the Situation Theatre’s productions, including O-sen in Petticoat O-sen (Koshimaki O-sen, ¡967) and Kasugano Yachiyo in The Virgin’s Mask (Shôjo kamen, ¡969). These female characters often function in Kara’s plays as shamans. They serve to connect to the present the separate historical moments of what is known in Japan as the Fifteen Year War (¡93¡–45). Midori Matsui has argued that the female characters played by Ri comprised a feminine, troubling counterweight to the masculine imperialist will embodied in John Silver, a character in Kara’s “Manchurian plays” (Matsui 2002:¡6¡).


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By using her Korean name, Ri Reisen was an exception among ZainichiKorean entertainers in Japan in the ¡960s. As a member of the Situation Theatre, accentuating her Koreanness fit the ideal of the riverbed beggars, the idea of the resisting Other, and the role of shaman that Koreans historically played in Japan. Furthermore, Kara’s personal relationship with Ri raised his awareness of the troubled Japanese/Korean relationship. For example, a visit to her family’s home in Korea inspired the imagery of water as the conduit that inextricably linked the two cultures. However, Kara’s patriarchal, hegemonic Japanese subject position in the contact zone of the Situation Theatre served to marginalize Korea, Zainichi-Koreans, and Ri Reisen, the woman. In A Tale of Two Cities, a Korean shaman exorcises ghosts of memories so that men in Japan can endure their vacuous lives and go on buying stockings for their nagging wives. Kara presents this as a cruel irony of Japan’s defeat during the Second World War, as an example of capitalist exploitation, and as a loss of masculinity among Japanese men. He does not seem to be aware that this presentation is also an inscription of patriarchal hegemony. If he is, he does not give Riiran or the nagging wives the possibility of agency to resist. Riiran’s sacrifice in Japan releases the Korean ghosts, but their release does not benefit contemporary Koreans, Zainichi-Koreans or women. Ri was one of the founders of the Situation Theatre, and her acting talent and persona were vital to the company’s development and success, but Kara claimed exclusive credit for leadership. There is no evidence to suggest that Ri collaborated with Kara on the creation of performance texts in the way that Kishida Rio did on some of Terayama Shûji’s works. However, given that the Situation Theatre worked as an ensemble, experimenting with physical approaches to theatre, Ri’s position as a leading actor in the company, and her relationship to Kara, makes it likely that she exerted some influence on the content and performance of the plays, an influence more substantial than the inspiration Kara got from visiting her family home. Ri only has a minor role in Kara’s account of the performances of A Tale of Two Cities in Seoul in ¡973 (¡983:¡¡2–¡26). Kara met with the South Korean poet, activist and playwright Kim Chi-ha. None of the other members of the Situation Theatre except Ri spoke Korean, so they must have relied on Ri for matters of translation and interpretation. Kara mentions that some passages of the dialogue were translated into Korean. Although not credited, Ri seems the most likely translator. Ri was vital to the success of the project, but as woman and Zainichi-Korean she remained under-credited and virtually “erased” from the creative process. Kara then got all the credit for creating the themes and plots of his plays,

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for advocating better Japanese/Korean relations, and for acknowledging Japan’s treatment of Zainichi-Koreans. The presence of a Zainichi-Korean in his troupe (his wife), the troupe’s performance in South Korea, and his plays that question Japanese imperial actions all bestow on Kara, in the Japanese mind, the mantle of spokesman for these marginalized groups. Kara seems to think that the oppressed Zainichi-Koreans should, in Homi Bhabha’s words, “assert ... their cultural traditions and retrieve ... their repressed histories” (¡994:9). However, Kara, rather than Zainichi-Koreans, is the agent of assertion and retrieval, e›ectively co-opting the Zainichi-Korean agenda. With someone as prominent as Kara speaking out, there would seemingly be no need for Zainichi-Korean spokespersons. Without a socially accepted agency for creating their own surrogates, it was di‡cult for the woman Ri Reisen, and Zainichi-Koreans to be heard from the margins.

Re-erasure by Kara Jûrô’s Bloodied Wanderers Kim Sujin said that Kara Jûrô was his most significant influence. During the ¡980s, Kim matured as a theatrical artist in the Situation Theatre. Kim left the troupe in ¡987 and Kara cut o› all direct ties with him and the newly formed Shinjuku Ryôzanpaku until the ¡997 production of his Seeing Eye Dog (Môdôken, ¡974). The reasons for Kara’s repudiation of Kim are not clear. Maybe Kara’s ego was bruised by this talented “outsider” for whom he was shouldering the Japanese version of the “White Man’s Burden” by o›ering a place in the Japanese theatre world. Kara may have also felt it was presumptuous for anyone without firsthand experience of the political and social turmoil in the ¡960s to do angura style theatre. On a deeper level, Kara may also have recognized that a nomadic tenttheatre company made up of Zainichi-Koreans, a group that exists precisely because they are outcast from Japanese society, exposed the constructed nature of one of the cornerstones of angura theatre, and upon which he had built his own company and reputation. By creating a Zainichi-Korean theatre company, Kim called into question the quality of the Otherness angura theatre utilized through its appropriation of the nickname of the riverbed beggar. Kim’s move also revealed that Kara was not, in fact, the theatrical spokesperson for Zainichi-Koreans. Perhaps Kara recognized that a selfidentified Zainichi-Korean troupe using a tent-theatre might put their oppressors’ tool to their own use. Such use could redefine Kara as a part of the Japanese hegemony and, in this way, undermine his attempts at identification with outcast, marginalized groups.


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Reconciliation with a Mentor The process of reconciliation between Kim and Kara began in March ¡993 when Kim staged Kara’s A Cry from the City of Virgins (Shôjo toshi kara no yobigoe, ¡985). Kara, despite his estrangement from Kim, was persuaded to permit the production of A Cry from the City of Virgins, but made no other e›ort to mend the rift in their personal or professional relationship. Shinjuku Ryôzanpaku’s need for plays became acute in ¡994 when founding playwright Chong Wishin left the company just after it had borrowed money to purchase a new tent-theatre. Shinjuku Ryôzanpaku had five well-attended productions of A Cry from the City of Virgins from ¡993 to ¡996. Having done one, Kim wanted to utilize more of Kara’s works. Kim took the initiative to restore the relationship knowing it would once again place him in a subservient position vis-à-vis Kara. In ¡997 Kara finally gave Kim permission to produce Seeing Eye Dog, but again did not make any other moves toward reconciliation. Since the first productions by the Situation Theatre, few professional companies had mounted Kara’s plays and no other professional company had ever staged Seeing Eye Dog. The Shinjuku Ryôzanpaku production in ¡997 was well received in Seoul, and later in Tokyo. Success probably persuaded Kara that mutual professional interests were more important than personal rivalry. If he continued to publicly distance himself from success, he would look like a petty rather than benevolent patriarchal mentor. Kara attended the final performance of Seeing Eye Dog in Tokyo, and was publicly reconciled with Kim when he attended a Shinjuku Ryôzanpaku party later that year. Kara’s attendance at Seeing Eye Dog was only the first step toward the hegemonic culture’s re-co-opting and re-erasure of ZainichiKorean identity because Kara’s celebrity status continued to draw public attention away from the producers of the play. The performance of A Cry from the City of Virgins at the Japan Society of New York in ¡999 furthered the re-erasure of Zainichi-Koreanness. Despite Kara’s prominence in Japanese avant-garde theatre, his plays had never before been produced professionally in New York City. Kara accompanied Kim and Shinjuku Ryôzanpaku to New York at the request of the Japan Society. Kara was to take part in a discussion on the Japanese avant-garde theatre with American director Anne Bogart. Kim was not included in the panel; neither his Korean citizenship nor his Zainichi-Korean identity was mentioned during the conversation (Min 2003:265). The Japan Society’s primary interest was in Kara, unintentionally rea‡rming his position in the Japanese cultural and theatrical hierarchy vis-à-vis Kim. After that, Kara attended every Shinjuku Ryôzanpaku production. He

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and Ri Reisen appeared in Kim Sujin’s debut as a movie director, Gamble the Night (Yoru o kakete, 2002), about Zainichi-Koreans trying to eke out a living in postwar Osaka. In a four-year span beginning in 2000, Kim successfully produced four of Kara’s plays, The Beggar of Love (Ai no kojiki, ¡968), Ali Baba (Ari baba, ¡969), The Vampire Princess (Kyûketsuki, ¡970), and Matasaburô of the Winds (Kara ban kaze no Matasaburô, ¡973). In perhaps one of Kara’s most gruesome plays, Vampire Princess, the Itinerant Nurse Hôzuki wanders in search of blood to feed the souls of babies aborted by wartime military sex slaves (euphemistically known as “military comfort women,” jûgun ianfu). She has slashed her own breasts o›, an act of self-mutilation in solidarity with her mother who was maimed in the same way by her father. Hôzuki bares her mutilated torso and attempts to nurse a baby on blood from the gaping wounds. Vampire Princess encompasses both the positive and negative aspects Shinjuku Ryôzanpaku must contend with as Zainichi-Koreans are mounting Kara’s work. The positive aspects are that Kara’s oeuvre is made up of many plays that were written expressly for a tent-theatre, thus easily adapted to Shinjuku Ryôzanpaku’s production needs. Kara’s stature as an icon of angura theatre brings immediate name recognition among potential spectators in Japan. The negative side of that name recognition is that it casts a shadow over the existence and agency of Zainichi-Koreans because of Japanese nationalist cultural elements of Kara’s dramaturgy, particularly images of blood. The blood in Kara’s plays is the “pure” blood of Japaneseness that allows no room for any discourse of di›erence. The Zainichi-Korean Otherness that Kim draws out of Kara’s plays was eroded when Kara himself was ensconced benevolently in the audience and o›ered his paternal blessing during post-production parties.

The Hegemonic Weight of the Mentor Vampire Princess also makes reference to the several thousand Koreans lynched by vigilante mobs in the aftermath of the Great Kanto Earthquake that struck Tokyo in ¡923. When the Situation Theatre performed the play in ¡970, Ri Reisen played the Itinerant Nurse Hôzuki, giving a gloss of authentic Zainichi-Korean identity to a play constructed from Kara’s Japanese subject position. Although the central characters were Koreans, as was the actress Ri, and the play invoked liberal political discourse about Japan’s actions in Korea, it presented Kara’s Japanese subject position for consumption by an audience presumed to be Japanese. Zainichi-Koreans were probably in the audience, but would have gone unnoticed because they are


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optically indistinguishable from Japanese. Although Koreans are a racialized Other in Japan, there is no inherent biological characteristic that makes them somatically di›erent from the Japanese. Zainichi-Korean audience members would have been invisible. When Shinjuku Ryôzanpaku plays the same scenes, there is a di›erent dynamic. When the Japanese view the play, they probably know the troupe’s reputation as a Zainichi-Korean company, and are aware that many ZainichiKoreans attend the performances. When the actress playing Hôzuki talks about the Kanto Earthquake and exposes the scars on her breasts demonstrating her inability to nourish her o›spring, the Japanese spectator is probably conscious that the play’s director and other cast members share some of the pain of Hôzuki’s self-mutilation. Furthermore, the Japanese spectator cannot distance himself from any Zainichi-Koreans who are likely sitting next to him. However, with Kara in attendance, the condemnation of Japanese actions is muted because accusations directed at the viewer would have to include him and his reputation as a spokesman for Zainichi-Korean existence. Shinjuku Ryôzanpaku takes productions on the road to areas where the Zainichi-Korean concentration in the audience is high. However, Kara’s reputation among theatre lovers in Japan precedes the company wherever it presents his plays. A Zainichi-Korean woman at the Osaka performance of Matasaburô of the Winds in July 2003 stated she had seen the original Situation Theatre production there in ¡973 (Swain Interview 2003). Thirty years later Kim Sujin was once again in Kara’s hegemonic shadow. Kim was trying again to stake a claim as a Zainichi-Korean on the margins of Japanese society, but was drawn back toward invisibility by Kara’s iconic stature in Japanese theatre. Kim’s choices to produce Kara’s plays and a‡liate himself with Kara and his troupe, may have actually worked against Kim’s own Zainichi-Korean agenda. It is self-defeating to admit such was the case because Kara is a mentor and patron. Nonetheless, the Kim-Kara alliance unintentionally causes re-erasure because, Kara’s paternalism and support, which are no longer outside the mainstream, become a hidden form of Japanese neo-colonialism, assimilating those Korean identity issues that are addressed in the Shinjuku Ryôzanpaku productions.

Mutually Inclusive Imaginary Kim needs to blaze a new trail to find and maintain a separate voice and identity. That trail could be what he has described as pluralism in Japan. Kim has indicated that his view of Zainichi-Korean identity is not pro-

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scriptive, but hybridic and malleable in ways that could bring agency to any group in Japan. In 2003 he stated that, “[f ]or Zainichi-Koreans, the fact of being raised in Japan is not just one thing, but is pluralistic in a certain sense. There is not just one location for the self, but it could be here, or here, or here” (Fukuda 2003). True pluralism in Japan is rare, but Kim’s vision incorporating the angura idea of riverbed beggars may find a positive resonance in the state of mind of many Japanese of the younger generation. These younger Japanese, who display a “petit-nationalism” (puchi nashonarizumu) according to Kayama Rika, have been criticized by the conservative Japanese for being indi›erent to their Japanese traditions (Kayama 2002:8). The “petit-nationalists” are associated with the political and linguistic European counterparts, the “petit-bourgeois.” Their nationalism is neither fully formed nor serious, and it lacks some basic ingredients. Kayama finds “petit-nationalism” somewhat unproductive and distinct from a positive manifestation of patriotism. By implying that the patriotism and/or nationalism of Japanese youth is somehow lacking in its scope and intensity when compared to that of Korea, the United States and France (Kayama 2002:¡6), Kayama seems to cast “petit-nationalism” into a global taxonomy of di›erence. It is “small,” “minor,” and by extension, incomplete and ine›ective. This view would seem to dismiss the potentially pluralistic formations of “petit-nationalism.” In other words, the transcultural, international, diasporic, and hybridic aspects of the phenomenon are portrayed, and may be pre-emptively categorized and understood, as empty-minded, immature, and ultimately lacking sincerity and value. It can, therefore, be criticized and dismissed by those who have “real” nationalism. Kayama’s book added another label used to bemoan the feared collapse of hegemonic Japanese society and culture. Petit-nationalism seems to go hand in hand with a tolerance for a diversity of global cultural influences. The petit-nationalism of Japanese youth may reflect the attitudes of one portion of Japanese society that wants to move away from provincialism and toward a pluralistic society. Cultural nationalists condemn globalization for homogenizing Japanese culture into something indistinguishable from other, especially Western, forms. Such a view has some merit, but few Japanese cultural nationalists want to entertain the possibility that petit-nationalism and immigrants are actually reinvigorating Japanese culture. The 2004 Shinjuku Ryôzanpaku production of The Lower Depths: The Blush of Youth, seems to promote renewed vigour because Kim has tried to appeal to a “pluralistic” segment in Japan. The Lower Depths is one of the Western plays that Japanese theatre makers return to repeatedly. It was a staple of postwar shingeki, and theatre com-


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panies with a Socialist agenda. Akira Kurosawa’s film adaptation of the play in ¡957 erased its Russian traces and placed the action in Japan during the Edo period, with all the characters Japanese. The foreigners in Gorky’s play are turned into unsophisticated, rural Japanese in Kurosawa’s film. The Shinjuku Ryôzanpaku version of The Lower Depths is set in a contemporary flophouse in the Kabuki-chô red-light district of Tokyo with characters from all over South East Asia. By setting the play in a cheap hotel in contemporary Kabuki-chô, it is, in the words of one online commentary, “resuscitated” (Nihon no Makura 2004). Brothels featuring prostitutes from China, Indonesia, Korea, and the Philippines have been a mainstay of Kabuki-chô business for the last few decades. The last ten years or so has seen the diversity of nationalities in this area increase rapidly. Both men and women from all corners of the globe frequent it, earning a living and enjoying its pleasures. Russian prostitutes hawk their wares, Iranian men kill time until their next job, and Nigerians argue among themselves. Most common, however, are people from various parts of Southeast Asia, and these are the people who populate the flophouse in Shinjuku Ryôzanpaku’s production. This vision of a multiracial, pluralistic Japan is not like the vision staged in the recent work of playwright and director Hirata Oriza. Although probably not a deliberate cultural nationalist, Hirata created “politically correct” shows with essentialized portrayals of people from some unspecified future South Pacific nation-state in his play, Journal of South Sea Island P.O.W.s (Nantô furyo ki, 2003). Hirata usually tries to demonstrate his view of Japan as inextricably linked to the rest of the world. Although not stereotypes, his non-Japanese characters have no specific ethnic markers and, despite their foreign origins, speak perfect, unaccented Japanese. This unlikely set of circumstances seems to arise from Hirata’s Japanese subject position and longstanding attempts to inscribe a reified Japanese language. Using that reified language, Hirata attempts to construct a “contemporary colloquial theatre” (gendai kôgo engeki). Hirata demonstrates his cultural nationalism in a series of discussions with the playwright Inoue Hisashi, when he states that the model (tehon) for his variety of text-centered theatre “is not the [outside] world [gaikoku], but Japan” (Inoue and Hirata 2003:283). Further displaying in his program notes for the October 2003 production, Hirata comments on what he sees as the dangers of petit-nationalism and his fears that it contributes to the Japanese becoming a “dying race” (horobiyuku minzoku) (Hirata 2003). Through the use of the term “race” rather than “culture” Hirata displays his nihonjinron influenced cultural nationalism. As if to confirm to Hirata’s fears, the foreigners in The Lower Depths openly lay claim to their diverse countries of origin and a right to

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live in Japan. Furthermore, they speak broken Japanese as a matter of course in a pluralistic society that accepts them unconditionally, a cultural, rather than a “racial” change. These people from across the globe looking for economic opportunity in Japan are commonly known as New Comers (nyû komaa). This label is in contrast to the phrase Old Comers (orudo komaa) which has been adopted to describe Korean and Chinese special permanent residents who have been in the country since the pre-war period and their descendants (Sellek 200¡:¡0). Kim seems to draw on similarities between the two groups. As a result, there is greater diversity for the nomadic imaginary Shinjuku Ryôzanpaku puts on stage. Rather than just Zainichi-Koreans, many di›erent groups and nationalities are drawn into a visible position in the Japanese contact zone. That is a location made uncomfortable for them by Japanese nationalists such as Tokyo Governor Ishihara Shintarô with his use of the pejorative term “third-country nationals” (sankokujin) in his speech to the Air Self-Defence Force on April 9, 2000 (Japan Times ¡¡ April 2000). Although the Shinjuku Ryôzanpaku adaptation follows the plot of Gorky’s play with the Actor hanging himself at the end, the characters are immigrants from some of those countries mentioned by Ishihara. In this version, the elderly Luka dispenses aphorisms on life with a decidedly nonJapanese tone. Kim’s adaptation of the play suggests that people should also listen to voices outside Japanese culture holding imaginaries and identifications not defined by the Japanese. In Shinjuku Ryôzanpaku’s version of The Lower Depths, Kim Sujin, once again, took the company away from ideological positions held by the Japanese.

Re-inventing the Imaginary In Kim’s version of The Lower Depths, the nomadic characters do not long for, or return to, the sea — a feature prominent in plays authored by Chong Wishin, founding playwright of the Shinjuku Ryôzanpaku. In Chong’s plays, such as A Legend of Mermaids (Ning yô densetsu, ¡989), the sea is indeterminate, a signifier of nomadic life and a desire to return to Korea. The plays and the wanderings of Shinjuku Ryôzanpaku itself embody the image of the riverbed beggars, assisting in the preservation of the nomadic imaginary of the Zainichi-Koreans in Japan. The production of The Lower Depths in 2004 gave a global dimension to the riverbed-beggar definition by including all of the marginalized and nomadic groups in Japan. This allencompassing definition turns upside down part of the (re)constructed Japanese nationalist cultural imaginary that has been used by Japanese avant-garde


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theatre practitioners since the ¡960s, to bring global recognition to modern Japanese theatre. Through this transgressive act of border crossing (re)definition, Korean diasporic theatre continues to position itself in the margins in its e›orts to resist acculturation, and present a model for pluralism in Japan. INDEPENDENT SCHOLAR

Notes 1. I use the term Zainichi-Korean to refer to Koreans and their o›spring resident in Japan since the end of the Second World War. “Zainichi,” literally “resident in Japan,” denotes expatriate status for foreign nationals. Zainichi-Koreans, legally, “tokubetsu zainichi kankoku/chôsen jin,” or “special-permanent-resident-North-andSouth-Koreans,” are a legacy of Japanese colonialism. They were stripped of Japanese citizenship at the end of the Second World War, and their descendants were not granted citizenship even though they were born in Japan. The hyphenated, Japanese/English is contingent. It is intended to echo their divided homeland, and status as disenfranchised Others in Japan. 2. See the writings of Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei, especially Unspeakable Acts: The Avant-Garde Theatre of Terayama Shûji and Postwar Japan, Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005. 3. These playwrights and their era are dealt with in depth in Alternative Japanese Drama: Ten Plays, edited by, Robert T. Rolf and John K. Gillespie, Japanese Drama and Culture in the ¡960s: the Return of the Gods, by David G. Goodman, and the Half a Century of Japanese Theater series, edited by the Japan Playwrights Association.

References Cited Fukuda Takashi of Mainichi Newspapers Osaka (Mainichi shinbun), interview transcript. Trans. John D. Swain. 2003. Gluck, Carol. “The Invention of Edo.” In Mirror of Modernity: Invented Traditions of Modern Japan, ed. Stephen Vlastos. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, ¡998. Hall, Stuart. “Cultural Identity and Diaspora.” In Identity, Community, Culture, Di›erence, ed. Jonathon Rutherford. London: Lawrence and Wishart, ¡990. Hirata Oriza. Program Notes, Nantô furyoki [A Journal of South Sea Islands P.O.W.s], trans. John D. Swain. Tokyo: Komaba Agora Theatre, October 2003. Japan Times, April ¡¡, 2000. The Japan Times, Ltd.: Tokyo. Kajiwara Ryô and Shinofuji Yuri. Shinjuku Ryôzanpaku ban, donzoko sakuragai hen [The Lower Depths: The Blush of Youth], trans. John D Swain. Tokyo: unpublished text, 2003. Kara Jûrô. Waga seishunfurôden [Confessions of My Vagrant Youth]. Authors Autobiographies 20. Tokyo: Nihon Zusho Sentaa, ¡994.

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Kayama Rika. Puchi nashonarizumu shôkôgun, wakamonotachi no nippon shugi [The Petit-nationalism Syndrome: The Younger Generation’s “Japanism”], trans. John D Swain. Tokyo: Chuko Shinsho, La Clef, 2002. Kim Sujin, transcript of interview by Fukuda Takashi of Mainichi Newspapers Osaka (Mainichi shinbun), trans. John D. Swain. 2003. Kosaku Yoshino. Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary Japan: a Sociological Enquiry. London and New York: Routledge, ¡992. Matsui Midori. “The Place of Marginal Postionality: Legacies of Japanese AntiModernity.” In Consuming Bodies: Sex and Contemporary Japanese Art. Edited by Fran Lloyd. London: Reaktion Books Ltd., 2002. ¡42–¡65. Min Byung-Eun. From Performing Identity to Performing Citizenship: The Theatres of Zainichi Korean Subjectivity. Ph.D. Dissertation, New York University, 2003. Morris-Suzuki, Tessa. Re-inventing Japan: Time, Space, Nation. Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, Inc., ¡998. “Nihon no makura.” April ¡6, 2004. http://www.st.rim.or.jp/~kamataki/newdiary/. Trans. John D. Swain. Yoko Sellek. Migrant Labour in Japan. Houndmills, England and New York: Palgrave, 200¡.

4 Constance Ledbelly’s Birthday Construction of the Feminist Archetype of the Self in Ann-Marie MacDonald’s Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) Laura Snyder Abstract In Director Banuta Rubess’s ¡989 introduction to Ann-Marie MacDonald’s play Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet), Rubess explains that the comedic drama is predicated upon Jungian concepts: “The real story happens in the zone of the unconscious mind. Constance ... reconsider[s] her life, her self, as in a dream. Desdemona and Juliet are archetypes of her own unconscious ... the Chorus, Iago and Yorick can be seen as versions of her own goading animus” (xii). Rubess’s comments do not truly explain the psychological transmutation of Constance Ledbelly, the main character, over the course of the play unless one places them in the context of developments in archetypal feminist theory. This essay explores MacDonald’s archetypal feminist theme, showing how MacDonald reveals, through Constance, that in order to achieve a fully integrated self, women must bring to consciousness and embrace both male and female, masculine and feminine selves.

When examined from an archetypal feminist perspective, the play delineates Constance in the process of individuation — in the process of bringing the archetype of the self into consciousness — which, according to Jungian analysis, is the purpose of life. In order to create this harmony of the conscious and unconscious self, Constance must recognize and unify her oppositional shadow selves — in the forms of both Shakespeare’s patriarchal Eros-driven archetypes and Constance’s personal Logos-driven shadow selves 43

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Desdemona and Juliet — and her animus — in the forms of the Chorus, the Ghost/Yorick, and Iago. Only then can Constance claim her own agency, or, in the play’s terms, recognize that she is the author of her self, a self that is neither and both male and female, masculine and feminine. Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) is the comedy of put-upon, middle-aged, unmarried Constance Ledbelly, a scholar who has yet to finish her thesis because she has been so busily ghost-writing for Claude Night, who has gained his tenure at her expense. When confronted with his treachery — in the form of his girlfriend, graduate student Ramona, and Claude’s acceptance of a job that Constance had hoped for herself— Constance goes gallivanting through the worlds of Shakespeare, rewriting the Bard’s most tragic heroines, providing them (and thus herself ) with happy endings. However, the riotous action, which is made even funnier by the fact that Constance is often clad only in long johns and a toque cap, is really a metaphor for Constance’s archetypal psychoanalysis of herself. Carl Jung is specifically alluded to a number of times by MacDonald, particularly through her tongue-in-cheek creation of “the Gustav Manuscript,” an arcane document which Constance is busily trying to “crack.”1 After Claude Night uses her and deserts her, she hits “a nigredo/nadir of her existence” (Rubess qtd. in MacDonald xii), a portion of the manuscript’s code magically becomes legible, and Constance decides to accept the manuscript’s challenge: Open this book if you agree To be illusion’s refugee And of return no guarantee — Unless you find your true identity. And discover who the Author be [MacDonald 2¡–2].

Constance opens the manuscript and is pulled into (as the Chorus says in a very much Rod Serling/Twilight Zone speech) “the zone of the unconscious mind” (22). Rubess explains that it is here, in the “unconscious mind,” that Constance is able to examine “her life, her self ” (xii). MacDonald’s Chorus clarifies the concept of self in the Prologue, which provides some of the basic knowledge the audience needs to interpret the play. Alluding to alchemy, whose concepts of material purification Jung used as a metaphor for the transformation of personality (Samuels et al. ¡2), the Chorus creates a “scientific metaphor of self ” (MacDonald 6). Just as in alchemy, where “mingling and unmingling opposites/ transforms base metal into precious gold,” so too, in creating a unified self, we must “divide the mind’s opposing archetypes.... Invite them from the shadows to the light.” Then we must “unite these shards of broken glass/into a mirror that reflects one soul” (6).

4. Constance Ledbelly’s Birthday (Laura Snyder)

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The self is an archetype of unity that manifests within individual consciousness when all aspects of the individual are in harmony, when the individual recognizes and accepts all facets of herself (Stein ¡54, ¡58; Samuels et al. ¡35). If we interpret the Chorus’ “Scientific metaphor of self,” first we must recognize the parts of ourselves that we generally deny as antithetical to our self-conception (the “opposing archetypes” hiding in the “shadows”), then we have to unite those aspects of our personalities as parts of ourselves if we want to progress in the process of individuation to produce a unified self. The self is an archetype, and, in Jung’s vision, archetypes are transcendent primal patterns of experience inherited by human beings (Samuels et al. 26). Archetypal patterns exist in the collective unconscious, the reservoir of experience common to humanity. Archetypes manifest form through individual experience in the personal unconscious, the part of our mind of which we are unaware. We tend to repress all kinds of unwanted information concerning ourselves here. According to most Jungian analysis, the personal unconscious is, in a sense, ‘rooted’ in the communal unconscious and may modify the content, although not the patterns, of the archetypes in the communal reservoir of experience; those patterns are “fundamental” and transcendent (Samuels et al. 26–7; Stein 53–4, ¡26–7). However, feminist archetypal theorists such as Estella Lauter and Carol Schreier Rupprecht, among others, have revised the vision of the archetype as having a timeless reality outside of the psyche, outside of the archetype’s manifestation within the individual — an individual who is embedded within a particular time and place and participates in a specific gender coded value system (8–¡2). Jung was a “protofeminist” in his suggestion that both sexes share and can benefit from characteristics deemed “masculine” and “feminine” (Stein ¡34; Lauter and Rupprecht 5). Nevertheless, Jungian analysis is also essentialist, suggesting, for example, that Eros is the “dominant [principle] in the female psyche; conversely, the analytical principle, or Logos, [is] dominant in males” (5–6). For Jung, such “di›erence is archetypal, not societal or cultural” (Stein ¡34). For feminist archetypal theorists, these “essential di›erences in the psychology of men and women” (¡26) perpetuate the gender coding of men (biologically male/male sex) as rational, logical, active, “thinker,” and women (biologically female/female sex) as irrational, passive, “nurturer” (Lauter and Rupprecht 6), “emptiness” and “mystery” ( Jung qtd. in Wehr ¡06). Feminists thus argue that, if archetypal theory is to be of relevance and help to contemporary culture, we must envision archetypes as “a tendency to form and reform images in relation to certain kinds of repeated experience” (Lauter and Rupprecht ¡3–¡4). The archetype as transcendent and timeless limits feminine behavior and image-

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making potential; however, recognizing the archetype as both creator and product of culture will allow us to examine and re-envision the feminine. The feminist vision of archetypes reveals a reciprocal relationship between the personal unconscious and culture. The personal unconscious is ‘rooted’ in our cultural preconceptions and may modify the content and — in the feminist definition — the patterns of archetypes. This fluid, reciprocal relationship is envisioned by MacDonald in a number of ways. For example, Constance wants to write her thesis arguing that Romeo and Juliet and Othello were actually pre-existent “comedies that Shakespeare plundered and made over into ersatz tragedies” (¡5). She argues that the “Gustav manuscript”— or psychological exploration — will reveal the “source” (¡5, 3¡), or the true comic/happy “originals.” In a sense, MacDonald is playing with the idea that Shakespeare tapped into healthy (“comic” and true, not “ersatz”) images of the feminine — Desdemona and Juliet — and rewrote them with a masculine — and tragic — vision. His images now permeate our culture, and thus each personal unconscious and those images may have disastrous consequences for the contemporary woman who allows her personal unconscious to pattern itself upon them. To highlight that these tragic visions of women are culturally created, in her thanks, MacDonald says, “The Bard is immanent” (2). She is suggesting that Shakespeare’s writings permeate our culture, they influence everyone’s personal experience, and then all of those personal experiences further influence our way of living. Thus, Constance’s shadow selves manifest through images that we identify as Shakespearean and tragic — Juliet and Desdemona (after all, Constance is a Shakespeare scholar)— but that are communal and malleable, allowing Constance to rewrite them with happy, “comic” endings. As Rubess a‡rms, “Desdemona and Juliet are archetypes of [Constance’s] own unconscious [my italics]” (xii). However, before Constance rewrites them, both Desdemona and Juliet, as conceived by Shakespeare, are patriarchal archetypes of the feminine. Demaris Wehr, like Lauter and Rupprecht, has argued that archetypes of the feminine must be recognized as culturally based images; otherwise they function as “internalized oppression,” a method by which women perpetuate their own subjugation because they “internalize patriarchal society’s definition of themselves. This definition is oppressive, negative, and inferior in many ways although it is often compensatory and romantically ‘exalted’” (¡0–¡¡). This both inferior and “romantically exalted” image is characteristic of Shakespeare’s vision of both Desdemona and Juliet. Desdemona is, in Constance’s words, “divine ... the very embodiment of purity and charity” (9). Shakespeare’s Desdemona rises above racism, above familial opposition, and, steadfast in her love, lies for Othello, absolving him of her murder and asking Emilia to “commend” her to him (Shakespeare


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V.ii.¡25). Exalted? Yes. However, she is also quite dead. In addition, everything she has done has been in service to Othello, the hero, whom, even as she lays dying, she recognizes as her “kind lord” (¡25), her superior. This Desdemona is a patriarchal vision of female nature, in Jung’s terms a “spiritual guide and advisor,” an “indefiniteness” and “passivity” ( Jung qtd. in Wehr ¡07–8), a helper, a woman who willingly contains her power in service to the “hero.” Shakespeare’s Juliet, too, is dominated by Eros, Jung’s vision of the feminine that sees nurture as a part of woman’s biological “core.” Eros is the principle of reciprocity, of relatedness, and that, for Jung, defines the feminine and the female psyche. As such, woman is identified only in her relation to others: principally the men to whom she is in service. In the case of Juliet, she is, in Constance’s phrasing, the “essence of first love ... of passion that will never die” (64). Thus, Juliet is defined in relation to her capacity for love of another. Shakespeare’s Juliet as an archetype of femininity is “elevated” by rising above familial opposition and by her self-sacrifice when she decides her life has no purpose if Romeo no longer lives. Once again, the exalted heroine is quite dead, and her suicide is dictated by her recognition that her life has no intrinsic value outside of her relationship to the male “hero,” that the guiding force in her life is her relationship with another. Constance, both consciously and unconsciously, is ruled by this archetypal image of the female psyche as dictated by the principle of Eros. Constance is careful to appear di‡dent and self-e›acing with Claude. When he asks her why she thinks that she is “special” enough to decode the Gustav text, a feat unattainable by the “best tenured minds in the world ... for the past three hundred years,” she hurriedly replies, “Oh I’m not, I’m, I’m not the least bit special” (¡6). Further, Constance tells Desdemona, I’ve slaved for years to get my doctorate but in a field like mine that’s so well trod, You run the risk of contradicting men Who’ve risen to the rank of sacred cow, And dying on the horns of those who rule The pasture with an iron cud. Not that I’m some kind of feminist. I shave my legs and I get nervous in a crowd [37].

While Constance is clearly aware that academia is patriarchal and oppressive, she is afraid of being seen as a “feminist”— as masculine, unattractive and domineering — if she challenges the institution. She has unconsciously internalized the oppression that she criticizes; she aligns herself with the

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image of the submissive “good girl” who wouldn’t dare “contradict” a “sacred cow,” the vision of woman as dictated by the principle of Eros. This domination is also made clear when Constance first appears onstage unconsciously humming “Fairy Tales Can Come True” (7) and then periodically lapses back into the song without seeming awareness. In general, contemporary versions of fairy tales teach young girls and women that being kind, submissive, and passive —“feminine” in both the exalted and inferior sense — will land them the prince charming who will provide meaning in their lives. Constance’s own career has been subsumed in her service to her vision of prince charming: Claude Night. Rather than using her time for research and writing to gain tenure or a position for herself, she ghost writes negative book reviews for Night, forwarding his power, reputation, and career rather than her own.2 Paradoxically, a woman like Constance, working in a “man’s field,” should have been, according to Jung, “animus ridden”: “No one can get around the fact that by taking up a masculine profession, studying and working like a man, woman is doing something not wholly in accord with, if not directly injurious to, her feminine nature” ( Jung ¡0: par. ¡7). Such a woman would be accused of “not having integrated her animus — her unconscious masculine side” and of being “possessed” by it, “acting like a man” (Wehr 8). Demaris Wehr reveals Jung’s psychological assessment for what it is: a method of keeping women “subdued, ‘feminine,’ and unempowered except through whatever indirect channels they can find in being ‘feminine’” (¡20). Constance’s fear of being derided as masculine causes her to be submissive to both academia and Claude. She accepts her own supposed inferiority, perpetuating the system that oppresses her by accepting and validating its limiting archetypes of femininity. Ironically, when Claude reveals his treachery, the resulting crisis is actually beneficial for Constance, allowing her to develop her incomplete ego, initially by embracing the masculine characteristics she has so long denied in herself. The ego is, as Wehr explains, the “center of consciousness ... [and] personal agency” (¡0¡). Jean Miller Baker has argued that in patriarchal culture, many women fail to recognize their own agency. Women tend to lack ego development because they have been defined always in relation to another (the Eros principle), not as a self, an agent granted the right to act (Baker qtd. in Wehr ¡0¡). That right has been reserved for the male, whose psyche, according to Jung, is dominated by the principle of Logos. The opposite of the Eros principle (Samuels et al. 87), Logos is “discrimination and cognition” ( Jung qtd. in Lauter and Rupprecht 9), apprehension of the self as di›erence, distinct, an independent entity ruled not by love or empathy, but by logic and mind.


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Constance lacks full ego development as a result of accepting patriarchal culture’s submissive vision of woman as defined by relationships. When Constance is forced to explore her unconscious during the crisis provoked by Night, there she finds Desdemona, but this Desdemona is a definite ‘rewrite’ from Shakespeare’s patriarchal vision of her as driven by Eros.3 In this Desdemona, Logos reigns; she exhibits primarily characteristics that we have designated as “masculine”: love of honor and a desire for blood, violence, and vengeance. As a scholar, Constance argues that Desdemona must have “had a violent streak.... And lived vicariously through Othello” because she so loved his war stories (26). The Desdemona of Constance’s unconscious, her shadow Desdemona, has more than a violent streak; she is an Amazon who, leaping into the fray after her husband, retrieves an enemy head and presents it as a gift to Constance, who nearly vomits. Desdemona urges Constance to “acquire a taste for blood” and “Learn to kill” in the name of “her honour” (32). Constance’s shadow Desdemona reveals the violence and aggression that our culture condemns in women — but often celebrates in men — which is a part of our very nature and which, if we accept and manage it, can be beneficial. In the case of Constance, Desdemona has to awaken the violence and vengeance that Constance has so thoroughly repressed that she doesn’t even admit that Night purposefully used her or that she is absolutely furious with him. Constance has to recognize that she has the right to feel that anger, that she is valuable as an individual and deserves to be treated with respect. Further, Desdemona’s bravery inspires Constance to reject the ridicule of the male professors who rule the “sacred herd of Academe” (37). In a wonderful scene, Constance and Desdemona, repudiating the patriarchal, sexist bias of Academia and the cruel machinations of Night, work themselves into a feverish pitch and let out the battle cry, “Bullshit, Bullshit, Bullshit!!!” (37–38). The Logos principle which drives Desdemona helps Constance, once she “invite[s it] from the shadows to the light” (6), develop her ego by valuing her “honour,” her right to be an autonomous agent and to be treated as such. Constance’s shadow Juliet, too, is an archetype of the Logos principle, of the valuation of the self as an independent entity which has the right to pursue its own needs and desires. As I have suggested, Constance lacks full ego development as a result of accepting patriarchal culture’s submissive vision of woman as defined by, and confined by, relationships. Just as Desdemona helps Constance develop her ego, so too does Juliet, and Constance’s Juliet is again a definite ‘rewrite’ of Shakespeare’s patriarchal vision. She is a completely sexual being who places her own desire above any commitment to “first love.” In a hilarious twist, MacDonald has both Romeo and Juliet

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believe that Constance is Constantine, a boy, because she is garbed in long johns when she arrives in Verona. Thus the two young lovers, when they bore of each other before the wedding feast can even be set, re-align their amorous intents to Constantine. As Juliet says in an aside, But touched and whetted once before, love’s first keen edge grows dull with use and craves another grinding [58].

Constance’s shadow Juliet reveals the sexual passion that our culture disparages in women (females should be “all innocence” [68])— but usually celebrates in men — that is actually an important part of a fully lived life if we accept and manage it. Juliet helps Constance own her passion, her right to feel sexual love and her worthiness to be loved in return. Constance never has admitted to herself that she is in love with Claude Night, the man who has treated her like a doormat for years. She tells Juliet, “I refuse to say that I felt love” for Night. “He played the parrot; I fed him great lines/ and he pooped on my head” (70). But Juliet will not let Constance hide from herself and forces her to “declaim,” finally, “Love. Love! I love that shit, Claude Night!” (7¡). Further, Juliet lectures Constance that “if love itself should die ... then find another love” (65), pointing out that Constance has the right to put aside her prior relationship if it is no longer satisfying. The Logos principle which drives Juliet helps Constance — once she “invite[s it] from the shadows to the light” (6)— develop her ego by valuing the autonomy of her sexuality, her right to feel passionate love and to have desires fulfilled. However, accepting Desdemona and Juliet is only the first step in the process of developing Constance’s ego. The two figures represent the rule of Logos — of the individual as primary — and this valuation of the ego as central and without restraint is the source of much that is negative within patriarchal culture. MacDonald seems to be suggesting that if the self is only defined in isolation from others, as di›erence, and if only masculine characteristics are valued, the result is an egotism that places the individual at the center, justifying any means of self-aggrandizement. Constance must recognize the dangers inherent in allowing Logos reign and reject the violence that she finds so attractive in Desdemona. Both “gullible and violent” (86), Desdemona is as easily misled by Iago as Othello was until Constance revealed Iago’s treachery. Iago convinces Desdemona that Constance is trying to woo Othello, and Constance must leave because Cyprus has become “too hot”: Desdemona intends to su›ocate Constance with a pillow — just as Othello would have done to Desdemona when his inner violence was left


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unchecked. In fact, as Dvorak points out, Desdemona is simply “an Othello in skirts” (¡3¡). On the other hand, Juliet commits herself to passion, and dying for passion, at the drop of a hat, and then goads Constance to do the same. In other of those wonderful scenes where Constance becomes more and more excited, she confesses her love for Claude and then declares, I wish I had the nerve... [to impale my cleave’d heart upon a sword] right in front of everyone while standing in the cafeteria line! [where I met Claude]; to play a swan-song on my arteries anoint the daily special with my veins [7¡].

To extricate herself from Juliet’s passion, Constance reveals her sex — only to further enflame Juliet because the love between two women is the “most forbidden love of all!” (77), and therefore even “more tragic”(77)! In a highly poetic moment, Juliet almost convinces Constance to share one perfect night of love with her and then to die together by taking poison: “Tomorrow they will find one corpse entwined/when, having loved each other perfectly/our deaths proclaim one night, eternity” (79).4 Juliet’s vision of love is love in service of self. The fame of “forbidden” love, its elevating tragedy, the intensity of “love’s first fiery pit” wherein one may revel in “heaven’s flames” (57) “right in front of everyone” (7¡), all reveal a self-centered hedonism, not the mature reciprocity required in a genuine relationship. Further, Juliet’s vision of the height of sexual passion as inevitably leading to death may be a satire on Jungian psychology’s assertion that sexuality “has a dual nature”— pleasure and death (Stein 90). According to Stein, the Jungian archetype of the hero is a “basic human pattern” of developing the conscious. All humans must symbolically “sacrifice the mother,” or “a passive, childish attitude ... childish fantasy” in order to “engag[e] reality in an active way” (90–¡). However, at the heart of Jungian psychology is an equation of “mother with matter” (Wehr ¡¡2). The feminine, and by conflation the female, is associated with the natural cycle of birth, life, and death. As a result, according to Wehr, the mother becomes representative of “the human experience of embodiment.... the organic, decaying, earthbound, and material” (¡¡2). Therefore, another possible interpretation for the archetypal sacrifice of the mother is as a projection of Western man’s desire to overcome his mortality, to “escape the implications of embodiment. Such an escape involves projecting the essential aspects of being human onto an other — the female” (¡¡2). By this means, mortality is projected onto sexuality — the procreative drive, the mother, creation. It is, in a way, the ulti-

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mate egocentricism — denial of any form of limitation to the ego. Since Juliet’s behavior represents being led by the principle of Logos, of the individual as distinct and central, then MacDonald may indeed be using Juliet’s hilarious vision of the ultimate sexual experience — as capped o› by suicide — satirically, to undermine the egocentricism of this masculine principle. Ultimately, then, the binary opposition of masculine Logos — putting individual needs at the fore — and feminine Eros — subsuming the individual in relation to another — needs to be, in some way, as the Chorus tells us at the beginning of the play, transformed by a psychological “mingling and unmingling [of ] opposites” (6). Through her experiences with Desdemona and Juliet, Constance has learned that “life is a hell of a lot more complicated than [they represent as either Eros or Logos]. Life is ... a harmony of polar opposites,/with gorgeous mixed-up places in between” (86). The psychic conflict is resolved when Constance recognizes that if these binary oppositions are accepted and used to pattern life, tragedy is always the outcome. Instead, we must “live by questions, not by their solution” and “trade our certainties, for ... confusion” (87). By confronting and chastising both Juliet and Desdemona, Constance has fulfilled one part of her “quest” for “Self ” (7¡), one step in her process of individuation: she has recognized, accepted, and modified those aspects of herself which before, to her own detriment, she had denied. As Wehr points out, the “false” visions of self promoted by patriarchy — the binary oppositions of feminine and masculine self hood — must be rejected before a true self can be born (¡03). Nevertheless, Constance has not yet “discover[ed] who the Author be” (22). As the Chorus tells us, only then will Constance be able to “merg[e her] unconscious selves” into “one soul” (6), or a self. For this final step in the process of individuation, Constance must accept and listen to her animus, which tells her to recognize her own ‘authority.’ According to Banuta Rubess, Constance’s animus is represented onstage by the Chorus, Yorick/the Ghost, and Iago (xii). However, MacDonald’s vision of the animus archetype is somewhat ambiguous. Jungian analyst Murray Stein uses the term “anima/us” to designate “a psychic structure that is common to men and women,” exclusive of the “gendered features” of the archetype (¡28). According to Stein, as “psychic structure, the anima/us is the instrument by which men and women enter into and adjust to the deeper parts of their psychological natures”(¡30). This “common” psychic structure that Stein describes fits MacDonald’s creation of the Ghost/Yorick and the Chorus quite well: they connect Constance’s “ego to the deepest layer of the psyche, namely to [her] ... self ” (¡28). For example, in Verona, the skeleton-faced Ghost appears, first terror-


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izing Constance simply with his appearance, and then torturing the audience with a series of really bad — but funny — puns that function as clues to Constance about the identity of the Author. Fear-stricken, Constance asks of the ghost, “Who are you ... A jester from the grave?” (73). As the Ghost continues taunting her, she increasingly becomes suspicious that she’s been shunted o› to Hamlet, “What play is this?” she asks; “Could you be ... Yorick?!” (73). The Ghost answers, “Na-a-ay. You’re it,” which Constance hears as “Yorick” (73), and then provides her with further clues as to the identity of the author: “a lass” (which Constance hears as “alas”), and “a beardless bard, a fool” (neither of which connects with Constance) (74). Not until Constance recognizes the “Life is ... a harmony of polar opposites” does the Ghost reappear and repeat his clues. This time, Constance understands him and recognizes that she is indeed “it,” the “Author” of her self. MacDonald ends Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) with a celebration of middle-aged Constance’s “Birthday.” This is, as the Chorus tells us, a “rebirthday” (6), a salute to the tentative creation of Constance’s self, to her transcendence into a more unified being. Thus, the Ghost/Yorick, like the truth-telling Chorus, leads Constance to an experience of her self, functioning as a psychic link between Constance’s ego and her unconscious. However, Stein also points out that the “usual shorthand definition is that the anima is the inner feminine for a man and the animus is the inner masculine for a woman” (¡30). In other words, the animus is a collection of a woman’s masculine characteristics, and these characteristics are personified in the unconscious, taking various masculine forms. Certainly Iago, the Ghost/Yorick, and the Chorus are male, and, as is clear from Constance’s behavior early in the play, for women to claim our own power, our own ‘author’ity, we risk being seen as egotistical, pushy, bossy, unfeminine. The Ghost, an aspect of Constance’s animus, is perhaps representative of her repressed masculine characteristics and they function as a conduit to her own power, a link to her unconscious strength, a recognition of her own control of the aspects of her self,5 the goal of Jung’s process of individuation. However, if MacDonald is indeed maintaining this identification of the animus as the repressed masculine that functions, in a male personification, as a guide to the unconscious for females, she is running the risk of perpetuating the identification of “masculine” characteristics as male. Further, she is perpetuating the gender coding of basic human traits, such as “author”ity, that she is otherwise attempting to make available to women. Possibly, MacDonald, instead, is encouraging the audience to envision the human being as hermaphroditic, being composed of both male and female. To deny all sex and gender di›erence is perhaps to imply androgyny, and the androgyne was Jung’s preferred symbolic outcome for the psy-

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chological process of individuation that he metaphorized as an alchemical purification. Jung disliked the hermaphrodite as a symbol for the end product of imaging the contents of the unconscious in order to bring them into consciousness and then unifying them into a self. He felt that the process was too “spiritual” to be symbolized by such a “crude” representation that must have been based in an “unconscious and instinctive sexuality” (Samuels et al. 66). However, MacDonald clearly identifies the hermaphrodite, not Jung’s androgyne, as the force moving Constance toward a “psychic altar that will alter fate” (6). The Chorus tells the audience, Swift Mercury, that changing element, Portrayed as Gemini, hermaphrodite and twin, Now steers the stars of Constance Ledbelly, And o›ers her a double-edged re-birthday [6].

The hermaphrodite is a “primordial unity in which male and female are unconsciously conjoined” (Samuels 65). Therefore, MacDonald may be rejecting Jung’s unconscious Western male privileging of the masculinecoded “spiritual,” but supposedly asexual, adrogyne over the feminine-coded corporeal, “unconscious ... sexuality” of the hermaphrodite. MacDonald’s earlier satire on Juliet’s obsession with sexuality and mortality gives weight to this reading. Further, for many years the term hermaphrodite was used in conjunction with bisexuality, and Constance’s sexual attraction to both Romeo and Juliet is validated by MacDonald (65). Perhaps MacDonald is trying to suggest that the process of individuation should allow us to recognize and embrace all human nature as male and female, masculine and feminine, and, “merging” those fragments into “one soul,” a unified self, then we will, as the Chorus predicts, have our “marriage of true minds” (6). BALL STATE UNIVERSITY

Notes 1. Carl Jung’s middle name was Gustav. 2. However, Constance and Claude’s relationship more closely parallels Medea’s to Jason than Princess Aurora’s to Prince Phillip. Medea poisons a member of her own family to help Jason gain the fleece, only to be discarded later by Jason for a fresh, comely princess. Constance directs her “poisonous phrase,” as Night describes it, against his “academic foe[s],” thereby destroying their reputations while gaining tenure for Night (MacDonald ¡8). Her reward is to be discarded and cheated out of an academic position she had hoped for herself when he decides to go to Oxford with a young female graduate student.


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3. For a thorough investigation of MacDonald’s revisioning of Shakespeare, see Novy (¡999: 67–85). 4. For a delineation of MacDonald’s themes concerning sexuality and gender, see Dvorak (¡994: ¡28–33). 5. The Chorus, while he never speaks directly to Constance, clearly functions as a truth-teller/guide in much the same way as the Ghost/Yorick. Iago, on the other hand, may represent Constance’s own ability for treachery-usually deemed a “masculine” trait. Constance is, after all, the actual poison pen behind Claude Night’s scathing attacks on his colleagues’s scholarship.

References Cited Dvorak, Marta. “Goodnight William Shakespeare (Good Morning Ann-Marie MacDonald).” Canadian Theatre Review 79 (¡994): ¡28–33. Jung, Carl. Collected Works. Vol. ¡0. Trans. R.F.C. Hull. Princeton: Princeton University Press, ¡972. Lauter, Estella, and Carol Schreier Rupprecht, eds. Feminist Archetypal Theory: Interdisciplinary Re-Visions of Jungian Thought. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, ¡985. MacDonald, Ann-Marie. Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet). New York: Grove, ¡990. Novy, Marianne. “Saving Desdemona and/or Ourselves: Plays by Ann-Marie MacDonald and Paula Vogel.” Transforming Shakespeare: Contemporary Women’s ReVisions in Literature and Performance, ed. Marianne Novy, 67–85. New York: St. Martin’s, ¡999. Samuels, Andrew, Bani Shorter and Fred Plaut. A Critical Dictionary of Jungian Analysis. London: Routledge, ¡986. Shakespeare, William. “The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice.” The Riverside Shakespeare. Ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mi·in, ¡974. ¡203–48. Stein, Murray. Jung’s Map of the Soul. Chicago: Open Court, ¡998. Wehr, Demaris S. Jung and Feminism: Liberating Archetypes. Boston: Beacon, ¡987.

5 Waking Up with Ka‡rs The Challenge of Maintaining the Social Fabric in The Iceman Cometh Michael Schwartz Abstract O’Neill’s goal to “wed” novelistic themes to the form of a play drove the playwright throughout his professional lifetime, and The Iceman Cometh is arguably his greatest success in this regard. Using Bakhtin’s “multi-voicedness” and Volosinov’s “sociological poetics,” this paper focuses on three of the play’s “minor” characters — Joe Mott, Captain Lewis, and General Wetjoen. Their seemingly random conversations, with their inherent partial understandings, interruptions, and repetitions, demonstrate the intricate inner workings of their surprisingly resilient “society”— a society whose currency is the “pipe dream.” O’Neill’s dialogue, dismissed as “sheer bad writing” by Harold Bloom and Mary McCarthy, among others, in fact consists of careful depictions of how the inhabitants of Hope’s saloon judge (and misjudge) the context and situation of their conversations. Through a close reading of several of these conversations, we may more fully appreciate how the expansiveness of O’Neill’s mature epic is largely dependent upon the meticulous recording of numerous dialogic details.

“If he is repetitive, why should he not be, when what he is saying will surely not be understood the first, or third, or tenth time?” (Booth xxvii). So writes Wayne Booth, expressing his exasperation and ultimate admiration of Bakhtin’s unique writing style. The quote might also easily apply to the notorious repetitions of Eugene O’Neill. Producer Lawrence Langer tells of the famous exchange that took place during rehearsals for The Iceman Cometh: Langer’s assistant had noted that a particular point had been repeated in the script eighteen times. O’Neill’s response: “I intended it to be repeated eighteen times” (Gelb 864). Such (apparent) rhetorical lapses have fascinated, and sorely tested, theatergoers and readers for years, causing Harold 56

5. Waking Up with Ka‡rs (Michael Schwartz)

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Bloom to carp, “For sheer bad writing, O’Neill’s only rival among significant American authors is Theodore Dreiser” (Bloom 5).¡ I mention the commonality of repetition in Bakhtin and O’Neill because I believe Bakhtinian rhetoric is a fruitful way to engage with O’Neill’s most “multi-voiced” play. The repetition of a number of utterances, the ways these utterances reflect and reveal class distinctions, and the strategies O’Neill’s characters use to maintain and periodically repair their mutually constructed social fabric are all significant, and the theories of Bakhtin and Volosinov can help us to appreciate both Iceman’s excessive length and enduring fascination. Bakhtin’s marginalization of drama at the expense of the novel need not prevent a Bakhtinian analysis of plays, particularly O’Neill’s.2 For while Bakhtin often notes the single-voicedness of the dramatic genre in his writing,3 he does allow a loophole in a typically sweeping footnote: “We are speaking ... of pure classical drama as expressing the ideal extreme of the genre. Contemporary realistic social drama may, of course, be heteroglot and multi-languaged” (¡98¡: 405). From there, Bakhtin dismisses the exception and moves on, leaving for the particularly masochistic scholar the task of parsing the meanings of “pure classical” and “realistic social drama.” While Bakhtin does not mention O’Neill specifically, it is not too great a stretch to imagine Bakhtin, upon questioning, including O’Neill roughly in the “genre” of “realistic social drama” with a curt nod or a superior shrug of the shoulders. O’Neill, in turn, sought ways to incorporate the qualities of his favorite novelists, including Dostoevsky, into his plays.4 It was a lifelong struggle. Bakhtin comments that the novel “gets on poorly with other genres” (¡98¡: 4–5), and the “argument” between the novel and the play is one of many sources of tension in O’Neill’s work. His dream of “wedding the theme for a novel to the play form” (“A Letter from O’Neill” qtd. in Eisen 9) led to his boldest theatrical experiments involving masks, asides, and literal onstage splitting of his characters. If The Iceman Cometh is O’Neill’s most successful novel-play “marriage,” we may find one of the reasons for this success in the creation of a multi-voiced world inside Harry Hope’s saloon. The “sheer bad writing” that Bloom finds becomes, upon closer inspection, a demonstration of the ways in which a skillful writer deploys multiple speakerlisteners, in subtly shifting contexts, to create an environment both “novelistic” and dramatic. As Emerson notes in her introduction to Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics: “Two speakers must not, and never do, completely understand each other; they must remain only partially satisfied with each other’s replies, because the continuation of dialogue is in large part dependent on neither party

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knowing exactly what the other means” (Emerson xxxii). It is this partial understanding that simultaneously maintains, threatens, and ultimately restores the fragile social fabric of the saloon. We can glimpse the intricate inner workings of the social structure at the “End of the Line Café” (O’Neill [¡940]¡967: 25) in a seemingly random conversation between three supporting characters from The Iceman Cometh: Captain Lewis, Joe Mott, and General Wetjoen. O’Neill, ever-conscious of the reader, gives us typically thorough descriptions:5 Lewis “is as obviously English as Yorkshire pudding and just as obviously the former army o‡cer (6); Wetjoen (also called “the Boer”) is a “slovenly dressed ... Dutch farmer type” (5), and Joe Mott (also called “the Negro”) “manages to preserve an atmosphere of nattiness and there is nothing dirty about his appearance. His face is only mildly negroid in type” (5). O’Neill precedes the dialogue with a description of the Captain emerging from a drunken sleep. He, Wetjoen, and Joe sit at the same table. Lewis sees Joe first, and: The expression on Lewis’s face is that of one who can’t believe his eyes. (Aloud to himself, with a muzzy wonder) Good God! Have I been drinking at the same table with a bloody Ka‡r? JOE: (Grinning ) Hello, Captain. You comin’ up for air? Ka‡r? Who’s he? WETJOEN: (Blurrily) Ka‡r, dot’s a nigger, Joe. (JOE sti›ens and his eyes narrow) [42–43]. LEWIS:

The beat opens with a variation on the classic comedic sexual dilemma, waking up next to a stranger. (In fact, Lewis at that moment is bare-chested, having taken o› his shirt the night before to reveal a battle scar received during the Boer War.) Lewis’s first conscious thought is that he has violated strict social protocol — he has either been drinking at the Ka‡r’s table, or he has allowed a Ka‡r to join him at his table. Joe, for his part, understands the initial situation well enough; the Captain is indeed “coming up for air” after, we may assume, a typical night of heavy drinking. What he is apparently unfamiliar with is the now-rarely used term “Ka‡r,” a derogatory term for a Black African, which the Captain apparently hasn’t used in Joe’s presence in the time of their acquaintance. It is the General, in his casual explanation, who provides the first potential serious tear in the social fabric. The term “Ka‡r,” Wetjoen explains, most closely corresponds to the all-toorecognizable “n-word,” a word Joe instantly associates with self-defense and imminent violence. Wetjoen seems unaware of the damage as he “goes on with heavy jocosity”: “Dot’s joke on him, Joe. He don’t know you. He’s still plind drunk, the ploody Limey chentleman! A great mistake I missed him at the battle of


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Modder River. Vit mine rifle I shoot damn fool Limey o‡cers py the dozen, but him I miss. De pity of it!” (43) Here Wetjoen turns the joke on the still oblivious Lewis, with his teasing chide at “the ploody Limey chentleman” and his typical (and oft-repeated throughout the play) lament that he didn’t kill Lewis during the war. Wetjoen continues: (He chuckles and slaps LEWIS on his bare shoulder.) [WETJOEN]: Hey, wake up, Cecil, you ploody fool! Don’t you know your old friend Joe? He’s no damned Ka‡r! He’s white, Joe is! LEWIS: (Light dawning — contritely) My profound apologies, Joseph, old chum. Eyesight a trifle blurry, I’m afraid. Whitest colored man I ever knew. Proud to call you my friend. No hard feelings, what? (He holds out his hand.) JOE: (At once grins good-naturedly and shakes his hand.) No, Captain, I know it’s mistake. Youse regular if you is a Limey. (Then his face hardening ) But I don’t stand for “nigger” from nobody. Never did [43].

Once Wetjoen reawakens Lewis, the Captain is able to make the required apology. Both characters immediately reestablish mutual acceptance and friendship. Joe then reminisces about his youthful days as a tough guy, inspiring Wetjoen to boast in a similar fashion: JOE:

WETJOEN:

In de old days, people calls me “nigger” wakes up in de hospital. I was de leader ob de Dirty Half-Dozen Gang. All six of us colored boys, we was tough and I was de toughest. (Inspired to boastful reminiscence) Me, in old days in Transvaal, I vas so tough and strong I grab axle of ox wagon mit full load and lift like feather [43].

In this beat or “movement,” we find an early example of one of the chief functions of repetition in The Iceman Cometh: that of a palliative, reassuring utterance. The mutual jokes and reminiscences let the characters know that everything at Harry’s is as it should be. O’Neill gives us one of a number of clues that the characters have engaged in similar exchanges before, and will continue to do so: immediately following Wetjoen’s story of the ox wagon, Lewis playfully compares the General to a baboon. While it is the first time in the course of the play he has told the joke, Lewis includes in his utterance an obvious signal of repetition: “As for you, my balmy Boer that walks like a man, I say again it was a grave error in our foreign policy ever to set you free...” (44, emphasis mine). The atmosphere of good humor and bonhomie is reestablished following the Captain’s unfortunate Ka‡r reference upon awakening.

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To dissect the Joe-Lewis-Wetjoen relationship with further precision, we can pinpoint one of the key sources of “partial understanding” as an inability to fully perceive both immediate situation and overall context. As Keir Elam writes: ... there are two distinct components of interest here: the situation in which a given exchange takes place, that is, the set of persons and objects present, their physical circumstances, the supposed time and place of their encounter, etc.; and the communicative context proper, usually known as the contextof-utterance, comprising the relationship set up between speaker, listener and discourse in the immediate here-and-now [¡25].

Joe, it might be said, understands the situation of the initial encounter, without understanding the context-of-utterance (his friend the Captain is gradually regaining consciousness after drunkenly passing out). Lewis, in contrast, sees only the context before he is able to take in the situation (I’ve been drinking with a bloody Ka‡r). Wetjoen, in his typical bull-in-a-chinashop manner, nearly makes matters worse by bluntly giving Joe the ugly truth of the Captain’s contextual utterance (the Captain thinks you’re a nigger) before resolving the problem by explaining the situation to Lewis (you’re so drunk you don’t recognize your friend Joe). To further explore the notion of “partial understanding,” we might also examine the speakers involved, and their trust in the listener. While the speeches, particularly the reminiscences, bear an undeniable stamp of autobiography and confession —first person accounts of past glories and/or sorrows — there is also more than a passing nod to the lyric. This is particularly true if we take note of Volosinov’s “underlying condition for lyric intonation ... the absolute certainty of the listener’s sympathy” (¡976:¡¡3). Since all the characters who room at Hope’s have their life stories which they are compelled to perform, their chief occupation in this society (perhaps their only occupation) is to believe and to be believed. The currency of the pipe dream, like any currency, is only of value if it is universally accepted. Dialogue, as a result, engages in frequent shifts between, in Emile Benveniste’s terms, histoire, or narration of past events, and discours, or the dialogic mode geared to the present. (Elam 2002:¡3¡). Often the characters engage in narrative without direct acknowledgement of the previous speaker, as Wetjoen does following Joe’s reminiscences of belonging to the “Dirty Half-Dozen Gang.” In an extension of the above scene, Joe and Lewis illustrate this principle in a speech of Joe’s. “White folks always said I was white,” he boasts proudly, reveling in this conflation of racial identity. After a quick (if preoccupied) confirmation from the proprietor Hope, Joe launches into a story, for Lewis’s benefit, of confronting “de Chief,” or “Big Bill,” apparently the


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ward boss in both Hope’s and Joe’s heyday. Joe speaks “to Captain Lewis who has relapsed into a sleepy daze and is listening to him with an absurd strained attention without comprehending a word” (O’Neil ¡967:46). Absolute sympathy does not mean absolute understanding — in fact, quite the opposite. With the absolute understanding that Hickey o›ers comes the end of dialogue, and for these characters, the end of existence. The above represents just a few pages of dialogue in a 258-page play (Vintage Books paperback). It is nevertheless remarkably dense with utterances based in, and caused by, the everyday workings and corrections of societal discourse. While the saloon acts as a great leveling force — a place where gentlemen and farmers, English and Dutch, white and black can sit and drink at the same table — the situation in terms of the social dynamic is not so simple. If we cast the lens of “sociological poetics” (to use Volosinov’s phrase from Discourse in Life and Discourse in Art) on this scene, we find layers within layers of meaning. Each of the characters’ utterances, as Jan Chothia has pointed out, reveals “occupation, social class, and regional base” (Chothia 63) primarily through O’Neill’s careful, if not tortuous, presentations of dialect and word order. This revelation comes not through direct articulation, but rather, as Volosinov writes: The basic social evaluations that stem directly from the distinctive characteristics of the given social group’s economic being ... have entered the flesh and blood of all representatives of the group; they organize behavior and actions; they have merged, as it were, with the objects and phenomena to which they correspond, and for that reason there is no need of special verbal formulation [¡0¡].

For Lewis, Joe, and Wetjoen, as well as the other denizens of Hope’s saloon, “social group” and “economic being” take on (at least) two meanings. The “bums” together constitute their own social group, united by dependence on alcohol and building their society on the economy of “pipe dreams.” On the other hand, the social groups from the world outside the bar, the groups that first gave and reinforced the characters’ identities, still play a defining role in this miniature society (indeed, “playing” and “roles” are both key elements in understanding all of these characters). The “assumed ... family, clan, nation, [or] class” (¡0¡) is not articulated in the characters’ dialogue, but rather through it. Let’s return for a moment to the Captain’s opening remark: “Good God! Have I been drinking at the same table with a bloody Ka‡r?” It is the unguarded, semi-conscious utterance of a man trying to piece together where he is and how he arrived there. The possibility of consciously invoking a “pipe dream” (or with a nod to Ibsen, “life-lie”) does not yet exist. The Cap-

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tain launches into his “pipe dream” soon enough, complaining about the delayed settlement of “the blasted old estate” that will be his eventual (firstclass) ticket home (O’Neill ¡967:53). It is rather in this initial, half-asleep, semi-sober utterance that Captain Lewis reveals and reflects the rules and mores that prevent English gentlemen from drinking with Ka‡rs. These rules are part of, in Volosinov’s terms, “the material unity of world that enters the speakers’ purview” and “the unity of the real conditions of life that generate a community of value judgements [sic]” (¡00). In a very real sense, these artificial, man-made value judgments represent the Captain in his truest, purest essence — the core of his identity. Indeed, as the mutual relationships, partnerships, and friendships disintegrate (or perhaps, explode) when salesman Hickey encourages the “bums” to give up their “pipe dreams,” the class, social, and race distinctions — those of the outside world — are all that remain. Joe’s status in the bar drops from a sort of honorary whiteness (again, status equals identity) to that “coon,” “dinge,” or “nigger” who “ain’t got no business in de bar after hours” (O’Neill ¡967:2¡6). Captain Lewis dismisses his friendship with Wetjoen as a lapse in judgment —“allowing a brute of a Dutch farmer to become familiar” (¡73). Wetjoen, in a key repetition, reiterates his formerly jocose complaint about failing to kill Lewis in battle, “but now, py Gott, I am sober, and I don’t joke, and I say it!” (¡77). Here, repetition takes an ominous turn, as the characters not only to cease to believe their own “pipe dreams,” but openly ridicule those of each other. Kidding turns serious, and openly abusive — for Lewis, it is a perilously short move from “balmy Boer who walks like a man” to the outraged “You bloody Dutch scum!” (¡77) Even the relatively slow Rocky, the bartender/pimp, responds to Lewis’ intentions of finding a job with the knowing and lucid cry, “What at, for Chris’ sake?” (¡74) While the characters’ respective plans to leave the saloon, get jobs, and return to their long-past (or never achieved) positions in the world are predictably doomed, and false, from the start, the social values each has assimilated as defining his identity come to the forefront. The home of the saloon has allowed Joe, Lewis, and Wetjoen not necessarily to ignore or override these values, but rather to integrate them with the mutually constructed and agreed-upon values of Hope’s place (and indeed chief among these values, the value of “hope”). Ironically for a play as downright wordy as The Iceman Cometh, there is still room for the unspoken, unarticulated understanding: “We do not share the race, social, and class distinctions of birth, but we now share the distinction of degradation. This shared distinction allows us to be family.” The characters all hit bottom after returning from their abortive e›orts


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to fulfill their pipe dreams. It is a fall all the more devastating and destructive because each of the “bums” had possessed the unspoken understanding that they had already hit bottom. As Larry notes in his introduction of the place to the doomed young Parritt, “No one here has to worry about where they’re going next, because there is no farther they can go” (25). By the time Hickey reveals the appalling truth about the murder of his wife, each of the individual characters are literally reduced to an anonymous chorus, uttering only the (repetitive) complaints that they want to pass out, and Hickey had promised them peace. Repetition is now literally senseless and lifeless as all vestiges of humanity are destroyed. Or rather, nearly all. The episode of Lewis and Joe seated at the same table is cruelly echoed in the play’s final act. Joe, his spirit broken, accepts his identity as “coon” and retreats to the back room with pathetic apologies (“Scuse me, White Boys. Scuse me for livin’”) as he meets Lewis: (Taps Lewis on the shoulder — servilely apologetic) If you objects to my sittin’ here, Captain, just tell me and I pulls my freight. LEWIS: No apology required, old chap. Anybody could tell you I should feel honored a bloody Ka‡r would lower himself to sit beside me. (JOE stares at him with sodden perplexity — then closes his eyes.) [2¡8]. JOE:

Just as Joe failed to understand the Ka‡r remark in the first act, he now fails to understand the self-obliterating finality of Lewis’ pronouncement. Yet, even at Lewis’ lowest point in the play, the class distinctions are still strongly present in his utterance, even as he turns the implied insult on himself—“You are still a bloody Ka‡r, but now I occupy a position even lower.” It is the one element of society that remains, able to withstand Hickey’s scorched-earth honesty. When Hickey at last is removed from Hope’s saloon, a quite remarkable transformation, or retransformation, takes place. The seemingly irreparable hole in the social fabric can be mended after all. In the play’s penultimate repetition, Lewis repeats his joke to Wetjoen comparing him to a baboon, and the other “bums” laugh uproariously as if the joke were not only funny, but new. Through alcohol, laughter, and singing, the society of Hope’s saloon, the society of hope and pipe dreams, is restored.(In fact, the amount of drinking throughout the play without anyone using the onstage W.C. has been commented upon by concerned critics.6) Repetition once again assumes its earlier role as a social healer. If, finally, as Bakhtin writes in “Discourse in the Novel,” that a “novel can be defined as a diversity of social speech types (sometimes even diversity of languages) and a diversity of individual voices, artistically organized”

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(262), then one can make a sturdy case that O’Neill finally succeeded in “marrying” a novel and a play. And if it is true of Dostoevsky, turning to Bakhtin again, that he “thought not in thoughts but in points of view, consciousness, voices” (¡984: 93), then one might even say that O’Neill not only succeeded in creating a novel-play marriage, but he did so while thinking like Dostoevsky. Or, at least, O’Neill’s meticulous detail in rendering the “basic social evaluations” of his characters contributed immensely to his closest approximation of the work of one of his greatest literary idols. UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH

Notes 1. Bloom is by no means alone in this negative assessment. Writing specifically about The Iceman Cometh, Mary McCarthy dealt O’Neill one of his harshest knocks (also, like Bloom, using Dreiser as an example of comparable incompetence) in her article “Dry Ice,” referring to him as “a playwright who — to be frank — cannot write” (qtd. in Roberts and Roberts ¡75). 2. Kurt Eisen makes e›ective appropriations of The Dialogic Imagination and Freudianism: A Critical Sketch in his book The Inner Strength of Opposites: O’Neill’s Novelistic Drama and the Melodramatic Imagination. 3. For example, in “From the Prehistory of Novelistic Discourse”: “The high genres are monotonic”; and in “Discourse in the Novel”: “Dramatic dialogue is determined by a collision between individuals who exist within the limits of a single world and a single unitary language” (Dialogic Imagination, 55 and 405). 4. O’Neill cited Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, in particular (along with Strindberg’s The Dance of Death), as instrumental in his decision to begin writing. For O’Neill, these works were proof that a writer could convey “a powerful emotional ecstasy, approaching a kind of frenzy” (Gelb 233). 5. Travis Bogard, in “The Door and the Mirror: The Iceman Cometh,” notes that O’Neill seeks “to see in the individual a type. The word ‘type’ occurs frequently in his descriptive stage directions of Hope’s roomers ...” (Bogard 5¡). 6. Noted critic and longtime O’Neill friend George Jean Nathan referred to the fact that no one uses the facilities as “strange” and “phenomenal” (Vena 87).

References Cited Bakhtin, M. M. The Dialogic Imagination. Trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin, University of Texas Press, ¡98¡. _____. Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics. Trans. Caryl Emerson. Theory and History of Literature, Volume 8. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, ¡984. Bloom, Harold. Introduction. Modern Critical Interpretations: Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, ¡987.


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Bogard, Travis. “The Door and the Mirror: The Iceman Cometh.” In Modern Critical Interpretations: Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, ¡987. Booth, Wayne C. Introduction. Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics. By Mikhail Bakhtin. Theory and History of Literature, Volume 8. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, ¡984. Chothia, Jean. “The Late Plays and the Development of ‘Significant Form’: The Iceman Cometh.” In Modern Critical Interpretations: Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, ¡987. Eisen, Kurt. The Inner Strength of Opposites: O’Neill’s Novelistic Drama and the Melodramatic Imagination. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, ¡994. Elam, Keir. The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama, 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2002. Emerson, Caryl. Editor’s Preface. Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics. By Mikhail Bakhtin. Theory and History of Literature, Volume 8. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, ¡984. Gelb, Arthur & Barbara. O’Neill. New York: Harper & Row, ¡973. O’Neill, Eugene. The Iceman Cometh. ¡940. New York: Vantage Books, ¡967. Roberts, Nancy L., and Arthur W. Roberts. Introductory Essay. In “As Ever, Gene”: The Letters of Eugene O’Neill to George Jean Nathan. Ed. Roberts and Roberts. Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, ¡987. Vena, Gary. O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh: Reconstructing the Premiere. Ann Arbor: UMI, ¡988. Volosinov, V.N. “Discourse in Life and Discourse in Art.” In Freudianism: A Critical Sketch. Trans. I. R. Titunik. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, ¡976.

6 A Prolegomenon to Comparative Drama in Canada In Defense of Binary Studies Gregory J. Reid Abstract Scholars have been generally reluctant to engage in explicit, crosslinguistic binary comparisons of Canadian drama in French and in English. One reason for this hesitance is that binary studies have become not only passé but actively discouraged as an approach to comparative literary studies, largely on the grounds that such an approach is narrow, prescriptive and, ultimately, proscriptive. This paper presents the argument that the Canadian context o›ers distinct justifications for explicit comparisons and that binary studies used as an exploratory strateg y can lead to greater cross-cultural awareness and understanding of the dramas of a dominantly English Canada and those of a dominantly French Quebec and encourage openness and diversity in our reflections. The paper outlines the process of arriving at particular comparisons, indicates some of the research that has already been undertaken and discusses potential binary studies for future investigation.

In his introduction to Textual Studies in Canada 5: The Aux Canadas Issue, Robert K. Martin argues that the “binary model is no longer acceptable to many Canadians” (3). Claiming that “the paradigm of two founding nations leaves little place for the native peoples of Canada” (3), he invokes the need for Canada “to go beyond duality” (3) in order to remain open to other voices. Insisting that it is not enough to “simply add a soupçon of otherness to an otherwise unchanged recipe” (3), Martin points out that “[t]he comparatist enterprise has too long sought to produce a paradigm with variations, without adequately recognizing how much the apparently descriptive paradigm becomes prescriptive. If major Canadian works are like this, then one that is like that can’t possibly be major, or even Canadian” (4). In a similar repudiation of European binary studies, Susan Bassnett, in 66

6. A Prolegomenon to Comparative Drama in Canada (Gregory J. Reid)

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Comparative Literature: A Critical Introduction, traces the notion that “comparative literature should involve the study of two elements (études binaires)” (27) to Paul Van Tieghen’s La Littérature comparée (¡93¡) and argues that “[i]t is possible to see almost all French comparative literature from the ¡930s onward as coloured by the études binaires principle” (28). Bassnett describes a binary approach as having served comparative literature “so ill for so long” (24) and cites the “narrowness of the binary distinction” as the first of a number of reasons that “[t]oday, comparative literature in one sense is dead” (47). Certainly Martin’s and Bassnett’s arguments against binary studies are in keeping with the post-structualist, Tel Quel climate of opinion which has dominated literary criticism in the postmodern era. However, Jonathan Culler’s claim, in ¡975, that “any attack on structuralist poetics based on the claim that it cannot grasp the varied modes of signification of literature will itself fail to provide a coherent alternative” (253) still carries weight. Moreover, if the structuralist premise taking “binary opposition as a fundamental operation of the human mind basic to the production of meaning” (Culler ¡5) has validity, then refutations of binary studies can themselves be little more that attempts to disguise their own implicit binary operations. In fact, it seems inevitable that arguments in strident opposition to binary analyses will eventually reveal themselves to be based on exactly the rigid binary thinking which they purport to challenge. The most apparent example of this rigidity is the notion that binary analysis is an absolute, exclusive category which excludes and permanently diminishes all other approaches and perspectives. Since Jacques Derrida’s famous essay in ¡966 (“Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences”) deconstructing Levi-Strauss and his attempts to extend Roman Jakobson’s linguistic model to anthropology, literary theorists and critics have become well aware of the shortcomings of a rigid, polarizing binary approach — the risks of essentialism, the tendency to privilege the hegemonic values on one side of the binary, and the exclusion of whatever does not fall within the binary axis. Having recognized and remaining aware of the risks and pitfalls, we must also acknowledge and respond to the costs, the lacunae and misunderstandings, which result from the prohibition and proscription of explicit binary studies. The theatre texts and practices of an o‡cially bilingual country like Canada would seem to cry out for cross-linguistic comparative study and analysis. However, in his “Historical Introduction” to the Bibliography of Studies in Comparative Canadian Literature/ Bibliographie d’études de littérature canadienne comparée, David Hayne observes that “there has been almost no comparative study of dramatic writing in the two languages...”

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(¡6). In “Drama in English” in The Oxford Companion to Canadian Theatre, Richard Plant concurs that “although several studies trace the development of anglophone and francophone drama, and thereby o›er implied, if not stated, comparative analysis, research has not extensively explored the relationship between French and English theatrical and dramatic activity” (¡48). Typically, the theatre of a dominantly English Canada and that of a dominantly French Quebec are treated as mutually exclusive categories, and recent studies of the theatre in English Canada and Quebec continue to circumnavigate explicit comparisons and, consequently, reinforce the typical Canadian myth of “two solitudes.” In the preface and introduction to his recent monograph, The Buried Astrolabe: Canadian Dramatic Imagination and Western Tradition, Craig Stewart Walker reveals the kind of dilemma, the reluctance and hesitance, which scholars of Canadian drama must overcome if they wish to deal with dramatists who write in French together with those who write in English. Walker predicts that “[i]nevitably, [his] inclusion of Michel Tremblay [in his study of six dramatists] will be questioned by some, both because it has become customary to treat the French and English literatures of Canada separately and because he is the sole francophone playwright among the six.” Pointing to his own reluctance “to think of Canadian drama as cleanly split into two unrelated traditions,” Walker justifies his inclusion of a francophone on the grounds that “Tremblay is among the internationally best-known Canadian playwrights” (viii). Despite Michel Tremblay having been an advocate of Quebec sovereignty who for many years refused to allow his plays to be translated into English, he is arguable the only Canadian writer recognized across the country as a “major” playwright. Certainly one of the foundational reasons for Tremblay’s remarkable success has been that Quebec theatre practitioners (writers, performers, directors) are better known in and supported by their communities than are their English Canadian counterparts. In his booklength essay, Selling Illusions: The Cult of Multiculturalism in Canada, novelist Neil Bissoondath describes this phenomenon as “English Canada” being “adrift with no sense of its centre” whereas “Quebec [has] redefined its own centre, strengthened it, sought to make it unassailable” (¡96). As a result, in the Quebec context it is possible to discuss “major” or significant playwrights with some assurance that this discussion will be supported not only by consensus in the academic community, but by supporting documentary evidence such as historical assessments, records of production and critical reception, and scholarly investigation. The counterpoint, then, to Robert Martin’s concern about a paradigm of Canadian literary works or writers being identified as “major” and there-


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fore as prescriptive models is the perception that there are no major Canadian dramatists or dramas. It is, in fact, the latter which has been the more obvious case in Canada. Martin mentions “debates over the canon” (3) in Canada, and Richard Knowles discusses English Canadian drama in terms of the homogenizing and muting e›ects of canon formation (see Knowles, Voices O› ). The consistent objection to a canon or descriptive-cumprescriptive paradigm and to binary studies is the same: the potential absence of openness and diversity. The challenge to binary studies, then, is to display how such an approach can remain open and diverse. Although the goal of comparing Canadian dramas in French and in English is to enrich cultural and cross-cultural awareness, and is based on the conviction that these forms of awareness are co-dependent, some comparisons work better than others. Any two texts can be compared, but a comparison works when there is a su‡cient basis for comparison; that is, a strong number of similarities, which allow us to isolate particular, striking, revealing, informing, epiphanic and ultimately untranslatable di›erences. As George Steiner has observed, “...comparative literature is an art of understanding centered on the eventuality and defeats of translation” (¡0). Ideally, a close comparative reading and binary analysis of two dramas will bring us into contact with the untranslatable of each and an awareness of that which can be said in a play of one language, culture and form, but which cannot be said in another. These untranslatable di›erences which are the product of language, culture, history and environment as well as the semi-autonomous evolution of art forms and the talents and experiences of individual artists invariably pronounce themselves in what is called “style.” Unfortunately the word “style” is frequently taken lightly. What is most significant and unique about any literary or dramatic text will ultimately reside in its style, which is why I would suggest that binary comparisons fall within a field already described in linguistics and translation studies as “comparative stylistics.” On the other hand, there are no ideal binary comparisons. A binary comparison is and must remain an exploratory strategy. Even apparently ideal binaries must be questioned, problematized and deconstructed as, and after, they are formed. Other comparisons are always possible and will yield di›erent conclusions and must be considered. The most likely product of a binary analysis is another binary and, as suggested above, the final revelation of any binary comes about when the comparison is defeated, when it approaches the untranslatable and incomparable. A close, detailed comparative reading of any two plays would be beyond the scope of the present paper. (For a sample approaching the kind of reading I am suggesting see Reid, “Mapping Jouissance”). What follows then, in

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this paper, is a foreword (prolegomenon) of how a binary approach might embrace Canadian drama in French and English. The objective is not to present a definitive list of pairings but, on the contrary, to describe the exploratory, trial-and-error process of establishing binary comparisons, while indicating what can and has already been done with explicit cross-linguistic comparisons, and, perhaps most importantly, to gesture (invitingly) to the wide-open field of potential but as yet undeveloped comparisons. Although it is generally conceded that there is little or no significant cross-cultural influence between English Canadian and Québécois drama; playwrights, actors and directors have shown a willingness to explore the linguistic divide in their work. David Fennario’s Balconville which premiered at Centaur Theatre in Montreal in ¡979 was the first and remains the classic example of a bilingual Canadian drama (Figure ¡). A number of playwrights have followed Fennario’s example, such as Marianne Ackerman (L’A›aire Tartu›e or the Garrison O‡cers Rehearse Molière), Vittorio Rossi (Paradise by the River), and Michael Healey (Plan B) o›ering plays with bilingual and multi-lingual dialogue but these works have met with cool to mixed reception. The cancellation of the planned production at the Vancouver Playhouse of George Ryga’s Captives of a Faceless Drummer in ¡970, the critical backlash against writer-director Robert Lepage’s production of Echo at Theatre ¡774 in Montreal in ¡988 for having French actors perform in English (see Breaking a Leg) and the hostile reaction of Le Devoir theatre critic Robert Lévesque to David Fennario’s The Death of René Lévesque at Centaur Theatre in ¡990 (in a front-page review Lévesque called the play “une merde”)— all together suggest the risks of theatrical involvement in language politics. One very notable exception to the absence of intra-Canadian, crosslinguistic influence is the ground-breaking Native drama The Rez Sisters (¡986) by Tomson Highway. The Rez Sisters about seven Cree women on a reserve was directly inspired by Michel Tremblay’s play, Les Belles soeurs (¡968), about thirteen women in a working-class district of Montreal. In “The Bingocentric Worlds of Michel Tremblay and Tomson Highway,” Renate Usmiani describes the striking comparability of the plays, including such elements as the use of monologues, stylized scenes and lighting, the use of magic realism, the distinctive, revolutionary linguistic features of the plays (the use of joual, a working-class sociolect of Quebec French in Belles soeurs, and English inflected with Cree and Ojibwa in Rez Sisters), the historical importance of the plays for the authors’ respective cultural communities as post-colonial assertions of identity, and the use of “bingo” as an icon of consumerism and displaced spirituality. As Usmiani outlines, the di›erences between the plays are clearly signaled in their final scenes. Les Belles soeurs


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Balconville’s battle of flags: Quebec’s fleurdelisé versus the Canadian Maple Leaf 1

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ends satirically and cynically with the playing of “O Canada” and trading stamps raining magically from the rafters. This ending reminds us that a sense of oppression and feelings of guilt, despair and betrayal have remained constant throughout the play. In contrast, the dance of Nanabush (the Native spirit who remains invisible to most of the characters but not to the audience) which ends The Rez Sisters reinforces the cyclical nature of the play and its insistent, unrelenting spirit of joy and playfulness even in the face of the characters’ personal tragedies and mortality. The play itself alludes to the kidnapping and murder of Helen Betty Osborne, a young Aboriginal woman, in Manitoba in ¡97¡, and becomes a form of healing ritual for that event. Having considered the one example of acknowledged cross-cultural influence, there is no requisite starting point for a continuing series of binary studies. Any overview of Quebec theatre will include Gratien Gélinas, Marcel Dubé, and Michel Tremblay — the three most influential playwrights in the history of Quebec drama. At least in part because of skepticism about canon-formation and reticence about prescriptive models, there are no recognized equivalents of these three Québécois playwrights in English Canadian theatre history. Gélinas is best known for his first, historically significant “serious drama” Tit-Coq (¡948) which he wrote after a decade of a highly popular radio show and burlesque-style stage revue based on a character called Fridolin whom Gélinas created and acted. Confronted with this asymmetry of theatrical traditions I have considered Gelinas’s later play Bousille et les justes as a possible comparison with George Ryga’s The Ecstacy of Rita Joe. Rita Joe, which premiered in ¡967 (Canada’s centennial), is arguably the single best-known play in English Canada. Although Ryga was younger than Gélinas, both plays, though very di›erent in style, are trial dramas. Bousille, which premiered in ¡959, ushered in what is known as the “Quiet Revolution” in Quebec (a period of growing liberalism and modernism in the province after decades of rule by Premier Maurice Duplessis who solidified his hold on power through alliances with the Catholic Church). Ryga’s play heralds the ¡970s, a period of youthful liberalism and the most productive period in the history of Canadian theatre in English. Both plays focus on the marginalized, disadvantaged characters named in their titles, Rita Joe and Bousille, as victims of social injustice. Rita Joe, a homeless young Native woman, survives in the city through panhandling and prostitution. As the play opens she is being tried for vagrancy and the judge demands that she find character references in order to avoid incarceration. Throughout the play Rita Joe is followed in the shadows by a group of unidentified young white men who rape and murder her at the end of the play.


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Bousille is a slightly crippled orphan and earnest Catholic, who has been taken in, for the most part, as an indentured servant by a prominent family from a small Quebec town. Aimé, the family’s favorite son, has been accused of a murder to which Bousille is the only eye-witness. Using Bousille’s simple-minded Catholic convictions against him, Aimé’s older brother and brother-in-law bully and torture him until he swears on a Bible promising to lie in court. The play ends with the revelation that, following Aimé’s acquittal, Bousille has returned home and committed suicide. Both plays are tragic satires pointing to the hypocrisies of the middle class and the victimization of the disadvantaged which results. What most strongly distinguishes the plays, to the point of unbalancing the comparison, is the realism and well-made-play structure of Bousille et les justes in contrast to the expressionism of The Ecstasy of Rita Joe. To fully comprehend the significance of these stylistic choices we would have to turn to a more elaborate consideration of the social and historical contexts in which the plays were presented. The basic di›erence which emerges from these choices of style is that The Ecstasy of Rita Joe challenges liberalism; whereas Bousille et les justes, in a more traditional form of modernism, clearly leaves open the aspiration that liberal institutions (judges, lawyers, the legal system, etc) and a more educated, secular population will be able to overcome the injustices of familial and religious tyranny. The sense of imbalance in this binary analysis of a realistic and an expressionistic drama has led me to consider with particular interest Sherrill Grace’s ¡988 essay, “The Expressionist Legacy in the Canadian Theatre: George Ryga and Robert Gurik,” in which she compares The Ecstasy of Rita Joe and Robert Gurik’s Le proces de Jean Baptiste M. as examples of “empathetic” and “abstract” expressionism respectively. In pursuing Grace’s comparison, I have come to be more and more aware of the importance of expressionism in English Canadian — including the work of the “Group of Seven,” abstract expressionist painters who would come to be recognized as the most important movement in Canadian art history, and the corresponding experiments in “symphonic expressionism” of pioneering dramatist Herman Voaden. While English Canada’s late modernism was taken up with expressionism, French Quebec, as André Bourassa points out in Surrealism and Quebec Literature: History of a Cultural Revolution, was embracing the surrealist movement. “Refus Global,” a manifesto prepared by surrealism painter, Paul Borduas, published in ¡949 and signed by fifteen other Quebec artists and writers, including poet and playwright Claude Gauvreau, has come to be seen as heroic and historically significant opposition to the Duplessis regime. Claude Gauvreau’s surrealist drama Les oranges sont vertes is a late

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but fitting example of the “Refus Global” movement. The play is challenging (some would say obscure and dated) and controversial for a number of reasons, including the fact that Gauvreau died (falling from the roof of his apartment building) immediately before the play’s ¡972 premiere. Les oranges sont vertes o›ers rich possibilities for comparison with The Ecstasy of Rita Joe and with Ryga’s most controversial play, Captives of a Faceless Drummer, which arguably led to Ryga’s being e›ectively blacklisted from Canadian theatre. Gauvreau’s and Ryga’s plays portray deep-seated feelings of betrayal and are attacks on the bourgeois liberalism of the day. Although Craig Walker does not develop a comparative approach in the body of his monograph, he points to the potential significance of FrenchEnglish comparisons in his introduction, noting that ... while the French Canadian emphasis on a romantic depiction of political resistance results in a mythological foundation that is distinct in many ways from an English Canadian emphasis on an aesthetic rendering of the sublime, the parallels between the two traditions of depicting revolt — the political and the poetic — should not ... be discounted. The themes have a common origin in European romantic poetry, where they are more usually partnered than not [¡4].

More specifically for our purposes, Walker o›ers a striking argument for comparing Gelinas’s Tit-Coq with novelist and playwright Robertson Davies’ Fortune, My Foe. Walker points out that the pattern of an antagonist struggling to transcend ... the colonial status perpetuated by the forces of philistinism and pharisaism ... is easily seen in the work of two of Canada’s most historically important playwrights, Gratien Gelinas and Robertson Davies, both of whom emerged with highly significant plays in ¡948–respectively Tit-Coq and Fortune, My Foe. Because both Gelinas and Davies later became such icons of the Canadian theatre establishment, it is easy to e›ace the fact that their early plays were expressions of anti-authoritarian protest ... [and in] the tradition of political satire [¡9].

Walker’s comparison of English Canadian poetic and Québécois political romanticism, as well as his specific comparison of Gelinas and Davies, is credible and significant, and merits further analysis and elaboration. Marcel Dubé has been variously described as the most prolific, longlived, popular and influential playwright in the modern history of Quebec theatre. Dubé’s Un Matin comme les autres can be considered in tandem with Carol Bolt’s One Night Stand, as both plays treat sexual adventurism in the urban setting of a high rise apartment. Dubé’s play, which premiered in


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¡968, was immediately compared to Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. For example, Alain Pontaut, theatre reviewer for La Presse titled his review of the play’s premiere “Qui a peur de Max et Madeleine?” (i.e., “Who is Afraid of Max and Madeleine?”) (¡7¡). In her review of the play’s opening night, Zelda Heller of The Gazette noted that “[c]omparisons with Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf [sic] seem almost unavoidable” (¡73). One Night Stand, which was presented on stage in ¡977 and became a popular television movie, as critics have noted, bears strong resemblance to Albee’s Zoo Story (see, for example, Zimmerman 49). This pairing, though idiosyncratic, proves useful in drawing out di›erences between modern and postmodern drama, as well as male and female perspectives on sexuality. In contradiction to prevailing stereotypes, it is the modernist Quebec play which shows a strong undercurrent of guilt and blame attached to sexuality, whereas the postmodern English Canadian play displays sexual nonchalance. (The typical English Canadian stereotype of Quebec is that it is sexually liberal; the Quebec stereotype of English Canada is that it is puritanical, prudish and consequently sexually cold. These stereotypes have a long history of being expressed in o›-color jokes). Although direct cross-cultural influences between French and English dramas in Canada are considered rare, as we have seen, this comparison reinforces the undisputed point that dramatists from English Canada and Quebec share outside influences. Marcel Dubé’s most recognized play, Les Beaux Dimanches, could be fruitfully compared to David French’s Leaving Home. Although French is nine years younger than Dubé, he comes as close as any playwright to the kind of recognition in English Canada which Dubé has enjoyed in Quebec. French’s best-known plays (including Leaving Home) deal with the Mercers, a family, not unlike French’s own, which has migrated from Newfoundland to live in Toronto. The opening chapter of The Theatre of Form and the Production of Meaning: Contemporary Canadian Dramaturgies in which Richard Knowles treats French’s plays as examples of traditional Aristotelian, Oedipal, Biblically-influenced dramaturgy, o›ers a frame within which the “family” dramas of French and Dubé could be considered together. Dramas which challenge gender boundaries; that is, both feminist and gay works, o›er a significant pool, a corpus to consider across linguistic lines as well. John Herbert’s Fortune and Men’s Eyes and Michel Tremblay’s Hossana were groundbreaking treatments of homosexuality, and have been followed by a number of Generation X plays such as Brad Faser’s Unidentified Human Remains, Michel Marc Bouchard’s Les Feluettes and René-Daniel Dubois’s Being at home with Claude. Anne-Marie MacDonald’s Goodnight Desdemona and Marie Laberge’s C’etait avant la guerre à l’Anse-à-Gilles o›er an interesting comparison because both plays challenge portrayals of women

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in classic intertexts–Shakespeare’ Othello and Romeo and Juliet, and Louis Hemon’s Marie Chapdelaine respectively. The potential of challenges to gender providing a framework for considering plays in French and English together is further revealed in André Loiselle’s “Paradigms of the ¡980’s Québécois and Canadian Drama” in which he compares Normand Chaurette’s Provincetown Playhouse, juillet ¡9¡9, j’avais ¡9 ans, and Sharon Pollock’s Blood Relations. The pursuit of binary comparisons can encourage inclusion and in many cases cause us to reconsider and reread dramatic literature that has come to be considered too eccentric, on one hand, or too well established, on the other. For example, Québécois playwright Jovette Marchessault, a feminist of First-Nations origin and visual artist, has met with outright hostility from critics because of her attachments to spiritualism and, in particular, her sympathies with the Theosophist movement. Her plays could be meaningfully and fruitfully compared, within a context of transcendentalism, to the dramas of James Reaney, whose influence on Canadian theatre reached its peak in the ¡970s. Italo-Anglo-Québécois-Canadian playwright Vittorio Rossi has revealed that he has been largely unaware of Marco Micone (see Rossi interview) even though they are each considered to be historically important dramatic voices for the Italian-Canadian communities in their respective second languages (English and French) and they both live in Montreal. A binary study of their plays would not only enhance our awareness of Italian-Canadian drama but would also contribute to our understanding of the e›ects of the linguistic divide within and among communities with Italian roots. In a somewhat dour article entitled “Québec and Ontario Theatre, ¡960–¡980: Two Parallel Revolutions That Failed,” Irving Wolfe quite accurately points out the shared catalysts of theatre in English and in French: the demographics of the baby boom, growing nationalisms, government budget surpluses leading to a number of funding programs for which theatre projects were ideal recipients. These factors together with the lack of an established dramatic canon in English Canada led to collective creations becoming so prevalent in the ¡970s that this style of group theatre was perceived as tantamount to an indigenous art form. Despite the importance of the movement in both French and English theatre and the shared political, social and economic circumstances, scholars almost invariably discuss the movements in Quebec and in the rest of Canada separately. (See, for example, Jean-Marc Larrue’s “La Création collective au Québec” in the collection Le Théâtre québécois ¡975–¡995 and David Barnet’s entry on “Collective Creation” in The Oxford Companion to Canadian Theatre as typical examples.) Collective creations in both languages have also typically been “docu-


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mentary dramas” taking on the didactic function of instructing audiences on local and national history. Much of the raison d’être of the Theatre Passe Muraille production of the collective creation ¡837: The Farmers’ Revolt (¡975) was to educate English Canadians and more specifically those in Toronto, Ontario to their own history. There have been at least seven other plays of various types in both languages presented in Canada on the subject of the ¡837 rebellions: Louis-Honoré Fréchette’s Papineau (¡880), Robertson Davies’s At My Heart’s Core (¡950), Eric Cross’s The Patriots (¡955), Jacques Ferron’s Les Grand Soleils (¡969), Jean-Robert Rémillard’s Cérémonial funèbre sur le corps de Jean-Olivier Chénier (¡974), Michael Hollingsworth’s The Mackenzie-Papineau Rebellion (¡987), and Anne Chislett’s Yankee Notions (¡992). The ¡837 rebellion of “Les Patriots” in Quebec (then called Lower Canada) is of unsurpassed significance to Québécois nationalists as it is said to mark the beginning of French-speaking Quebecers’ struggle for independence from the oppression of their English conquerors. Although a similar revolt took place in Ontario (then called Upper Canada) at the same time against the same government for much the same reason (the need for responsible government), the two rebellions tend to be viewed as unrelated or only tangentially connected, particularly in Quebec. An important di›erence between the history plays in each language, as Renate Usmiani points out in “The Playwright as Historiographer: New Views of the Past in Contemporary Québécois Drama,” is that while English dramatists struggled to create an awareness of history; Québécois dramatists were already engaged in the process of rewriting established, mythologised versions of their past. Rod Willmot’s masters thesis, “National History in English-Canadian and Quebec Drama: The Rebellions of ¡837” supplies a context and foundation for publishable research on dramatic treatments of the rebellions in both languages. Andre Furlani’s “¡837 On Stage: Three Rebellions” demonstrates that dramas about ¡837 are an interesting corpus for research. Although he seems critical of those plays about ¡837 which fail to acknowledge “the corresponding and much more incendiary Lower Canada rebellion” (72), he himself only deals with plays written in English. The ultimate goal of collective creations was not the aesthetic object of the drama in itself but political change and, in the short term, social awareness and upheaval. In terms of reaction in the public domain, two plays stand out for the unprecedented furors they evoked: Denise Boucher’s Les Fées ont soif, created with a coalition of feminists in ¡977, and Chris Brookes’s They Club Seals, Don’t They?, create by the Newfoundland Mummers in ¡976. As Ramon Hathorn asserts in “Censorship” in the Oxford Companion to Canadian Theatre: “The most celebrated case of theatre censorship in con-

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temporary Quebec was an attempt by civic and church authorities to prevent production and publication of Les Fées ont soif by Denise Boucher.” Hathorn aptly describes Les Fées as “[a] strong feminist play — attacking, among other things, the cult of the Virgin Mary.” As a result “several Catholic groups asked that the play be stopped and that all texts be removed from circulation.” The legal battles continued until ¡980 when “the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear the charges of blasphemy brought against the play.” They Club Seals became a subject of discussion and debate not only in the press, but in the Canadian Parliament. In a chapter on the Mummers in his monograph, Performing Canada: The Nation Enacted in the Imagined Theatre, Alan Filewod compresses and presents newspaper headlines about the play from across the country in a block. Filewod notes that while this “single narrative block violates all the rules of scholarly citation ... it was the real text of They Club Seals, Don’t They?” (8¡). Taken literally, Filewod’s claim would seem to challenge a binary, comparative analysis of the play’s text, but exactly the same claim — i.e., that the real text of the play happened outside the theatre — could be made of Les Fées ont soif. Moreover, a binary analysis should not prevent but encourage consideration of the dramatic text as a nod of intertextual layers and connections. A comparison of the published texts of Les Fées ont soif and They Club Seals, Don’t They? will reveal that Chris Brookes used “rough theatre” (to use Peter Brook’s terminology), circus-like techniques to critique and satirize the media circus around the Newfoundland seal hunt, and that Denise Boucher used a stylized, ritualized “holy theatre” to protest the fragmentation of female identity provoked in large measure by the iconography of the Catholic Church. The potential gains in undertaking this kind of comparative analysis seem, once again, to outweigh the risks of engaging in binary studies. UNIVERSITÉ DE SHERBROOKE

Note 1. Marc Gelinas and Peter MacNeil in the Centaur Theatre production of David Fennario’s Balconville (Montreal, ¡979). Photograph by Basil Zarov. Copyright and by permission of Talonbooks.


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References Cited Barnet, David. “Collective Creation.” The Oxford Companion to Canadian Theatre. Eds.Eugene Benson and L.W. Conolly. Toronto: Oxford University Press, ¡989. Bassnett, Susan. Comparative Literature: A Critical Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell, ¡993. Bissoondath, Neil. Selling Illusions: The Cult of Multiculturalism in Canada. Toronto: Penguin, 2002. Bourassa, André G. Surrealism and Quebec Literature: History of a Cultural Revolution. Trans. Mark Czarnecki. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, ¡984. Breaking a Leg: Robert Lepage and the Echo Project. Dir. Donald Winkler. Montreal: National Film Board of Canada, ¡992. Brook, Peter. The Empty Space. Markham, Ontario: Penguin ¡990. Culler, Johnathan. Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics and the Study of Literature. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, ¡975. Derrida, Jacques. “Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences.” Contemporary Literary Criticism: Modernism Through Post-Structuralism. Ed. Robert Con Davis. White Plains, NY: Longmans, ¡986: 480–498. Filewod, Alan. Performing Canada: The Nation Enacted in the Imagined Theatre. Kamloops, BC: Textual Studies in Canada, 2002. Furlani, Andre. “¡837 on Stage: Three Rebellions.” Canadian Literature/ Littérature canadienne ¡68 (Spring 200¡): 57–76. Grace, Sherill. “The Expressionist Legacy in the Canadian Theatre: George Ryga and Robert Gurik.” Canadian Literature/ Littérature canadienne ¡¡8 (Fall ¡988): 47–58. Hathorn, Ramon. “Censorship.” The Oxford Companion to Canadian Theatre. Eds. Eugene Benson and L.W. Conolly. Toronto: Oxford University Press, ¡989. Hayne, David. “Historical Introduction.” Bibliography of Studies in Comparative Canadian Literature/ Bibliographie d’études de littérature canadienne comparée, Eds. Antoine Sirois, Jean Vigneault, Maria van Sundert and David Hayne, 9– ¡7. Sherbrooke: Université de Sherbrooke, Département des lettres et communications, ¡989. Heller, Zelda. “Marcel Dubé’s New Play Given Warm Reception!” Review of Un Matin comme les autres. The Gazette 26 Feb ¡968. Rep in “Jugements critiques sur Un Matin comme les autres” in Un Matin comme les autres by Marcel Dubé, ¡69–¡8¡. Ottawa: Lemeac, ¡97¡. Knowles, Richard. The Theatre of Form and the Production of Meaning: Contemporary Canadian Dramaturgies. Toronto: ECW, ¡999. _____. “Voices (o› ): Deconstructing the Modern English-Canadian Canon.” Canadian Canons: Essays in Literary Value. Ed. Robert Lecker. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, ¡99¡. Larrue, Jean-Marc. “La création collective au Québec.” Le théâtre québécois ¡975 — ¡995. Ed. Dominique Lafon. Ottawa: Fides, 200¡. Loiselle, André. “Paradigms of the ¡980’s Québécois and Canadian Drama: Normand Chaurette’s Provincetown Playhouse, juillet ¡9¡9, j’avais ¡9 ans and Sharon Pollock’s Blood Relations.” Québec Studies ¡4 (Spring-Summer ¡992): 93–¡04.

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Martin, Robert K. Introduction. Textual Studies in Canada 5. The Aux Canadas Issue: Reading, Writing and Translation. Eds. Robert K. Martin and Gabrielle Collu (¡994): 3–6. Plant, Richard. “Drama in English.” The Oxford Companion to Canadian Theatre. Eds. Eugene Benson and L.W. Conolly. Toronto: Oxford University Press, ¡989. Pontaut, Alain. “Qui a peur de Max et Madeleine? Review of Un Matin comme les autres. La Presse. Rep in “Jugements critiques sur Un Matin comme les autres” in Un Matin comme les autres by Marcel Dubé, ¡69–¡8¡. Ottawa: Lemeac, ¡97¡. Reid, Gregory J. “Mapping Jouissance: Insights from a Case Study in the Schizophrenia of Canadian Drama.” Comparative Drama 35.3–4 (2002): 29¡–3¡8. Rossi, Vittorio. Interview with Gregory J. Reid. “Face to Face: A Conversation with Vittorio Rossi.” Theatre Research in Canada / Recherches théâtrales au Canada 2¡.2 (Fall 2000) ¡77–¡94. Steiner, George. What Is Comparative Literature? Oxford: Clarendon, ¡995. Usmiani. Renate. “The Playwright as Historiographer: New Views of the Past in Contemporary Québécois Drama.” Canadian Drama/ L’art dramatique canadien 8.2 (¡982): ¡¡7–¡28 _____. “The Bingocentric Worlds of Michel Tremblay and Tomson Highway: Les Belles-Soeurs Vs. The Rez Sisters,” Canadian Literature/ Littérature canadienne ¡44 (spring ¡995): ¡26–40. Van Tiegham, Paul. La Littérature comparée. Paris: Colin, ¡93¡. Walker, Craig Stewart. The Buried Astrolabe: Canadian Dramatic Imagination and Western Tradition. Montreal: McGill-Queens, 200¡. Willmot, Rod. “National History in English-Canadian and Quebec Drama: The Rebellions of ¡837.” M.A. thesis. Université de Sherbrooke, ¡977. Wolfe, Irving. “Québec and Ontario Theatre, ¡960-¡980: Two Parallel Revolutions That Failed.” New Literatures Review ¡9 (summer ¡990): 35–45. Zimmerman, Cynthia. Playwriting Women: Female Voices in English Canada. Toronto: Simon & Pierre, ¡994.

7 Olga Taxidou’s Medea: A World Apart in Tbilisi, Georgia, in ¡997 Vassiliki Rapti Abstract The story of Medea, who killed her children to spite her husband, has fascinated playwrights since antiquity. Olga Taxidou, a feminist critic and playwright, wrote a trilog y, Medea: A World Apart, which premiered in Tbilisi, Georgia, in ¡997. Taxidou portrayed Medea as a refugee and intertwined her fate with that of the Trojan women who were prisoners of war. The first two parts of the trilog y were combined as a performance piece. In this paper, I discuss how Taxidou’s Medea: A World Apart begins as an experiment on female mourning and ends as a political drama that bridges Euripidean classical tragedy with Brechtian epic theatre. Taxidou’s Medea: A World Apart o›ers a poignant gendered commentary on the ravenous acts of imperialism which ensnare many groups of innocent victims, especially women.

I’ll prepare a new home for you. One without a mother. One without your mother to make your wedding beds to dress your brides[ ... ] Your wedding ceremonies will take place in darkness (Taxidou, Medea: A World Apart ¡5¡)1

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In the preceding quotes Medea talks to her two sons right before she kills them. In the quote from Euripides’s tragedy, Medea’s lament indicates genuine grief even though her focus is more on her own su›ering of imminent exile and loss than on the tragic death of her unsuspecting sons. In the quote from Taxidou’s tragedy, Medea’s lament conveys a sense of “coldness” unbefitting the emotional state of a real person. This disparity in the mourning of the two Medeas, is worth exploring, along with the e›ect Taxidou’s departure from Euripides’s portrayal of Medea has on readers and audiences alike. It was Medea: A World Apart—i.e., the first two parts of a trilogy — that were performed at the Georgian International Festival of Theatre (GIFT) in Tbilisi, Georgia, in ¡997.2 The third part of the trilogy, All About Phaedra, was not, and will be left out from this discussion. Taxidou does not portray Medea as a witch, an infanticide, or a vengeful wife.3 Instead, she delineates Medea’s multi-layered experience as a refugee (from Colchis to Iolkos, from Iolkos to Corinth, and from Corinth to Athens). She translates Medea’s repeated displacements — both political and psychological (¡33)— into a mosaic-like gendered lament as “a way of relating to the past as ruins and fragments” (Taxidou 2004:88). Unlike Euripides’s tragedy that presents Medea’s mourning as an act of imitation (mimesis), Taxidou’s adaptation historicizes Medea. I will argue that, in Taxidou’s Medea: A World Apart, mourning is deliberately “theatricalized” and “cited” by means of diegesis (Pavis ¡0¡). Instead of acting out her story through mimesis, Medea is just telling her story. Medea is no longer a character who mourns because she experiences grief, as in the case of Euripides’s Medea. Taxidou’s Medea is a “dialogic” character who sees herself as a “character” that has undergone an extreme degree of self-alienation and whose only duty remains to use “mourning” as a tool for “trying to constantly remember [and to remind] the reason for such grief ” (Taxidou 2005:¡48). In Taxidou’s quintessentially modern and “narrativized” version of Medea, mourning coincides with Medea’s self-aware recounting of her miseries from the moment she was victimized in Colchis by the arrows of Eros to the moment of she was disgraced and banished from Corinth. These aspects of Medea’s tragic story of exile and self-estrangement are recounted in fragmentary fashion on stage by Medea herself (reminiscent of Apollonius of Rhodes’s version of Medea).4 These fragmented narratives raise Medea from a character who “is” and “su›ers” to a character who “represents” and “remembers.” The audience cannot identify with Taxidou’s Medea because she lacks materiality in her identity. Nonetheless, the audience can be moved by

7. Olga Taxidou’s Medea: A World Apart… (Vassiliki Rapti)

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Medea’s mournful “story” which reveals, through codified gestures, segments of historic truth. In the following paragraphs I will show how Taxidou achieves this e›ect by appropriating the Brechtian notion of “epic” theatre, which is filtered nevertheless by her own re-reading of Greek tragedy, particularly the Euripidean one.5 Taxidou’s Medea: A World Apart begins as an on-stage experiment on female mourning and ends as a genuinely political drama that neatly bridges the Euripidean tragedy with Brechtian epic theatre. It is, in e›ect, an “experiment,” in Brecht’s sense when he called for a new school of playwriting: “it must be free to use connections on every side” (46). Taxidou’s adaptation reconciles Brecht’s call for an epic theatre with Euripides’s tragedy because, as she acknowledged,6 both Brecht and Euripides had a formative impact on her work. According to Brecht, epic theatre privileged detached narratives over mimetic plots; o›ered spectators an image of society rather than a social experience; brought spectators to a point of recognition through argument over suggestion; made spectators to observe and think rather than to empathize and emote; saw man as a process rather than as a fixed point; showed man as alterable and able to alter leaving evolutionary determinism behind him; presented each scene for itself instead of a linear development; and favored montage over organic growth (Brecht 37). Taxidou used almost all of the above in her adaptation of Euripides’s Medea. Medea: A World Apart could be seen as a reification of ideas that Taxidou developed in her book, Tragedy, Modernity and Mourning (2004) where, again, she examines and pulls together the Euripidean notion of tragedy and the Brechtian notion of epic theatre. For Taxidou, tragedy “comes to enact a language of critique” (2004:¡87), and she believes that highlighting “the function of mourning might help underline the parallels rather than the di›erences between tragic and epic form” (¡89). She calls for an understanding of Greek tragedy as a performative structure that is associated with mourning and femininity, and is “deeply shaped by tensions in the homosocial structure of Greek thought with its dependence on the repression of a ‘monstrous feminine’” (Frow).7 No matter how female mourning has been repressed or regulated by laws or edicts8 that targeted it as the manifestation of “the monstrous feminine,” mourning has never been fully suppressed. As Helen P. Foley states, a “mourning woman is not simply a producer of pity, but dangerous. Yet the message her lament carries is never fully suppressed” (55).9 Taxidou embraces Foley’s view, among others,10 and quotes her in her book:

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Text & Presentation, 2005 Tragedy is full of the public laceration of cheeks and the lamentation at other people’s tombs supposedly forbidden by Solon. Revenge and funerary lamentation are intimately related in tragedy, and women play a public and dominant role in awakening it... [qtd. in Taxidou 2004:¡77].

Mourning, especially in Euripidean tragedy has been seen as a threat to Athenian society because it awakened the audience’s critical thinking towards historicity. It is in this direction that Taxidou found parallels between Greek tragedy and epic theatre: female mourning in the theatre has the potential of assaulting the eyes and imagination of an audience. This assault stems from the image of a “dismembered” female figure that stands allegorically for “bad History.” Taxidou’s adaptation shows mourning Medea capable of launching a double revenge — both against the homosocial society that denies her access to the public domain, and against the “civilized” perpetrators who commit atrocities in the name of law and order. Taxidou thus o›ers a Medea-refugee who deliberately externalizes and recounts “in coldness” and in a state of self-estrangement an excessive pain and rage in the form of a codified and readable gesture, that of lament. This is the form of expression that has been seen as best suiting women and, at the same time, as dangerous to society when it is excessively emotional. So, Taxidou fashions Medea, the barbarian refugee and descendant of the Sun, as a philosophizing “character” who is aware of the power of her lament as a form of empowering argument that can be used to trigger the critical thinking of the audience. To ensure this e›ect, Taxidou uses the Brechtian Gestus in her Medea: A World Apart. According to Patrice Pavis, Gestus consists in a simple movement that one makes to frame and critique established social attitudes. It is situated between action and character type: As action, it shows the character engaged in a social praxis; as character type, it represents a group of traits peculiar to the individual. Gestus is perceptible in the actor’s body behavior and in his speech [¡64].

Taxidou used the Brechtian Gestus in her adaptation, while, at the same time, copied the major themes in Euripides’s Medea. In the Georgian production of Medea: A World Apart, Gestus took the form of a melancholy mood that was closely linked to lamentation, formalizing and highlighting, in a metatheatrical manner, the main conflicts of the play so they could be easily codified and read (Taxidou 2000:225). The two major devices that were used in Medea: A World Apart were “diegesis” and “metatheatricality.” Diagesis is exemplified in Medea’s lengthy monologue. Metatheatricality is exemplified in Medea’s self-estrangement and the nurse’s self-awareness.


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Diegesis Diegesis and montage are deployed hand in hand in Taxidou’s adaptation because it weaves the lines of many of Euripides’s characters into Medea’s lengthy monologue, making their presence on the stage unnecessary. The characters in Euripides’s play are the nurse, the tutor, Kreon, Jason, Aegeus, the messenger, the two boys, the chorus of Corinthian women, the silent handmaids, the attendants, and the guards. Most of them are purposefully kept o›stage in Taxidou’s Medea; some of them are referred to by Medea during her monologue; some others are depicted as upper-case-letter captions on the page and the stage — such as “KREON’S SEQUENCE” (¡45) and “AEGEUS SEQUENCE” (¡49). These sign posts guide the audience in the way they read Medea’s fragmented monologue. Kreon and Aegeus do not appear on the stage even though their authority is felt on the refugee women. The only characters on stage are Medea and the nurse in the first part of Medea: A World Apart. The chorus of women (who are Trojan, not Corinthian, in Taxidou’s Medea) appears and plays a leading role in the second part when Medea flies (literally) to Athens to become a television star and talk-show host. The chorus of women on stage watches Medea on a distant television screen while they are mourning for their own sorry plight. These Trojan women are mafiatype wives who smoke cigarettes and make sarcastic remarks about their destiny, providing comic relief and a critical distance to the audience. The chorus of women was present on stage from the very beginning during the performance in Tbilisi, Georgia. Hecuba, Troy’s mater dolorosa, was the chorus leader and tried to console Cassandra, her daughter, who reiterated the particulars of her rape by Apollo. She also consoles Andromache and Helen, her two daughters-in-law, whose lives had been wrecked since the fall of Troy. Hecuba tends for them and o›ers them water from a water fountain that symbolizes the Aegean Sea and the Black Sea. The stage, “littered” with human wrecks amidst classical ruins, had one main set or prop — a “monument” representing four caryatids, torn apart at the edges and with their heads stuck to the ceiling. Amidst these ruins and statues, the Trojan Women try to put together or restore their lives and their surrounding world (Taxidou 2000:226). Hecuba, the strongest of the women refugees, is identified with Medea’s nurse/cleaner — i.e., the character who delivers the prologue in Taxidou’s adaptation: (A woman walks in. She is a cleaner. She is smoking. She is wearing clothes that are slightly old fashioned but smart: jeans, tucked in medium heeled boots, a

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Text & Presentation, 2005 jumper with embroidered bits, a jacket, gloves, a scarf. With her she is carrying her tools: bucket, sponges, a mop, liquids, etc. As she talks she changes and puts on a type of tunic/dressing gown to work in) [¡26].

Hecuba, in her double role as a nurse and a cleaner, is prevented from resorting to individualized expressions of emotion, adding an emblematic quality to the production (225). The Aristotelian notion of catharsis (emotional cleansing) is twisted by Hecuba, the cleaning lady, who, in her opening lines as a nurse, had observed: It is impossible/ You can’t get from A to B in this place without changing three buses. No one moves in straight lines/ I could do without/ crossing the refugee camps every morning./ They go on and on ... / Please, I do not want to be reminded [¡26].

These lines, which introduce readers and spectators to one of the refugees’ major problems, also o›er readers and spectators the key as to how to understand this play and its performances — not through linearity, from A to B, but as a pastiche. Needless to say, a sardonic sense of humor, which becomes a language of critique for the human condition, triggers the audience’s critical thinking. According to Taxidou, the production in Tbilisi was not without humor: In the juxtaposition between “ancient” and “modern,” and mainly between melancholia and melodrama, an ironically comic e›ect was achieved. The actors of the Georgian Film Actor’s Studio (as the name suggests) have been trained in both theatre and film acting. Anyone familiar with the work of the cinema directors Sergei Paradzanov and Tengiz Abuladze would immediately recognize the stunning visual style; it is one that blends Byzantine with modernist traditions in perspective, the use of colour, and the representation of character. This is also a style that manages to combine highly stylized melodramatic acting with equally stylized tragic acting. The “slippage” from one to the other initially appears to be seamless. In e›ect the two styles are constantly played against each other. This approach not only provides comic relief, but also critical distance [2000:228].

The same slippage from one style to another is evident in the nurse’s donning of di›erent clothes and social classes in Taxidou’s adaption. The nurse in Euripides’s Medea elicits our pity for her mistress in the opening speech of Medea and is conscious of satisfying her desire for lament and so gaining relief (see also Holst-Warhaft ¡992:¡66). Conversely, the nurse in Taxidou’s Medea is a smoker and a cleaner in jeans. This cleaner, instead of bringing an emotional cleansing in the audiences, elicits their contempt for Medea. Here is what Taxidou’s nurse says directly to the audience:


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No, don’t expect me/to build up your sympathy for/ the Queen./ She is entitled to her pain/ and I to mine [¡27].

The nurse makes it clear to the audience how social status privileges expressions of mourning. “So watch her,” she goads the audience, “Watch Medea mourn her destiny” while Hecuba (the nurse/cleaner) is not allowed to mourn for the loss of her child who drowned. In her view, the mourning of Queen Medea becomes a public spectacle that is resented, while the lament of Medea, the refugee, is transformed from songs of grief to a song that calls for, or describes, revenge (see Holst-Warhaft ¡992:6). In this sense, Medea had set the wheels of revenge in motion from the moment she lamented her refugee status.

Metatheatricality In Taxidou’s play, metatheatricality enhances the recounting of the lament of Medea, the refugee. Taxidou exploits to the hilt the moments of internal conflict in Euripides’s Medea over the killing of her two sons (Euripides ¡049–¡070); but she uses two Brechtian devices — Gestus and AlienationE›ect — to add an eerie, metatheatrical dimension to those moments. Her Medea, in both the dramatic text and the production in Tbilisi, is stunningly detached and over-conscious. Her Medea stands outside herself as a performer of the action and distinguishes herself from the chorus of other woman refugees as a woman of action: No, I mustn’t alienate the chorus. I don’t want to turn into one of those solipsistic, soul-searching characters. No, I am a woman of action. I need the chorus of women. They are the only ones who will understand my pain and my rage [¡4¡].

Medea constantly observes herself and informs the audience about her changing moods and views. She first sees herself as a woman of action, then as a “whore and a murderess” (¡46), and finally as an alienated, “transparent” woman: I am made of the most fragile of materials. I/ am transparent./ As I speak I can almost watch/ my body disappear” [¡53].

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In other words, in contrast to Euripides’s Medea, metatheatricality is the key in Taxidou’s Medea that translates her philosophizing over her lament into a readable Brechtian Gestus. The mimetic and diegetic spaces converge and unleash unprecedented yet meaningful violence. For instance, Medea’s first words are about the axe that fell the trees of Pelion to build the Argo. She hopes that it will also split her head. This axe forewarns of the other murdering tool Medea will soon use to cut into the bodies of her two sons so as to curve a “deep hole” in Jason’s heart because he disgraced their marriage (¡54). Throughout the play similar imagery, assisted by sign posts, reify Medea’s political commentary caused by her lamentable displacement. Medea comes from that part of the world “where borders are constantly changing” (Taxidou 2000:2¡8) under the force of the imperialist strategic plans of the civilized nations. “After all, they had the army, and the boats, and/ the markets” (¡3¡) she says. Their strategic plans reduced Medea into a refugee: I want my land back, my soil, my rivers. I want to wet my toes on the froth of the Black Sea [¡33].

In the end, Medea, “a stranger in a strange land” (¡33), feels empty, and ready to perform the horrific deed: And I am ready to perform my deed. I am empty. I go feeling nothing. I am dead [¡52]. The stories I can tell about the Argonauts. About children running to the boats for shelter and getting their little palms chopped o› as soon as they got a grip of the oars. About the priestesses of Artemis who the Argonauts starved and who only saw the light when they were dragged out to the Greeks’ camp to be raped by Jason’s sailors. About the abortions that they then performed on each other with burning needles. So keep your lips sealed women. Your descriptions leave me untouched [¡53].


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Medea’s confession that she has become desensitized to su›ering is a telling moment in the play. The retelling of these stories is equivalent to enacting historical memory. Mourning to Medea has become a means to bring about healing and rediscover love, as she and the audience are “trying to constantly remember the reason for such grief ” (¡48). Rather than using mourning as a means to empower herself like Euripides’s Medea to carry out her plan of revenge, she increases the audience’s awareness in a final attempt to act against similar atrocities. The lament of Taxidou’s Medea is a Gestus that takes on specific historical meanings from the specific historical circumstances during which this play was performed — from Tbilisi to Edinburgh, and from Sarajevo to Warsaw and Moscow. The myth of the Argonauts and the Golden Fleece that changed Medea’s life is an archaic account of an early conflict between Greeks and Georgians. Olga Taxidou, who is of a Greek-Pontian descent, is familiar with similar displacements in recent history and memory.¡¡ Her play which makes connections between people and events in di›erent times and places, between ancient and modern wars, between history and biography, was most appealing to the audiences. The audience at Tbilisi applauded the performance of actress Keti Dolidze who played Medea because she brought to the role her experience with the revival of the anti-war movement in Georgia. In an attempt to stop the warring factions, Georgian women lay white scarves along the front line. The scarf became a prominent prop during the performances of Taxidou’s Medea, because it was already a recognized symbol of the women’s anti-war movement. White scarves had come back in Georgia and Abkhazia during the war in ¡992: At the height of the civil war in ¡992 and amidst heated nationalist feelings Keti Dolidze made a plea on national television for the women of Tbilisi to join her in the city’s central square. More than 5,000 women did so. She led them all onto a train that was heading straight for the front line. Once there, the women stood and held hands in front of the troops in an attempt to end the madness that the war had created. Various nationalist groups threatened to blow up the train, but the women all returned safely [Taxidou 2000:230].

During the performances in Tbilisi, Medea (the refugee) and the Trojan Women (the prisoners of war) used scarves, and, in an ecstatic state, they sang their laments giving themselves up “entirely to their grief ” (Holst 2000:5¡). Their performances revived traumatic recent events, asking audiences to remember the war and reflect on it, its results and causes. Taxidou’s “detached” and “transparent” Medea codified her scars and attitude into a Gestus expressed through lament and a white scarf. Through this Gestus, Medea became self-authorized to restore the magical power of women’s voices

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which “were reduced to a civic danger with at best private therapeutic value” back in classical Athens (Holst 2000:¡69). In conclusion, Taxidou emphasizes Medea’s self-conscious recounting of her lament as an enactment of historical memory rather than as an agony over the imminent slaughter of her children. Moreover, Medea’s personal drama intertwined with that of the Trojan Women becomes a collective drama, specific to women involved in the quarrel between the East and West, between the “civilized” and the “barbarians,” throughout myth and history. Taxidou, by closely linking tragedy, mourning and gender through Brechtian techniques, succeeded in transforming the Euripidean Medea’s dangerous excess of su›ering with cathartic e›ects for the audience, into the self-aware, “crude” recounting of su›ering of a refugee who asks the audiences to reflect clearly on the political message of the play. In this sense, Greek tragedy and epic theatre are two sides of the same coin, di›ering only on the way they enact the language of critique. UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI–ST. LOUIS

Notes Acknowledgment. I am indebted to Olga Taxidou who kindly o›ered me access to the trilogy of her adaptations of the Euripidean tragedies Medea, The Trojan Women and Hippolytus. The titles of her adaptations are the following, respectively: Medea, a World Apart and All About Phaedra. The author provided me with both their scripts and a videotape with the premiere of the first two parts of her trilogy that the Tumanishvili Company from Tbilisi, Georgia, had performed in Georgian in ¡997. This paper is based on both these versions of Taxidou’s Medea: A World Apart. ¡. Medea, a World Apart was recently published in the special issue “World Theatre Today” of the third volume of the journal Theatron (Fall 2004-Spring 2005):¡25–¡77. 2. This performance was produced by the Georgian Film Actor’s Studio under Nana Kvaskhvadze’s direction, while Keti Dolidze, well-known in Georgia, played Medea. Acccording to the Archive of Greek and Roman Drama of the University of Oxford, this new version of Medea was the fifth one in Georgia since ¡959 and one of the 66 productions of Medea in Greece since ¡865, while it came to be added to the 500-odd performances of Medea from ¡500 onward all over the world. Also, All About Phaedra portrays Phaedra as another Medea in the sense of a dangerous woman who acts irrationally for a man’s love. 3. Fiona Macintosh was able to delineate these versions of Medea in her introductory article to the volume Medea in Performance: ¡500–2000, published by the University of Oxford in 2000. This article is entitled “Introduction: The Performer in Performance” (¡–3¡).


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4. I refer to his series of Books I–VI entitled Argonautica. 5. Information given through an e-mail exchange, dated 22 March, 2005. Taxidou confirmed that “Euripides remains my [her] main inspiration,” when I asked her if she were influenced by Heiner Müller’s version of Medea. I quote her answer: “I deliberately kept away from Heiner Müller’s version while I was working on mine. I had seen it performed in Greek and German but had never read it until a year or so after I finished my versions. However, you are right to point out the parallels. I like to think that maybe we have similar sources of influence (like Brecht and Athenian tragedy); also like Heiner Müller, I share a passionate attachment to “the great project of socialism” (in all its contradictions, ambiguities and disappointments). But Euripides remains my main inspiration.” 6. Ibid. 7. I quote from the back cover of her book Tragedy, Modernity and Mourning (Edinburgh: Edinburgh U P, 2004). 8. The issue has been widely discussed in a variety of contexts. In general, women’s lament was viewed as threatening to the city-state by potentially destabilizing it. Therefore, legislation was, accordingly, introduced from the 6th century B.C. onward in Athens and a number of the more advanced city-states, which aimed at the restriction of women’s mournful voices. Gail Holst-Warhaft, for instance, in her book Dangerous Voices: Women’s Laments and Greek Literature (London and New York: Routledge, ¡992), discusses the ritual form of women’s “extravagant mourning of the dead” (3), viewed as “something feminine, weak and ignoble,” and quotes Plutarch in this regard: “women are more inclined to it than men, barbarians more than Hellenes, commoners more than aristocrats” (26). These words by Plutarch, the author claims, “are indicative of the rhetoric used to justify the suppression of female mourning” (Holst ¡992):26. Also, Helene P. Foley and Nicole Loraux have extensively written about the subject. Loraux, has argued for instance, for the funeral oration as an appropriation of the tragic form. 9. For more details see Helene P. Foley, “The Politics of Tragic Lamentation” in Female Acts in Greek Tragedy (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press, 200¡) (¡9-55): 55. 10. This approach owes much to Taxidou’s acknowledged influence from Walter Benjamin’s work The Origin of German Tragic Drama, first published in ¡963. “This study, with its emphasis on allegory, mourning and catastrophe, bears startling similarities to Athenian tragedy,” Taxidou states (¡4). In establishing a dialogue with Benjamin’s notion of Trauerspiel and Athenian tragedy thanks to the analogy of the constellation or the mosaic that relies on the fragment, Taxidou aspires to create “a way of reading tragedy and Trauerspiel that allows for the fragment, the ruin, and the incongruous existence of antiquity and modernity” (78). 11. Here is how Olga Taxidou briefly summarizes the story of Greek Pontians: “Originally arriving as colonizers in the Black Sea as long ago as the Archaic period of ancient Greece, the era which turned into poetry the story of Jason and the Argonauts, they remained on its shores throughout the Classical Greek and Hellenistic periods, and throughout the duration of the Roman and Ottoman empires. Some returned more recently to mainland Greece during the notorious ‘exchange of populations’ between Greece and Turkey in the ¡920s (popularly known as ‘the catastrophe’), while others remained and were persecuted under Stalinism. The history

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of Greek Pontians is too long, fraught, and complex to relate in detail here, but their presence on the Black Sea and their particular ‘construction’ of Greekness is one that informs this project. It is a version that, as Ascherson rightly claims, is defined by culture and ideology rather than origin or biology” (2000:220).

References Cited Apollonius Rhodius. The Argonautica of Apollonius: Literary Studies. Ed. Richard L. Hunter. New York: Cambridge University Press, ¡993. Brecht, Bertolt. Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic. Ed. John Willett. New York: Hill & Wang, 30th ed. ¡957. Euripides. Medea. Ed. Alan Elliott. London: Oxford University Press, ¡969. Holst-Warhaft, Gail. Dangerous Voices: Women’s Laments and Greek Literature. London and New York: Routledge, ¡992. _____. The Cue for Passion: Grief and Its Political Uses. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000. Macintosh, Fiona. “Introduction: The Performer in Performance” in Medea in Performance: ¡500–2000. Ed. Edith Hall, Fiona Macintosh and Oliver Taplin, ¡– 3¡. Oxford: Legenda. European Humanities Research Centre, 2000. Mavromoustakos Platon. “Medea in Greece” in Medea in Performance: ¡500–2000. Ed. Edith Hall, Fiona Macintosh and Oliver Taplin, ¡66–¡79. Oxford: Legenda. European Humanities Research Centre, 2000. Pavis, Patrice. Dictionary of the Theatre: Terms, Concepts and Analysis. Toronto & Bu›alo: University of Toronto Press, ¡998. Taxidou, Olga. Medea: A World Apart. (¡992–¡993). Theatron (Fall 2004-Spring 2005): ¡25–¡77. _____. Medea: A World Apart. Unreleased video tape. Tbilisi, ¡997. _____. “Medea Comes Home” in Medea in Performance: ¡500–2000. Ed. Edith Hall, Fiona Macintosh and Oliver Taplin, 2¡7–23¡. Oxford: Legenda. European Humanities Research Centre, 2000. _____. Tragedy, Modernity and Mourning. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004. _____. Personal Correspondence. 22 March 2005.

8 A Politics of the Heart The Uses of Alienation and Yeats’s The Dreaming of the Bones Patrick Query Abstract The political uses of dramatic alienation, typified by Bertold Brecht, are not exclusively leftist. The fundamental components of the Brechtian Alienation E›ect (gestus, epic devices, and historicity) are present in W. B. Yeats’s later poetic plays which, politically, stand at the opposite extreme from Brecht’s Marxian materialism. Yeats’s dramatic theory proposed a theatre based on a combination of reinvigorated national myths, a concentrated use of symbols, and an audience’s emotional and/or unconscious response. Yeats’s theory reiterated, albeit in miniature, the formal underpinnings of the most well-known right-wing movement of the twentieth century, European fascism. My purpose is not to label Yeats a fascist, but to suggest dramatic alienation’s right-wing utility on the basis of the conceptual overlap between fascism (the aestheticization of politics) and a poetic drama with “no propaganda but that of good art.”

On a panel at the 27th Comparative Drama Conference in Columbus, Ohio, in 2003, William Elwood asked whether it would be possible to use Bertold Brecht’s Verfremdungse›ekt for right-wing political purposes. The answer is more complex than the question might indicate because it depends on one’s particular understanding of Verfremdungse›ekt.1 Janelle Reinelt has warned that “treating it separately can lead to a formalist understanding of Brecht,” rather than his intended sociopolitical one (8). “The Alienation e›ect,” she argues, “is produced by the combination of ... gestus, epic structure, and historicization,” the “three Brechtian dramaturgical concepts” that have come to “constitute the ‘essential Brecht.’” She continues: [T]he distancing of the A-e›ect may not always be sociopolitical, while the e›ect produced by the interaction of gest [sic], epic techniques, and his93

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Text & Presentation, 2005 toricization is, fundamentally, sociopolitical. Alienation implies the necessity of economic, material, and ideological recognition. It is more accurate to say that all four of these features must occur together to insure the desired political reading [8].

This analysis seems correct up to a point. The problem lies in its equation of the “fundamentally sociopolitical” with the “economic, material, and ideological”— in other words, with a Marxist politics. Reinelt’s orientation is evident in her introduction to her book, After Brecht, in which political theatre is repeatedly equated with “leftist theatre” (2). According to Reinelt, Brecht’s “legacy” is limited to “playwrights with leftist social commitments,” although she makes a limited allowance for some “hybridity” in this regard (¡). I argue that only one of the three essential Brechtian ingredients — i.e., historicization — points politically leftward, but even this is debatable. It seems that the A-e›ect, when properly understood, is “fundamentally sociopolitical,” but it is not essentially Marxist or socialist. The politics we have come to associate with “Brechtian” theatre are the product of the A-e›ect only insofar as the A-e›ect was situated within a particular ideological context by Brecht’s writings and his historical situation. The A-e›ect, while rarely apolitical, is politically neutral. If, as a form, the A-e›ect can be mixed with political content presumably at will, then it is possible to use it for right-wing political purposes as well. William Butler Yeats did just that, most notably in the dance plays he wrote according to the model of Japanese Noh theatre. Devices of theatrical alienation preceded Brecht, but we generally associate him with their overt politicization. Brecht acknowledged that the connection between alienation (even the A-e›ect proper) and a particular politics is not automatic: “In point of fact the only people who can profitably study a piece of technique like the Chinese acting’s A-e›ect are those who need such a technique for quite definite social purposes” (96). His explanation here seems to be contradicting Reinelt’s insistence on an anti-formalist understanding of the A-e›ect. The traditional Chinese theatre that Brecht describes is very similar to the Noh theatre of Japan in that both are highly formalistic, ritualistic, and stylized, but not obviously sociopolitical, at least not in the Western sense.2 So Reinelt’s preference in avoiding “those synonyms for alienation such as distanciation or making strange that apply to formalist art as well as epic art” appears rather arbitrary when one considers Brecht’s willingness to identify the A-e›ect in a theatre that, while achieving all manner of dramatic alienation, can hardly be called “epic” (¡¡).3 When Brecht acknowledged the presence of the A-e›ect in a pre-socialistic theatre, he implicitly undid the

8. A Politics of the Heart (Patrick Query)

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connection between form and political content. Even if Brecht had read into Chinese theatre a version of socialist commitment, there is no reason why such a reading should necessarily supersede or preempt a predominantly formal-aesthetic one. Yeats, for one, interpreted a comparable traditional Eastern theatre aesthetically at first and, only afterwards, in political terms that could not have been more di›erent from Brecht’s. The overlap in Yeats’s writing between aesthetics and politics suggests that well before Brecht formulated the idea of the Verfremdungse›ekt, Yeats had already seen the potential political value of dramatic alienation. His vision of a poetic theatre was nearly as politically inflected as Brecht’s vision of an epic theatre; and there are few modern works in which the alienation e›ects are more pronounced than in Yeats’s poetic plays, particularly his four Noh-inspired dance plays. That Yeats and Brecht espoused radically di›erent political views is beyond question. Brecht was a Marxist materialist, while Yeats is perhaps best described as an aesthetic nationalist, often interpreted as a “fascist” (not without justification, as I will explain in the following section). Nonetheless, the aesthetic frameworks that Yeats and Brecht established for the stage are remarkably similar. Non-illusionistic sets and scenery, the incorporation of music and choruses, the heightened distinction between actor and character are just a few of the formal elements shared by Brecht’s epic theatre and Yeats’s poetic theatre. In both cases, the key link between dramaturgy and politics is the conviction that, in order for the theatre to become a vehicle for significant political change, the experience of traditional bourgeois drama first has to be deconstructed; its constituent parts have to be sundered, then reassembled according to a new formal design with the power to make the stage spectacle (which has become familiar and thus politically inarticulate) appear strange again. Depicted content is of some consequence in the dramatization of political ideology, but the programs of Brecht and Yeats are overwhelmingly formal in emphasis. Although both playwrights expressed a measure of concern over the content to be performed on their stages, the thrust of their dramatic innovations was formal. In other words, any work — with the likely exception of the bourgeois sitting-room drama — could be successfully played in the new theatres envisioned by Brecht and Yeats, provided that it adhered to the new formal paradigm. It is therefore reasonable to begin an investigation of the respective political inflections of these theatres from the primary formal characteristic they seem to have in common: the aesthetic of alienation. The three principles of epic theatre enumerated by Reinelt work together in attacking the tendency toward identification in the theatre, whether between actor and character, or between audience and the world

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depicted onstage. The danger of such identification, according to Brecht, is that the spectator (Brecht’s actor is also regarded as a spectator) loses the critical capacity to judge what is taking place. Identification, when encouraged by the illusion of reality, promotes a kind of unconsciousness, a submission, but not criticism; and if the theatre is going to stimulate political change, it must make the spectator a critic. The A-e›ect of the epic theatre is “designed to free socially conditioned phenomena from that stamp of familiarity which protects them against our grasp today” (¡92). In his desire to return familiar phenomena to the “grasp” of the audience, Brecht is very much like Yeats. For the latter, though, “grasp” is something the audience does emotionally, unconsciously, not critically and consciously. Glenda Leeming explains that, for both Brecht and Yeats, poetry was included “amongst the other elements of non-illusionist theatre,” which signaled the crucial departure from conventional dramatic realism each was attempting (2¡). Poetry, like song, dance, narration, and non-realistic staging, was one of the devices capable of deactivating an audience’s habitual patterns of response. Brecht insisted that these elements be presented as distinct (or alienated) from one another. The “mutual alienation” of the play’s formal components was a catalyst for the audience’s detachment from — and thus heightened intellectual awareness and criticism of— the content depicted onstage (Brecht 204). Yeats’s Noh plays present a similar aesthetic but toward a di›erent end. In his employment of “detached stylised acting and his separation of dance and chorus from dialogue,” Yeats sought, somewhat paradoxically, “an integrated experience for the audience” (Leeming 22). Yeats’s mutual alienation of forms was a means to the audience’s “imaginative acceptance and participation” in his vision (qtd. in Leeming 52). His drama’s alienation was also a form of initiation. Yeats’s poetic theatre is based on a strict defamiliarization articulated in a line from Göethe of which he was fond: “Art is art because it is not nature” (Yeats ¡973: 88). He incorporated this notion into his ideal “poetical drama, which tries to keep at a distance from daily life” (88). The condition toward which his drama strives is necessarily di‡cult to describe, as it is a highly inward state, a metaphysical linkage between truth, beauty, soul, and the “primary ideas” that reside deep in the psyche (78). It seeks to create moments of aesthetic experience that “substitute for the movements that the eye sees the nobler movements that the heart sees” (¡09). Subjective as these states of consciousness may sound, Yeats saw them as the collective property of the Irish people, products of a “national character” (76). The drama he envisioned was to be successful only insofar as it “opened a way of expression for an impulse that was in the people themselves” (74). He imagined an easy commerce between the individual and popular imagina-


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tion, one that was to be put very much to the test when his esoteric ideas about dramatic art met with an actual human audience. The means of Yeats’s aesthetic are somewhat easier to grasp than its ends. In his ¡903 essay, “The Reform of the Theatre,” Yeats enumerated four points that formed the basis of his theatrical vision. This vision would remain relatively constant, while its particulars would undergo revision over time. First, he paraphrased Sainte-Beuve: “[T]here is nothing immortal in literature except style” (¡07). Style in language is to be valued first and foremost. As Yeats defines it, style is not the mere elevation of language to a “literary” pitch but rather the quality of being “in love with words,” capturing the “delicate movement of living speech that is the chief garment of life” (¡08). The second principle is that “we must make speech even more important than gesture upon the stage” (¡08). One way to accomplish this is for the actor “so to cherish the musical lineaments of verse or prose that he delights the ear with a continually varied music” (¡08). Gesture, though, was to rise significantly in importance once Yeats became interested in the Noh form. Third, acting must be simplified to the point that only “the sound of the voice” or a “few moments of intense expression” draw the attention of the audience. All the superfluities that support the realism of a performance must be eliminated. The fourth point is that the new drama must likewise “simplify both the form and colour of scenery and costume” (¡09). These elements should at most suggest contexts but never “distract the attention from speech and movement” (¡¡0).4 All of these principles constitute alienation techniques, although their political significance has not yet been explained. Implicit in a Yeatsian performance — all masks, moods, gestures, and music — is a politics of the heart, largely imperceptible to the head and even the eye, but no less political for that. His persistent concern with the life of the Irish theatre project is one way in which Yeats, in so many ways the consummate solitary artist, solidified his position as a public man. Especially in the years before and shortly after the formation of the Abbey Theatre, virtually every claim and exhortation he made about theatre was framed by a more or less specific “we.” Most often this “we” denoted his fellow organizers of the Irish Literary Theatre movement — Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn, George Moore — but it occasionally expanded to include Irish poets and artists, or the Irish people more broadly. At times his statements sounded downright proletarian: “Our movement is a return to the people, like the Russian movement of the early seventies” (96). “The people,” though, represented something far di›erent to Yeats than to the Russians, and by the early ¡920s he had abandoned the idea of a “People’s Theatre” in favor of “an unpopular theatre and an audience like a secret society where admission is by favour and never to many”

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(Yeats ¡973: 254). The people-feeling that he did possess was less proletarian than vaguely populist, and it is certainly possible to be both populist and elitist, as an analysis of fascism will suggest.

An Aesthetic Politics Yeats has frequently been called a fascist, not least because of his brief association with the abortive Irish fascist group, the Blueshirts, in the early ¡930s.5 Most often the fascist label has been applied not out of any concern with the link between aesthetics and politics but simply as a nervous reaction to what has long since become a scandalous ideology. At least since Walter Benjamin’s assertion, though, that fascism is essentially an aestheticized politics, the way has been open for investigation of how a right-leaning politics is aestheticized by an individual artist like Yeats, and what can be called right-wing about a given aesthetic (24¡). Roger Gri‡n explains that fascism is “anti-rational,” meaning that it makes its greatest claims based not on the conclusions of “the rationalist and political tradition of the Enlightenment,” but on the level of emotional response (¡5). Its elaborate rituals and symbols, its saturation of public life with the aesthetic of the regime, is intended to do what its flimsy logical underpinnings cannot — i.e., to incite the people to identification and willing participation. It is not necessary, however, to label Yeats a fascist to establish the rightwing nature of his dramatic program. The overlap between his politics and fascism is enough to suggest that his aesthetic resides at the opposite political pole from theoretical Marxism. The right-wing nature of Yeats’s aesthetic is present in its emphasis on irrational audience response, its idealization of national myths, and its determination to aestheticize national political concerns. Gri‡n explains that fascism is able to combine the subjective sense of an aesthetic existence with a genuine desire to influence and organize public experience: [A]n important consequence of fascism’s nature as a revolutionary, populist and charismatic form of nationalism, is that a régime based on it does not try to regiment the masses simply in order to control them. Rather it does so as part of an elaborate attempt to bring about what is conceived as a positive, life-asserting, transformation of how they experience everyday reality and their place in history.... [¡7]

These impulses are identifiable in what Seamus Deane calls the distinguishing characteristic of Yeats’s dramatic career: “its desire to reshape Ireland through the appeal of a revivified formality of stage manner which


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would represent a new formality of social behavior and relationship” (¡¡7). Yeats, the artistic visionary with a very real sense of public purpose, adhered to a kind of proto-fascist worldview in order to be true to both concerns. According to Deane, The gesture, the formal apparatus and the tone of Yeats’s closet dramas are inspired by a political and cultural intent. They are not esoteric in the sense that they are at some considerable remove from the public domain. They are aristocratic only in the sense that they wish to replace the very idea of a collective public with the idea of a national community in which individuality, not individualism, would be the primary element [¡¡6].

Gri‡n’s description of fascism echoes this dual concern with aesthetics and politics: “The central emphasis on the a›ective and subjective sense ... of belonging to a supra-individual reality, leads to an all-pervasive use of myths, symbols and rituals, designed to replace the primacy of individualism and reason by a transcendental community and faith” (¡7). This desire to aestheticize public life, thereby raising it to a higher level, is one of the hallmarks of fascism. The orchestration of public life according to aesthetic principles is as descriptive of a central impulse of fascism as it is of Yeats’s program for a national theatre. Where Brecht’s plays had in mind to unlock the audience’s power of reflection and criticism, “Yeats’s plays,” says Deane, “command the audience to participate in a vision of the world” (¡20). It should be stressed that Yeats fought long and hard to rescue Irish drama from the tendency toward overt politicization. “We must learn that beauty and truth are always justified of themselves and that their creation is a greater service to our country than writing that compromises either in the seeming service of a cause” (Yeats ¡973: ¡07). Indeed, his ideal theatre was to employ “no propaganda but that of good art” (¡00). And whatever public significance his poetic plays would have would be dependent on their first fulfilling the internal requirements of his own vision. “Literature is always personal,” he wrote, “always one man’s vision of the world, one man’s experience, and it can only be popular when men are ready to welcome the visions of others” (¡¡5). Whatever political e‡cacy his plays would have would occur through indirection, through appeal to the subtler reaches of unconscious response. Such indirection, of course, is Brechtian heresy, but it is nonetheless politically potent, as Deane emphatically agrees. Not only is Yeats “a profoundly political dramatist,” but “it is in his plays that we find a search for the new form of feeling which would renovate [the Irish] national consciousness” (¡22).

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Enter Noh It is no wonder that Yeats found the Noh theatre attractive, as its aesthetic virtually mirrors his own. Masaru Sekine, perhaps the preeminent authority on Yeats and the Noh, identifies the following fundamental characteristics of Noh theatre: — It is a Japanese traditional theatre, attended and understood by a small elite. — It is a poetic theatre, and includes poems in its texts. — It is a symbolic and stylized theatre, suggestive rather than mimetic. — Noh is a musical theatre, employing both a chorus and musicians. — It is a dance theatre. — It is, in a way, a “poor theatre” in terms of staging and props [¡990: 22–32].

Yeats’s conception of a poetic theatre far anticipates his familiarity with Noh theatre, so that the Noh form appears to have been for him the solidification, the crystallization of extant ideas. As Denis Donoghue sees it: The Noh plays provided Yeats with three things, (a) a theatre-form of proved validity, a means of organising and therefore of realising his material, a means of perceiving the forms and shapes latent in it; (b) a way of undercutting the mere representation of the surface of life...; and (c) an elaborate store of non-verbal expression which could liberate the mind from the will by the ritual nature of its eloquence [54].

It is sometimes regarded as a problem that Yeats’s familiarity with Noh was “limited” at best (Sekine, “Yeats” ¡54). A general consensus exists that he picked and chose from the elements of Noh and manipulated them to suit his own purpose. Yeats, though, defends such a move: “All literature in every country is derived from models, and as often as not these are foreign models, and it is the presence of a personal element alone that can give it nationality in a fine sense, the nationality of its maker” (233). For Yeats’s dance plays were Irish plays, not just formal experiments or bastardized Japanese theatre. This is particularly evident in The Dreaming of the Bones. Its subject radically historicizes the Irish past by combining the ancient Irish myth of Diarmuid and Dervogilla “[w]ho brought the Norman in” and “sold their country into slavery,” with the story of the ¡9¡6 Easter Rising (Yeats [¡934] ¡970: 282). It is well worth noting that the play’s Irish political content may have been responsible for the long delay in its production (Miller 240). First published in ¡9¡9, it was not produced until December ¡93¡ at the Abbey’s Peacock Theatre. As Karen Dorn notes, one of the circumstances that aligned


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favorably for a renewed interest in Yeats’s Noh plays was the “growth of interest in nonnaturalistic drama” in the ¡920s (9¡). The political circumstances were somewhat more complex but likewise conducive to Yeats’s dramatic ideas. Certainly the claustrophobic social atmosphere produced in Ireland by the Easter Rising and the Irish Civil War had relaxed somewhat by ¡93¡, at least enough to a›ord some breathing room around the play’s subject. Another less obvious, but no less meaningful political reality, was the growing popular attraction throughout Western Europe, including Ireland, to the combination of theatre and politics. Fascist movements in Italy, Germany, Spain, and Ireland were only the most conspicuous beneficiaries of this new zeitgeist. Communist and Anarchist movements across Europe also capitalized on the theatrical potential of modern mass politics. The plot of The Dreaming of the Bones is episodic, and the use of gestus, an action performed critically as opposed to mimetically, abounds. The cast consists of only three characters in addition to three musicians. All except A Young Man are presented with some form of mask, a convention borrowed from the Noh theatre. The stage is little more than “any bare place in a room close to the wall,” an optional screen or curtain painted only to “symbolise or suggest ... a pattern of mountain and sky” (276). The first alienation device, beyond these non-illusionistic conventions, is the optional unfolding of a cloth. This device of Yeats’s Noh plays is still not very well understood, but Sekine’s view of it as merely a “mediocre and amateurish” device to “tell his audience the moment of the play was going to start” fails to do justice to it as an alienation technique (Sekine ¡990:¡56–¡57). Sekine is concerned primarily with Yeats’s departure from orthodox Noh practice, which utilizes no such device, rather than the creative dramatic use to which Yeats puts it. It is in fact an alienation device par excellence in that it has no “natural” equivalent or realistic function. It signals, rather, the dramatic event as a performance. The first words spoken in the play are by the Musicians, in their function as chorus. The nature of their speech is also identified by Sekine as an adulteration of pure Noh practice, but like the folding and unfolding of the cloth, it serves an alienation e›ect. Indeed, as narrators of— and commentators on — the action on the stage, the Yeatsian chorus would be quite at home in the epic theatre. As the Young Man approaches, the First Musician narrates his progress: I hear a footfall — A young man with a lantern comes this way. He seems an Aran fisher, for he wears The flannel bawneen and the cow-hide shoe. He stumbles wearily, and stumbling prays [Yeats ¡970: 277].

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The Noh theatre relies heavily on “verbal images” like these, partly in compensation for the minimal guidance provided by the sets, costumes, and stylized rather than realistic acting (Sekine ¡990: 30). For Yeats, the Musicians’ commentary allows for the particularization of the subject matter as Irish without taking recourse to the usual accouterments of realist theatre. The encounter that follows, between the Young Man, the Stranger, and the Young Girl, is likewise anti-realistic. On a tiny stage without the benefit of elaborate lighting techniques, the artificiality of this situation would be obvious: [raising his lantern]. Who is there? I cannot see what you are like. Come to the light. STRANGER: But what have you to fear? YOUNG MAN: And why have you come creeping through the dark? [The Girl blows out the lantern.] The wind has blown my lantern out. Where are you? [¡970: 277]. YOUNG MAN:

And such episodes need to be presented as artificial, as stylized, if they are to “substitute for the movements that the eye sees the nobler movements that the heart sees.” The three characters trade poetic passages until they journey on together. Their progress is suggested by a formalized procession around the stage, each round accompanied by the commentary of the chorus, alternately speaking and singing: They’ve passed the shallow well and the flat stone ...An owl is crying out above their heads. ...And now they have climbed through the long grassy field And passed the ragged thorn-trees and the gap In the ancient hedge [¡970: 279].

So it continues, the characters’ conversation taking place without stage directions, their only movements indicated through verbal reference or the chorus’s narration. In the moment of emotional climax, the extremity of feeling is indicated by the dance of the Stranger and the Young Girl, who are really Diarmuid and Dervogilla. In the text, their dance is evident only from the words of the Young Man: ... Why do you dance? Why do you gaze, and with so passionate eyes, One on the other; and then turn away, Covering your eyes, and weave it in a dance? Who are you? What are you? You are not natural [¡970: 283].


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He continues to describe their movements as the dance changes: The dance is changing now. They have dropped their eyes, They have covered up their eyes as though their hearts Had suddenly been broken —.... They have raised their hands as though to snatch the sleep That lingers always in the abyss of the sky... [¡970: 284].

Such a repertoire of gestures is clearly inherited from the Noh form, which is limited to the set of movements established by its progenitor, Ze-Ami, who devised stylized forms of acting to illustrate poetic concepts. Gesture and movements were made symbolic and suggestive.... There are, for example, three ways of showing sorrow, according to the degree of sorrow. One is just to look down.... The second method ... incorporates a hand movement. This synchronizes with the face movements. The actor brings his hand up to his eyes, but at a distance from his face, roughly of about fifteen centimeters.... The third method is to show deeper sorrow by using both hands [Sekine ¡990: 26].

The necessity for such highly stylized gestures to be accompanied by verbal explication is apparent, particularly for an Irish audience without any knowledge of Noh gestural conventions. In Yeats’s theatre, the e›ect of alienation produced by such gestures must have been extraordinary. The play ends with the Musicians singing, their song having little necessary connection to the events that have taken place onstage. Here, many observers have concluded, is one of the places in which the chorus is essentially Yeats’s voice. The e›ect of the poetry is oblique; its most striking e›ect is its regular rhyme and meter. With no plot action left onstage for the audience to observe, there is only the song and the refolding of the cloth, as if to give “the rhythmical movements that seem to flow up into the imagination from some deeper life than that of the individual soul” the audience’s unchallenged attention (Yeats ¡973: ¡09). Still, just as the unfolding of the cloth signaled the separation of the play from the workings of the real world, its refolding cues the audience that the performance is now over. In case the mysterious operations of the form have lulled the viewer into a blank, aesthetic acceptance — not illusion, which would seem impossible, but something akin to dreaming — the cloth ritual is there to enforce the alienation of the viewer from the stage. What the viewer’s response, freed from the habitual surrender to the play’s aesthetic, will be is uncertain. It is perhaps as likely to be a materialist — i.e., Brechtian — reflection on the particulars related in the plot as a willing surrender to the playwright’s vision

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of an aestheticized national life. Either way, the use of alienation in the drama, if executed successfully, will have reminded the viewer that there are di›erent ways of responding to dramatic representation than are prompted by ordinary realism. The inclusion of political material certainly enhances the playwright’s ability to orchestrate political impact, but in the end the audience member’s response will of course be his or her own. Interestingly, Brecht and Yeats might both agree that if the onlooker is unaware of having a political experience at all, he or she is likely closer to the political orbit of the aesthetic right than of the materialist left. LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO

Notes 1. Or, Alienation e›ect, or A-e›ect, which I will use throughout. 2. This association of Brecht’s “traditional Chinese theatre” with the Japanese Noh form is somewhat problematic. It would require more research to ferret out the similarities and di›erences between the two modes. Even then, the distinctions might not amount to all that much because what is of present concern is the use to which Brecht and Yeats, respectively, put these Eastern theatrical models. For the time being, it will hopefully su‡ce to note that what Brecht appreciated in “Chinese acting” is virtually the same as what Yeats admired in Noh, as well as the fact that the available literature on Noh describes it in terms almost identical to Brecht’s picture of the traditional Chinese theatre. Masaru Sekine notes that the origins of Noh are uncertain and may actually be Chinese (¡990: 22). 3. Indeed, Raymond Williams argues that Brecht learned estrangement “directly from early Russian Formalism” (3¡6). For this reason, I feel justified in using alienation e›ect or A-e›ect to refer to the general arrangement of theatrical forms that produces alienation and sociopolitical comment, of which the Brechtian alienation e›ect is but one unique interpretation. 4. Besides the aforementioned determination to free Irish stage expression from the stultifying influence of bourgeois realism, this move toward a stylized and austere form of drama is partly the product of pragmatic concerns. For all his commitment to the integrity of the artist’s subjective vision, Yeats was also cognizant of the material restraints on any attempt to fashion a new theatre for Ireland. Primary among these, naturally, was money. (Brecht, on the other hand, acknowledged the “great advantages” his experimental theatre enjoyed in pre–Hitler Germany, “the great sums of money we were able to work with” [65]). Even at his most pragmatic, though, Yeats was able to think in artistic terms: It is a necessary part of our plan to find out how to perform plays for little money, for it is certain that every increase in expenditure has lowered the quality of dramatic art itself, by robbing the dramatist of freedom in experiment, and by withdrawing attention from his words and the work of the players [¡25].

Thus the gift by “a generous English friend, Miss Horniman,” of the Abbey Theatre, “without any charge” in ¡904 represented not only an immeasurable practical


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advantage for the Irish theatre project, but also a step toward artistic liberation (¡24). The more donors and “little societies” who could be found to make or donate costumes and scenery, the more flexible the new theatre’s productions could become (¡25). Its guiding impulse and characteristic, though, would remain its simplicity, at least as Yeats conceived it in the early days of its existence. 5. See especially George Orwell’s ¡943 essay “W.B. Yeats” in The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell Vol. II. Ed. Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus, and the titular essay in Conor Cruise O’Brien’s Passion and Cunning: Essays on Nationalism, Terrorism and Revolution (¡988): 8–6¡.

References Cited Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Illuminations. Ed. and Intro. Hannah Arendt. Trans. Harry Zohn, 2¡7–25¡. New York: Shocken, ¡969. Brecht, Bertold. Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic. ¡957. Ed. and trans. John Willett. New York: Hill and Wang-Farrar, ¡999. Deane, Seamus. Celtic Revivals: Essays in Modern Irish Literature ¡880–¡980. Boston: Faber, ¡985. Donoghue, Denis. The Third Voice: Modern British and American Verse Drama. Princeton: Princeton University Press, ¡959. Dorn, Karen. Players and Painted Stage: The Theatre of W.B. Yeats. New Jersey: Barnes and Noble, ¡984. Grene, Nicholas. The Politics of Irish Drama: Plays in Context from Boucicault to Friel. Cambridge Studies in Modern Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ¡999. Gri‡n, Roger. “Staging the Nation’s Rebirth: The Politics and Aesthetics of Performance in the Context of Fascist Studies.” Fascism and Theatre. Ed. Günter Berghaus. Providence: Berghahn, ¡996. Leeming, Glenda. Poetic Drama. Modern Dramatists. New York: St. Martin’s, ¡989. Miller, Liam. The Noble Drama of W.B. Yeats. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities, ¡977. Reinelt, Janelle. After Brecht: British Epic Theatre. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, ¡994. Sekine, Masaru. “Yeats and the Noh.” Irish Writers and the Theatre. Ed. Sekine. Irish Literary Studies 23. Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, ¡986. _____. “What Is Noh?” Yeats and the Noh: A Comparative Study. Ed. Sekine and Christopher Murray. Irish Literary Studies 38. GerrardsCross: Colin Smythe, ¡990. Williams, Raymond. “Theatre as a Political Forum.” Visions and Blueprints: Avantgarde Culture and Radical Politics in Early Twentieth-Century Europe. Ed. Edward Timms and Peter Collier. New York: Manchester–St. Martin’s, ¡988. Yeats, William Butler. The Collected Plays of W.B. Yeats. ¡934. New Addition. New York: Macmillan, ¡970. _____. Explorations. Sel. Mrs. W.B. Yeats. New York: Collier-MacMillan, ¡973.

9 Tian Han, Western Theatre, and Japan The Problem with Source-Based and Target-Based Intercultural Models Siyuan Liu Abstract Often considered as one of the founders of Chinese spoken drama (huaju), Tian Han (¡898–¡968) studied in Japan between ¡9¡6 and ¡922 where his exposure to European neo-romanticism in Japanese literature and theatre shaped his dramaturg y and perception of Western theatre. As a result, shingeki productions of The Sunken Bell and The Blue Bird, Japanese writers like Tanizaki Jun’ichirÉ, and literary critics such as Kuriyagawa Hakuson all served as a filter for the intercultural transfer between Western theatre and Tian Han. In focusing on intercultural theatrical exchange as a two-way flow, recent models of interculturalism proposed by Carlson, Pavis, Tatlow, Bharucha, Lo, and Gilbert have failed to account for this phenomenon where a third culture serves as a medium between the source and target cultures. By tracing the role Japan played in Tian Han’s — and consequently China’s — reception of Western theatre, this paper foregrounds the need for a model that accommodates the multicultural processes of intercultural theatre.

Recent models of interculturalism, be it Marvin Carlson’s seven steps (¡996), Antony Tatlow’s “dialectics of acculturation” (200¡), Patrice Pavis’s hourglass model (¡992), or variations of the hourglass model, like Rostum Bharucha’s pendulum model (¡993) or Jacqueline Lo and Helen Gilbert’s two-way flow model (2002), all represent intercultural transfer as an exchange between two theatrical cultures, invariably termed as the culturally familiar vs. the culturally foreign (Carlson), the culturally domestic vs. the culturally other (Tatlow), source vs. target (Pavis), or two more or less equal parts of two cultures (Bharucha, Lo and Gilbert). Highly useful as they are in inter106

9. Tian Han, Western Theatre, and Japan (Siyuan Liu)

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preting intercultural exchange in two cultures, they all come up short when we examine Japan’s role in the establishment of Western-style theatre in China. As is well-established by now, the first Western-style production of modern Chinese theatre was a dramatic adaptation of Uncle Tom’s Cabin staged in ¡907 in Tokyo by a group of Chinese students called the Spring Willow Society (Chunliu She). Although China did establish direct contact with Western theatre in the decades after this production, Japan continued to serve as a filter for some of the most prominent theatre practitioners in China. One of the best-known among them was Tian Han (¡898–¡968) who was a student in Tokyo between ¡9¡6 and ¡922. Although he never formally studied theatre, his encounter with Western theatre through the lens of Japan was instrumental to his subsequent achievement as one of the founders of Chinese spoken drama (huaju). Tian o‡cially registered as an English major in the preparatory class for Tokyo Higher Teacher’s School (Kotani ¡997: 466–469), but he found the classes boring (Tian 2000d: 232). Before writing his first play in ¡920, he, apart from watching movies and shingeki plays, devoted most of his time learning English and reading and writing about Western literature and theatre. By ¡920, he had already published well-researched essays on Russian literature, European poets, Whitman, Nietzsche, Goethe, Milton, Ibsen, and neo-romanticism. Before leaving Japan in ¡922, he would also publish essays on Baudelaire and Paul-Marie Verlaine. In a way, Tian’s first education in Tokyo was Western movies. He recalled that “from the first year I was a student in Tokyo, I became a Cinema Fan [sic]. I watched over a hundred movies over the six or seven years and was usually able to repeat the plot after seeing them” (Tian 2000h: 20). He started watching movies two months after his arrival in Tokyo and the frequent trips to movie houses in Asakusa cost his eyesight (Kotani ¡997: 47¡). At that time Japan’s film industry was still at its infancy, and the majority of the films shown there were imports from Hollywood or Europe. These films provided invaluable visual aid to the Western literature that he read and plays that he saw produced by Japanese companies. For example, his understanding of German expressionism came from the film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and a stage production of Georg Kaiser’s The Burghers of Calais, both of which he saw in ¡92¡. While he recognized the spirit of expressionism from the stage production, the movie “completed cemented my belief in this movement. Since I started approaching art, when did I ever experience such vibrant and enchanting beauty, and such soulful excitement! It made me shiver!” (Tian 2000h: 38). In terms of his theatre experiences in Tokyo, by the time Tian Han arrived in Tokyo in ¡9¡6, shingeki (new drama), the Japanese form of

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Western-style theatre, was at the tail end of its first wave, having started from the ¡909 production of John Gabriel Borkman. The most prominent shingeki group of the time was the Art Theatre (Geijitsu-za), an o›shoot of Tsubouchi ShÉyÉ’s Literary Society (Bungei KyÉkai), headed by Shimamura HÉgetsu (¡87¡–¡9¡8) and Matsui Sumako (¡886–¡9¡9). Other active companies of the time included The Modern Theatre Association (Kindaigeki KyÉkai) headed by Kamiyama SÉjin and The New Theatre Company (Shingeki-sha) headed by Iba Takashi (Toita ¡956: 298–299), both of which were active during the first couple of years after Tian arrived in Tokyo. This was followed by a lull period between what Osanai Kaoru called the first phase of shingeki, ending with the deaths of Shimamura (¡9¡8) and Matsui (¡9¡9), and desertion of some stars to the movie industry, and its third phase after the ¡923 Tokyo earthquake, marked by the beginning of Osanai’s Tsukiji Little Theatre (Tsukiji ShÉgekijÉ) (Osanai 2000: 528). As a result, most of the shingeki productions Tian Han saw in his six years in Japan took place in the one year span between June of ¡9¡8 and ¡9¡9. The only exceptions were Kikuchi Kan’s The Father Returns (Chichi kaeru) and Georg Kaiser’s The Burghers of Calais in a ¡92¡ performance by New National Theatre (Shinkokugeki). Of the roughly eleven confirmed plays that he saw, either in Tokyo’s Y¨raku-za or Kabuki-za, the more famous ones include: The Merchant of Venice ( June ¡9¡8), The Sunken Bell (September ¡9¡8), Lady Windermere’s Fan (September ¡9¡8), The Blue Bird (February ¡9¡9), and Uncle Vanya ( June ¡9¡9), plus two one-acts by August Strindberg and Anatole France. He also reported watching Shimamura’s adaptation of Herman Sudermann’s Hermat (The Home) but the Japanese sinologist Kotani IchirIo believes that what Tian saw was in fact Shimamura’s adaptation of St. J. Hankin’s Last of the DeMulling (Kotani ¡997: 462–466). Among these productions, what impressed Tian Han most were The Sunken Bell and The Blue Bird, which he considered as in the mode of neoromanticism. For Tian Han and his contemporary Japanese and Chinese writers, neo-romanticism was a term used in the ¡9¡0s and ¡920s that covered literary and theatrical movements since naturalism. In terms of theatre, Tian’s usage of the word usually referred to the aestheticism of Wilde, German expressionism, and the symbolism of Haupfman, Maeterlink, and Strindberg. As Tian acknowledged in a letter to Guo Moruo in ¡920, his interest in neo-romanticism was initially piqued by watching the Art Theatre production of Gerhardt Hauptman’s The Sunken Bell in ¡9¡8 (Tian 2000i: ¡35, ¡50). He wrote: My viewing of New-Romantic [sic] drama started from The Sunken Bell. Even today, the images of Rautendelein and Heinrich are still vibrant in my mem-


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ory and a mysterious life force has since been swelling inside me. I believe that while we artists should expose the darkness of human life, expunge all forms of hypocrisy, and establish a foundation of life, we can only be satisfied when we have introduced our audience to an artistic world where Artification [sic] beautifies life, relieves the audience of daily worries, and introduces them to harmonious ecstasy. For example, even though The Sunken Bell depicts the clash between artistic and real life, by the last scene ... we cannot feel any pain. Instead, just like Heinrich, our soul has been transformed into the land of ecstasy. Life is full of joy as a result of grief and vise versa. As pointed out by Chesterton, grief and joy are two sides of the same coin. A clear division between grief and joy is the spirit of realism whereas turning grief and joy into an eternal bliss that transcends both is the power of Neo-Romanticism [Tian 2000i: ¡50].

This is in fact the essence of Tian’s understanding of neo-romanticism and the guiding principle for his works in the ¡920s. It also reveals his keen awareness of the limits of realism. Although he had aspired to become “A Budding Ibsen in China” (¡36), in the ¡922 introduction to his translation of Hamlet, Tian quoted a contemporary critic who compared Ibsen’s characters to marble figures who, although true to life in detail, lacked vitality and Shakespeare’s plays to oil paintings whose strokes might seem reckless in close proximity but would come to life at a distance (Tian ¡922). Two reasons contributed to his a›ection for neo-romanticism, a personal one and an intercultural one. Essentially, Tian was a poet who wrote over 2,000 poems during his lifetime, including the lyric of “March of the Volunteers” (Yiyong jun jinxingqu), the national anthem of China. This poetic disposition, aided with youthful exuberance, found a natural a‡liation in neo-romantic plays. This probably explains the reason why even though the two productions he saw by Shakespeare and Wilde were The Merchant of Venice and Lady Windermere’s Fan, he nevertheless chose to translate the more poetical and youthful Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and Salomé. This also explains why he only fleetingly mentioned the fact that he had seen Uncle Vanya in ¡9¡9 (Tian 2000i: ¡54). A more important reason that Tian favored neo-romanticism was the popularity of neo-romanticism in Japanese artistic and literary circles. It also caught the attention of those Chinese writers who had studied in Japan, including Lu Xun, Guo Moruo, Yu Dafu, and Tian Han. Here, what is important for our intercultural investigation is that their understanding of neo-romanticism came partly from Japanese writers like Mori ygai and Tanizaki Jun’ichirÉ as well as literary critics like Arishima Takeo and Kuriyagawa Hakuson. In other words, the European neo-romanticism that these Chinese writers experienced had already been filtered through Japan as the

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first target culture. The European neo-romanticism had already gone through what Pavis calls artistic modeling, sociological and anthropological codification, and cultural modeling (¡992: ¡85). The hourglass had already gone through one cycle. The way Japan functioned as a mediating culture can be best seen in the triangular relationship between neo-romanticism, Kuriyagawa, and Tian Han. As a professor of modern Western literature, Kuriyagawa Hakuson (¡880–¡923) and his critical works like Ten Lectures of Modern Literature (Kindai bungaku jikkÉ, ¡9¡2), Literary Trends (Bungei shichÉron, ¡9¡4), Out of the Ivory Tower (ZÉge no tÉ o dete, ¡920), and Symbols of Anguish (Kumon no shocho, ¡924) were “the most sought-after publications among Meiji and Taisho¯ Japanese youth who were beginning to know Western thoughts and literature” ( Jin ¡970: 226). According to Kotani, Kuriyagawa was enjoying remarkable popularity with his introduction of the “latest European trends in literature and arts” (¡997: 493). It was no wonder, then, that he also influenced Chinese writers in Japan and, through such translations as Out of the Ivory Tower and Symbols of Anguish by Lu Xun, the understanding of Western literature by several generations of Chinese. In a long letter written in ¡920 entitled “Neo-romanticism and Other Issues,” Tian demonstrated immense respect for Kuriyagawa whom he had visited in Kyoto on ¡8 March ¡920 (2000g: ¡76). Tian based at least two of his essays on Kuriyagawa’s Ten Lectures of Modern Literature. In his “The Poet and the Question of Labor” (“Shiren yu laodong wenti”), Tian modeled his discussion of naturalism on lectures five and seven in Kuriyagawa’s book. He expanded Kuriyagawa’s method that linked a historical trend to its literary representation, classicism to capitalism, romanticism to democracy, naturalism to socialism, and neo-romanticism to social-democracy (2000e: 87). In his “Neo-romanticism and Other Issues,” Tian synthesized lecture nine of Ten Lectures of Modern Literature and linked romanticism to a person’s exuberant life at the age of twenty, naturalism to a person’s preoccupied life at the age of thirty, and neo-romanticism to a person’s intelligent life at the age of forty (2000g: ¡77). He concluded that although neo-romanticism was “still like old romanticism in its fervent wish for the ‘blue bird’ of the cosmos,” it is in fact a “waking dream” with body and soul in harmony — nothing like the “sleeping dream” of older romanticism. What is significant in both essays is the evolutionary view that Tian Han extrapolated from Kuriyagawa. For Tian, naturalism was no more than a transition between the two romanticisms. In comparison, neo-romanticism, with its transcendental power to achieve the harmony between the tragic and the comic, grief and joy, body and soul, was evidently the superior method of artistic creation.


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In his posthumously published Symbols of Anguish, Kuriyagawa believes that the essence of neo-romanticism was the expression of the self ’s inner life and the self ’s power to a›ect social change. Kotani IchirIo believes that “this is most likely the framework Tian Han saw in Kuriyagawa’s literary thoughts, i.e., a blueprint in which ‘the expression of inner life of the self,’ ‘the self-expressed literature’ eventually becomes the ‘zeitgeist,’ resulting in social change” (¡997: 494–495). Therefore, the impact of Kuriyagawa’s understanding of neo-romanticism was absorbed by Tian Han in two crucial ways that formed the underpinnings of his early career — namely, conflict and harmony between body and soul, and art’s supremacy over its consequent social functions. As we will see in the following passages, the first underpinning (body and soul) became a central theme of his plays in the ¡920s. The second underpinning (art and society) became a guiding principle in his quest for independence in his theatrical and educational endeavors. However, before dealing with his pioneering works in the ¡920s, I will examine a bit further how the influence that he received in Japan strengthened his conviction in these two principles. In ¡9¡9, Tian wrote an essay on Walt Whitman. In this essay, among other topics, he discussed the harmony of body and soul in Whitman. He ended his discussion with another quote from Kuriyagawa who praised this unity as the essence of modernity (2000c: 308). In his conclusion, Tian listed this unity as one of the reasons — along with Whitman’s celebration of Americanism and democracy — for introducing Whitman to China: “Our ‘old China’ has died of disharmony of body and soul. We youngsters of the ‘new China’ should save the body from the soul and the soul from the body. As a soulful person, Whitman praised the body and advocated the harmony of body and soul. This is the reason why we should honor him” (3¡¡). Tian’s essay was inspired by Japan’s celebration of the Whitman centennial and the writings of Arishima Takeo, Japan’s preeminent Whitman translator and interpreter. Some critics have noticed a subtle, but crucial undercurrent in Arishima’s praise of and aspiration for the harmony of body and soul in Whitman as revealing a troubling discordant of the two elements within the critic himself (Wang ¡999: 26). This discord was in fact a popular trend in Japanese literature of the time, prevalent in the writing of Mori ygai, Natsume SÉseki, Shiga Naoya, and Arishima Takeo. It also exerted considerable influence on Chinese writers, becoming the dominant theme in the works of the Creation Society (Chuangzao She), a literary group formed by Tian Han, Guo Moruo, Yu Dafu, and other Chinese students in Japan. One of the Japanese writers, who was admired by these Chinese students, was Tanizaki Jun’ichirÉ, Japan’s disciple of Poe, Wilde, and Baudelaire. Tanizaki Jun’ichirÉ (¡886–¡965) had authored such a sensual work as

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“The Tattooing” (Shisei, ¡9¡0) (Homma ¡980: 86). Tanizaki was a close friend of Tian Han and Guo Moruo. In ¡934, Tian Han translated five of Tanizaki’s stories and wrote a long essay commenting on the clash between the flesh and soul in them (2000b). One of Tanizaki’s plays Ignorance and Lust (MumyÉ to Aizen, ¡924) was translated into Chinese by Ouyang Yuqian, an original member of the Spring Willow Society. Ouyang and Tian staged the play in ¡929 (Chen and Yan ¡985: ¡¡¡). Ignorance and Lust inspired several Chinese emulators, including Ouyang himself who wrote Pan Jinlian, a play which transformed the protagonist from a traditional woman of lust into an individual who lived and died for the sake of love. Ouyang premiered the play in ¡927 during one of the performances produced by Tian Han, performing the lead role in the style of Beijing opera (jing ju). In the final scene when the heroine is to be killed by her lover, she kneels in front of him, tears open her shirt, and declares in the manner of the aesthetic tradition of Wilde and Tanizaki: “Brother, there is a burning heart inside my snow white chest. My heart has long been waiting for you. I had to temporarily store it here since you didn’t want it. I’ve been miserable waiting for you. You want to cut it out? Cut it slowly so I can stay close to you a bit longer” (Tian ¡985: ¡20). In his ¡930 “Our Own Criticism” (Women de ziji pipan), in which he indicated his conversion to the leftist theatre movement, Tian argued that all of his productions in the ¡920s “whether original or translated, had a common sentiment, a tone of the ‘torment between the body and soul’” (2000f: ¡63). Although this essay was exploited for a long time as a proof of bourgeois sentimentalism in his early plays, recent scholarship in China has come to take a cautious tone in accepting Tian’s words at their face value, noting his genuine eagerness for a new page in his artistic life. At the same time, one can definitely see such torment in some of his characters in plays like Soul Light (Ling guang, ¡920), A Night at the Café (Kafeidian zhi yiye, ¡92¡), and Tragedy on the Lake (Hushang de beiju, ¡928). Compared with other writers of the Creation Society, Tian’s writing expressed more harmony than clash between body and soul. On occasions when a resolution was demanded, he usually favored the soul, as when the protagonist in A Night at the Café, upon learning her former boyfriend’s engagement to a wealthy woman, burned both the cash given by him and photos of them together. The arguable height of his artistry in this period, the one-act Sound of the Ancient Pond (Gutan de sheng yin, ¡928) was a demonstration of the supremacy of the soul. Inspired by Matsuo Basho’s haiku “An old pond! /A frog jumps in —/the sound of water,” it tells the story of a poet who, having saved a girl from “the corrupt world” and leaving her in a room in his house above an ancient pond, discovered upon returning home that, during his absence, she had not been able to resist the sound of the pond and had


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jumped into it from the window. The enraged poet also jumps into the pond so as to break it. The play ends as follows: [After several second, there is a thumping sound. Perhaps this is the sound of the ancient pond being broken by him.] MOTHER: (Sighed when she heard this sound as if it were the evening drum or morning bell ) Might as well. (Sits on the balcony.) [Echoes continue in the pond.]

What is amazing here is the neo-romantic harmony and ecstasy inspired by both an ancient haiku and Hauptmann’s symbolism, thus crystallizing the triangular relationship between the theatres and cultures of the West, Japan, and China. Apart from playwriting, Tian Han’s passion for neo-romanticism is also seen from the plays he staged in the ¡920s. These included both his own works, almost all of which dealt in some way the clash or harmony between the body and the soul, and translated plays, especially Salomé which he staged twice in July of ¡929 in Nanjing and Shanghai (Tian 2000f: ¡70–¡73; Chen and Yan ¡985: ¡¡¡). In his published director’s note of the production, Tian presented Salomé’s love as representing that of earth and flesh while Jokanaan’s as that of heaven and soul, again achieving a neo-romantic harmony. During the premiere in Nanjing the theatre was packed and Tian Han raised the ticket price from sixty cents to one dollar the following day. The show drew polarizing reviews and reactions for its aestheticism. A worthnoting criticism came from Liang Shiqiu, a well-known critic who had studied at Harvard under Irving Babbitt and who would later translate the complete works of Shakespeare. Liang acknowledged that it was an “attractive” show, but he also wrote: “I wish they would stop staging such a carnal aestheticist play” (Tian 2000a: 63). Tian Han’s answer was that “there is nothing wrong with aestheticism, and the desert-like art world in China especially begs for a flower of evil as an a›ectionate stimulant” (63). Tian further castigated his critics about his “carnal aestheticist play” as a standard critique of Salomé by “the hypocritical Protestants of England and the US” (65). The last line seems to hint on a phenomenon that deserves our attention in investigating intercultural acceptance in modern Chinese literature and theatre, namely the di›erence between those who returned to China from Japan and those who returned to China from the United States and Europe. As a group, the former was much more prone to neo-romanticism, especially aestheticism, than the latter. One possible explanation again seems to be the delay in time caused by Japan’s role as a medium between the source culture of the West and the eventual target culture of China. As a result, what

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the Chinese writers had learned in Japan was not necessarily the latest trend in the West. The production history of Salomé in Japan and China serves as a good illustration of this time-delay e›ect due to the added reception process by Japan as a medial culture. As reported by Ayako Kano, although Salomé was first introduced to Japan by Mori ygai as high-brow “stylized” and “visionary” drama from Europe, it did not receive its premiere until ¡9¡3. In ¡9¡4 competing performances by the two best-known actresses of the time Kawakami Sadayakko and Matsui Sumako resulted in the victory of the latter because of Matsui’s “quite voluptuous” physicality as well as her performance in the dance scene which was “choreographed by Giovanni Vittorio Rosi, an Italian director, and emphasized her well-endowed body” (Kano 200¡: 222). Since then, “[t]he play Salomé itself became extremely popular in Japan and was presented to the public by various actresses in no fewer than 27 separate productions between the premiere in ¡9¡3 and the end of the TaishÉ era a dozen years later” (2¡9). Throughout these performances, the dance scene where Salomé “strips one veil after the other to show o› the beauty of her body” became such an important part of the show that one of the actresses wrote: “Although my body is not that attractive, I performed this scene, thinking of it as being part of my training” (225). It even became the forbearer of strip-tease in Japan by the late ¡920s (227). When Tian Han translated Salomé in ¡92¡ in Japan, it was his first translation of a foreign play. Although there is no record of him watching any of its productions, it seems highly likely that he did see it, judging from his own writings. In a ¡925 letter, a rebuttal to criticisms about his translation, he wrote that “regardless of the quality of each of my translated scripts, I had the courage to start translation only after considerable research by cross-checking many versions and watching the play many times” (2000j: 530). Again, it was the wide availability of the versions and productions of Salomé in Japan that made such cross-checking possible. Although Salomé was Tian’s first translated script, it was not until ¡929, almost the end of his decade of neo-romanticism, that he was finally able to put it on stage because, according to Tian, he finally found the right cast, especially the actress for the title role, Yu Shan. With a background in dance and music, Yu was the perfect protagonist for the strong-willed Salomé. In fact, Tian Han was so impressed with her performance that he went on to adapt Carmen just for her. Unfortunately, pressure from her father forced Yu to leave the stage after these two memorable roles. As for Salomé itself, it would soon be criticized, in the heated atmosphere of the ¡930s, the impending war and rhetoric of national salvation, as the worst example of “art for art’s sake,” a label that e›ectively banished Salomé from the Chinese stage for the rest of the century.


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All of Tian Han’s productions at this time were staged by the Southern China Society (Nanguo She), one of the best-known theatrical groups in the ¡920s, which he organized following Tsubouchi ShÉyÉ’s Literary Society (Bungei KyÉkai). Tian was well aware of the history of shingeki in Japan and translated a brief historical account of the movement by Osanai Kaoru (Osanai 2000). An enthusiastic fan of Shimamura HÉgetsu and Matsui Sumako, Tian nevertheless guarded against what he saw as the corruptive power of commercialism that haunted Shimamura’s Art Theatre ( Jin 2004: ¡63). Following ShÉyÉ’s practice of using student actors, his performers were mostly students from his Southern China Arts College (Nanguo Yishu Xueyuan), which he formed in ¡928. In his ¡930 “Our Own Criticism,” he vigorously defended his private college by comparing it to the private Waseda University, whose free spirit, he argued, as opposed to the rigidity of the o‡cial Imperial University, had made it possible for ShÉyÉ to become not only a professor and scholar but also a pioneer of the shingeki movement and freed Shimamura to become one of its torch bearers. By the same token, Tian believed that had he been a professor in a government or privately-sponsored university, “it would have been impossible for me to lead the Southern China drama movement. I would have at best been teaching Ibsen and Shaw” (2000f: ¡38). He further provided an example of his old friend Zong Baihua who was one of three writers, along with Tian Han and Guo Moruo, whose letters on classical and modern literature were collected in the ¡920 Kleeblatt (Sanye Ji). One of the letters by Tian Han, as mentioned earlier, discussed Tian’s encounter with The Sunken Bell and The Blue Bird. After returning from Germany, Zong became a professor of aesthetics and “has not written one word besides his work at the lectern and study.... His misfortune is that his professorship at a ‘top University’ has shut down his lively pen and mouth” (¡38–¡39). What conclusion can we draw from Tian Han’s encounter with Western theatre through the filter of Japan? As I have shown, Japan, through theatrical productions and literary publications, most certainly shaped Tian Han’s perception of modern theatre, influencing his plays, translations, and choices in theatre and education. If we see the intercultural transfer between the West and Japanese shingeki as a complete hourglass, then where do we situate the cultural transfer between Japan and Tian Han? Should we add another step in the process that specifically explains the filters of a medial culture? A more comprehensive model would require two joint hourglasses — one from the source culture to the medial culture, and then one from the medial culture to the target culture. The new mode would involve two connected but separate filtering processes. Like the original hourglass, the new model may also allow the switch-

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ing of the source and target cultures in each separate halves. After all, Tian Han did become popular among Japanese writers by the late ¡920s (Kotani ¡997: 538–549). The role of Japan as the medial culture is in fact not limited to the case of Tian Han. It a›ects our understanding of the beginnings of modern Chinese theatre which is often traced to the ¡907 Tokyo production of Uncle Tom’s Cabin by the Spring Willow Society (Chunliu She). Some Chinese scholars believe that what early huaju learned from Japan “were in fact Western dramatic forms and aesthetic principles. Japanese shinpa was a ‘shell,’ a medium; Western drama was the ‘essence,’ the target” (Huang 200¡: 307). Inadequate models of intercultural exchange unnecessarily restrict our appreciation of the complex and often messy nature of the transfer. Hopefully this paper on Tian Han and Japan will help advance our awareness of the multiple forces that shaped modern Chinese theatre. UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH

References Cited Bharucha, Rustom. Theatre and the World: Performance and the Politics of Culture. New York: Routledge, ¡993. Carlson, Marvin. “Brook and Mnouchkine: Passage to India?” In The Intercultural Performance Reader, edited by Patrice Pavis, 79–92. New York: Routledge, ¡996. Chen, Mingzhong, and Yan Zhewu. “Nanguo She lijie gongyan queji.” In Tian Han: Jinian Tian Han tongzhi dansheng bashiwu zhounian (Tian Han: In Memory of Comrade Tian Han’s Eighty-Fifth Anniversity). edited by Zhongguo renmin zhengzhi xieshang huiyi quanguo weiyuanhui wenshi ziliao yanjiu weiyuanhui, ¡09–¡¡2. Beijing: Wenshi ziliao chubanshe, ¡985. Homma, KenshirÉ. A History of Modern Japanese Literature. Tokyo: Japan Science Press, ¡980. Hu, Xingliang. “Zhongguo xiandai xin langman zhuyi xiju sichao lun” (“Modern Chinese Neo-Romantic Drama”). Xiju yishu (Dramatic Art) 3 (¡994): 69–76. Huang, Aihua. Zhonguo zaoqi huaju yu Riben (Early Chinese Spoken Drama and Japan). Changsha: Yuelu shushe, 200¡. Jin, Mingquan. “Lun Riben xiju dui Tian Han de yingxiang” (“The Influence of Japanese Theatre on Tian Han”). Xinan Shifan Daxue xuebao: renwen shehui kexue ban ( Journal of Southwestern Normal University: Humanities and Social Sciences Edition) 2 (2004) ¡60–¡63. Jin, Mingruo. “Yizhe houyan” (“Translator’s Epilogue”). In ZÉge no tÉ o dete (Out of the Ivory Tower) by Kuriyagawa Hakuson, 224–228. Taibei: Zhiwen chubanshe, ¡970. Kano, Ayako. Acting like a Woman in Modern Japan: Theater, Gender, and Nationalism. New York: Palgrave, 200¡. Kotani, IchirIo. “Tian Han yu Riben: yi zai Ri shi de Tian Han jiqi yu Riben zuojia de jiaoliu wei zhongxin” (“Tian Han and Japan — Tian Han’s interaction with Japanese Writers while in Japan”). In Tian Han zai Riben (Tian Han in Japan),


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edited by IchirIo Kotani and Liu Ping. Translated by Komatsu Ikara, 459–549. Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, ¡997. Lo, Jacqueline, and Helen Gilbert. “Toward a Topography of Cross-Cultural Theatre Praxis.” The Drama Review 46/3 (2002): 3¡–53. Osanai, Kaoru. “Riben xinju yundong de jinglu”(“The Path of Japanese Shingeki.” In Tian Han Quan Ji (Colleted Works of Tian Han). Translated by Tian Han. Vol. ¡9, 52¡–53¡. Shijiazhuang: Huashan wenyi chubanshe, 2000. First published in ¡929. Pavis, Patrice. Theatre at the Crossroads of Culture. Translated by Loren Kruger. New York: Routledge, ¡992. Tatlow, Antony. Shakespeare, Brecht, and the Intercultural Sign. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 200¡. Tian, Han. “Hamengleite yixu” (“Translator’s Introduction to Hamlet”). In Hamengleite (Hamlet), ¡–2. Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, ¡922. _____. “Nanguo She shilue” (“A Brief History of Southern China Society”). In Zhongguo huaju yundong wushi nian shiliaoji (Collected Materials of Fifty Years of Chinese Spoken Drama Movement), edited by Tian Han et al. Vol. ¡, ¡¡¡–¡35. Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, ¡985. _____. “Diyici jiechu ‘pipingjia’ de Liang Shiqiu xiansheng” (“First Encounter with ‘Critic’ Mr. Liang Shiqiu”). In Tian Han quanji (Collected Works of Tian Han). Vol. ¡5, 6¡–7¡. Shijiazhuang: Huashan wenyi chubanshe, 2000a (first published in ¡929). _____. “Guqi Runyilang pingzhuan” (“A Critical Biography of Tanizaki Jun’ichirÉ”). In Tian Han quanji (Collected Works of Tian Han). Vol. ¡4, 4¡¡–469. Shijiazhuang: Huashan wenyi chubanshe, 2000b (First published in ¡934). _____.“Pingmin shiren huitaman de bainianji” (“Centennial Celebration of Whitman, Poet of the People”). In Tian Han quanji (Collected Works of Tian Han). Vol. ¡4, 29¡–3¡¡. Shijiazhuang: Huashan wenyi chubanshe, 2000c (first published in ¡92¡). _____.”Qiangwei zhi lu” (“Road of the Rose”). In Tian Han quanji (Collected Works of Tian Han). Vol. 20, 225–277. Shijiazhuang: Huashan wenyi chubanshe, 2000d (first published in ¡922). _____.“Shiren yu laodong wenti” (“The Poet and the Question of Labor”). In Tian Han quanji (Collected Works of Tian Han). Vol. ¡4, 79–¡23. Shijiazhuang: Huashan wenyi chubanshe, 2000e (first published in ¡920). _____.“Women de ziji pipan” (“Our Own Criticism”). In Tian Han quanji (Collected Works of Tian Han). Vol. ¡5, 80–¡86. Shijiazhuang : Huashan wenyi chubanshe. 2000f (first published in ¡930). _____.“Xinluomanzhuyi ji qita” (“Neo-romanticism and Other Issues”). In Tian Han quanji (Collected Works of Tian Han). Vol. ¡4, ¡57–¡90. Shijiazhuang: Huashan wenyi chubanshe, 2000g (first published in ¡920). _____.“Yinse de meng” (“Silver Dreams”). In Tian Han quanji (Collected Works of Tian Han). Vol. ¡8, 8–6¡. Shijiazhuang: Huashan wenyi chubanshe, 2000h (first published in ¡928). _____.“Zhi Guo Moruo de xin” (“Letters to Guo Moruo”). In Tian Han quanji (Collected Works of Tian Han). Vol. ¡4, ¡26–¡56. Shijiazhuang: Huashan wenyi chubanshe. 2000i (first published in ¡920).

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_____.“‘Zi zuo congming’ de ‘Shalemei ping’— da Wang Zongfan de ‘Fanyi zhen nan’” (“The Self-delusional ‘On Salomé’— Reply to Wang Zongfan’s ‘Translation is Truly Di‡cult’“). In Tian Han quanji (Collected Works of Tian Han). Vol. ¡8, 530–533. Shijiazhuang: Huashan wenyi chubanshe, 2000j (first published in ¡925). Toita, Yasuji. “The Kabuki, the Shimpa, the Shingeki.” In Japanese Music and Drama in the Meiji Era, edited by Komiya Toyotaka. Translated by Edward G Seidensticker and Donald Keene. Vol. 9, Japanese Culture in the Meiji Era, ¡75–325. Tokyo: ybunsha, ¡956. Wang, Xiangyuan. “Tian Han de zaoqi juzuo yu Riben xinju” (“Tian Han’s Early Plays and the Japanese Shingeki”). Zhongguo bijiao wenxue (Chinese Comparative Literature) ¡ (¡999): 24–35.

¡0 “Improvisations of Local Character” Representations of Tragedy in the Absence of Theatre Lillis Ó Laoire Abstract Although no indigenous traditions of drama were known in Gaelic Ireland, vibrant performance formed an important part of cultural expression. This paper explores representations of tragedy as an element of Gaelic performance culture, examining a particular incident and its configuration into a dramatic, tragic narrative, through its association with a song text, and its presentation in a community context. Its incorporation into a community institution, the dance, placed it in a framework in which lighthearted and frequently ribald comic material was also performed. By investigating these performances, and by placing them in a wider historical framework, the multiple, shifting meanings of the text in presentation are revealed, showing a distinctive pattern that, in response to social pressures, fluidly moved from a ritualistic expression toward a context in which an entertainment function dominated. The performance of tragedy is a‡rmed and enhanced by this change, allowing continuity with older ritual patterns while transforming itself into a polysemic, multivalent manifestation, intimating, though never fully achieving theatrical representation.

Thomas Kilroy’s play, written for Field Day and first performed in Ireland in ¡99¡, The Madam Macadam Travelling Theatre, explores the contradictions and dilemmas that beset a down-at-heel English theatre company, stranded in a small town in the Irish midlands during the Second World War. One of the di‡culties encountered by this group of strolling players is the blurring of boundaries between performance and reality, a state of a›airs summed up by the eponymous manager of the company, when she remarks:

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Text & Presentation, 2005 This is an extremely dangerous country. How can you perform theatre before a population of performers? They constantly complete one’s lines for one. Frequently with improvisations of local character.... It is intolerable [¡99¡:46].

Madam Macadam’s di‡culty arises from the fact that the company’s Irish audiences refuse to acknowledge the implicit contract between actors and spectators during dramatic performance, by insisting on taking part in the action and responding to the dialogue themselves. A close examination of the practices of ritual and entertainment in Ireland reveals a divergent sense of the theatrical, and points to the roots of this character’s unease and consternation with her unconventional audience. Although Gaelic performance has undergone great changes, particularly since the mid-nineteenth century, some communities still retain a vigorous tradition of music, dance, and song performance. One such community is Tory Island, Co. Donegal, where I have conducted fieldwork over a number of years, studying and documenting part of the island’s rich expressive heritage.1 This performance culture was once more widespread, as many nineteenth century accounts of Irish life testify. However, such accounts often misjudged Irish performance, because although writers were fascinated by the exuberant entertainment, many were also repelled by it, considering it a negative manifestation of the lazy, indolent character of the Irish peasant.2 An examination of the current situation in Tory, then, can provide a correction to this colonialist misjudgment, and can also make a cogent argument for including such performance as an important part of a study of the rituals of narrative and their quasi-theatrical enactment. One particular narrative stands out as especially emblematic of many island, and by extension, many Irish concerns in relation to the “aporias of social existence” (Ricoeur ¡98¡: 2¡9). The narrative deals with a Tory island family, the Dixons, a remarkable late-nineteenth and twentieth-century island household, who, among other accomplishments, excelled as boat builders, gardeners, and, in the case of one sibling, as an internationally renowned painter.3 One of the brothers, Patrick (b. ¡885), set o› for Bristol County, Pennsylvania, in the United States of America in August ¡909; following his elder sister Hannah, who had settled there three years previously. Patrick’s records show that he passed through Ellis Island on August 29th and that he was dead by the ¡4th of November that same year, about three months after he had left Tory.4 He was twenty-three years of age. According to the death certificate, the cause of death was typhoid fever. However, before I ever laid eyes on the o‡cial record, I had heard stories of the young man who had died of a broken heart, because of the intense homesickness —cumha in Gaelic — he su›ered after his departure from Tory.

¡0. “Improvisations of Local Character” (Lillis Ó Laoire)

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In these stories, Dixon is always represented as a wonderful young man, always laughing and singing, an excellent step dancer, an image that conforms to the archetype of the ideal performer in the Tory community. Indeed, it is related that he frequently sang and danced on board ship on his way to America. The notion of death from homesickness is an old concept in European culture. Johannes Hofer, a seventeenth century Swiss physician, noted that soldiers who spent long periods away from home often sickened and died. He considered the condition a disease of the body rather than a mental state, and coined the term “nostalgia” to describe the a·iction. As David Lowenthal has observed, these soldiers “had in fact died of meningitis, gastroenteritis, tuberculosis; but everyone blamed nostalgia” (¡985: ¡0). The narrative of Patrick Dixon’s death, then, belongs to a formerly prevalent belief about the power of homesickness to cause death (although some islanders also mentioned physical illness as the reason). When the news came to Tory that Dixon had died, the story goes that people gathered into the family home to sympathize with his parents and remaining siblings, as was the custom. Despite the harrowing absence of the corpse, the wake proceeded as usual. The stories recount that Mrs. Madjie Dixon (¡850–¡942), Patrick’s mother, requested a particular song from an island woman who was a noted singer. The woman began to sing the song “A Phaidí a Ghrá,” (“Paddy my love”), and reduced the assembled listeners to tears. The lyric is an erotic love song, of the genre known as Chanson de Jeune Fille or “the young woman’s song,” consisting of a jilted female’s distraught meditation on her lover’s departure and his rejection of her (Ó Tuama ¡960, ¡995). It seems clear that the name of the character in the song, Paddy, provided a convenient linkage between the song and the dead young man. A Phaidí a Ghrá má d’imigh tú go dtige tú slán Char imigh tú nó gur lagaigh tú an croí a bhí in mo chliabh Dá mbíodh coite agam a d’iomróchadh do dhiaidhsa long nó bád ’S go bhfuil an f harraige ‘na tonna gorma is ní féidir dom snámh. Paddy, my love, if you have gone away may you return safely You didn’t leave until you had weakened the heart in my side If I had a vessel that could row after you, a ship or a boat But the sea rises in blue waves and I cannot swim.

Often gossips are blamed for parting the lovers, and sometimes the girl reveals that she is pregnant, but that she has no hope that her man will return. Such songs constitute one of the most intense lyric genres in Gaelic folk song, but the interesting point here is that the young man’s mother, in giving voice to

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her grief through another agent, identifies the departed lover with her own son, and places herself— albeit indirectly — in the role of the lover. The mother’s action adapts an already existing song with quite a di›erent theme to her own need to express her grief. A point to remember, and one I will return to in more detail, is the tradition of lament or keening; ritual mourning performed usually by female family members or instead by women regarded as particularly skilled in this ritual. The practice had been stigmatized by the Catholic Church and was no longer deemed acceptable as a proper vehicle for expressing loss over a death. Nevertheless, the mother found a way to express the tragedy of her son’s passing in a deliberately memorable fashion, in a more formal way that was perhaps more suitable. Singing at wakes was an accepted custom in the nineteenth century (Ó Súilleabháin ¡967), but, according to islanders, seems to have almost died out, because this instance of the performance of a love lyric as a direct allusion to the mother’s and the family’s tragic personal loss was regarded as an extraordinary event. This appointment of a proxy lamenter, calculated to stir the emotions of the assembled mourners, clearly recalls the custom of hiring professional mourners to assure the proper expression of grief. Verse structure in laments comprised stanzas of irregular lines, in a simple metric pattern with three or four stresses, performed to a repetitive melody characterized by a descending pentatonic scale. By substituting the extempore and frequently more dramatic performance of keening with a secular love song, with a regular strophic lyric and melodic structure (ABBA), however, Mrs. Dixon’s request can be regarded as a compromise calculated to appease the requirement of a modernizing church for decorous mourning, and a deeply felt need to fulfill the ritual requirements of grief, which, in the case of the keen, were characterized by gesticulation and loud wailing.5 Far from being only a diluted survival of primordial custom, therefore, Mrs. Dixon’s strategy may be read as a deft negotiation of contemporary contingencies, in which old elements were mimetically configured to conform to the needs of a new situation, “into something of living value” (Gadamer ¡989: 306). The singing of the song at Patrick Dixon’s wake in ¡909 is striking and interesting in itself, but more noteworthy still is the song’s subsequent life in its direct association primarily as a symbolic memorial to him. Those whom I worked with and interviewed about their song traditions were all born around the end of the ¡920s or early ¡930s and matured as singers in the early to mid–¡940s, some thirty years after the death of Patrick Dixon. Yet, for these islanders, the story of Dixon’s untimely death from homesickness was as vivid as if it had been part of their own experience. The reasons for the remarkable recollection of this individual are many. The


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memorial function is clearly a major factor. Dixon’s siblings continued to request this song from singers at schoolhouse dances, as long as they lived. The consultants distinctly remember the Dixons urging them as young singers to perform “A Phaidí a Ghrá.” Some associated this request especially with Grace, the only surviving sister remaining in Ireland, and, as her mother aged, the housekeeper for her male siblings, a symbolically maternal role.6 The tragic event of a sibling’s death away from home was transformed into a mimesis of event, text, music and performance, an example of Gadamer’s “closed circle of meaning” created by a dramatic tragedy, that “overwhelm[s] man and sweep[s] him away” (¡989:¡30). As Segal has remarked about similar performances in classical Greece, also associated with dramatic tragedy: The poet’s song carries a living vital voice to the sunless halls of death. It thereby re-establishes communication between the dead and the living and thus re-integrates the deceased kinsman into the life he knew in his clan and his city [¡989:332].

The singing of “A Phaidí a Ghrá” also implicitly fulfilled a similar function for the Dixon family and their fellow islanders. Their repeated requests over the years suggest that the song had continued to acquire additional meanings in the intervening period, its semantic range undergoing subtle changes and shifts in emphasis, directly related to its continuing oral performance. The existential concerns of the siblings in their early life, as they sought marriage partners, clearly would have di›ered from those they faced in their middle years as they approached old age. In this case, it is significant that those remaining in Ireland never married, although they had opportunities to do so. The ethic of late marriage or celibacy prevailed in Ireland in the aftermath of the Famine, often resulting in households of unmarried siblings. Indeed, anthropologists have commented on the strength of sibling bonds in Ireland, some arguing that they constitute the dominant reference point for a›ective kinship ties (Scheper Hughes ¡979; Fox ¡978). In Tory, for example, during this period, some individuals continued to live in their own homes after marriage, apparently wishing to avoid breaking up the natal unit. The metaphorical tension of an erotic love song, appropriated as an expression of sibling a›ection, clearly references such a life choice, by imbuing such relationships with intensity and a primacy that matches or even supersedes marital bonds. Additionally, another major issue addressed is that of emigration. The hero’s hamartía, or error, that of leaving his native home to make a life in a strange land, as thousands of Irish people did in this period, provides a cautionary warning against emigration, that ties into a didactic tradition of clas-

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sical narrative and performance. The problem was especially acute in a small island community whose population of about 300 individuals could be severely a›ected by such departures. To understand the tragic representation and the other polysemic references involved, an understanding of the conditions of presentation is vital. A description of the role dance played as a major vehicle of island cultural expression is therefore necessary. Johan Huizinga, in Homo Ludens, his classic study of the play element in human culture, calls dance a “particularly perfect form of playing” (¡955: ¡65), one which attained the status of a “dominant symbol” (Turner ¡967: 20 et passim) on the island. According to Turner, a dominant symbol is one through which a community may examine its cultural norms and values by linking them to positive emotional responses. Down to the present, dances are a public forum in Tory, at which the community represents an ideal version of itself to itself and to others, part of a continuing narrative, actualized through performance and exploring issues pertaining to community identity and living conditions. The dance absorbs participants in its to-andfro motion creating what Ricoeur, following Gadamer, has called a “metamorphosis according to the truth” (¡99¡: 9¡). Gadamer argues that such play creates a closed world that lets one of its walls down for the participation of the spectators (¡989: ¡08). It is clear, however, that Gadamer has a more formalized theatrical situation in mind (consonant with Madam MacAdam’s requirements) than the one that prevails in Tory Island, where more often than not “the audience ... become[s] the players (Glassie ¡975: 93). By this I mean that, in Irish folk culture, the line between audience and participants is blurred, so that a person who is at one point a listener and observer may turn performer at a given moment. Moreover, listeners may, and are expected to, encourage performers with calls and other gestures of approval (Glassie ¡982), a notion that perhaps anticipates Boal’s concept of the “spect-actor” (Boal ¡992: xxx). Clearly, such an attitude to performance, di›ering considerably from European metropolitan norms, is what caused Madam Macadam’s exasperation noted earlier. As Narváez has claimed for wake amusements in Newfoundland, which like Irish wakes, included “tricks and fun” (¡994: 263), they bear the hallmarks of Barthes’s (¡975) jouissance, “ine›able, context-specific experiences of physical pleasure” (Narváez ¡994: 275), as opposed to the abstract nature of plaisir (289). It will be helpful to expand further upon this idea. Dances in Tory nowadays take place in the Island Social Club or in the hotel opened by an island entrepreneur in ¡994. In the recent past dances took place in private houses and sometimes on the island pier, located at the island’s western village. However, for the period of perhaps a hundred years, from about ¡849, when the present school building was completed, until


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about ¡956, the most important location of the dance was the schoolhouse. Young island men took charge of preparing the performance space; pushing back the desks, arranging benches round the school walls, driving stray nails deeper into the wood to avoid any snags, sweeping the floor and wetting it to prevent dust from rising. Lighting was a crucial element, necessitating the collection of lamps from various owners. Sometimes individuals would have parts of a lamp that could be put together to make a serviceable light source. However, the organizers needed to be extremely careful in returning each piece to its proper owner, in order to avoid castigation. The more light the better. Sometimes as many as eleven lamps were used to light up the small ¡8 by 35 foot dance space. The meticulous care taken with the preparation of the performance space has strong intimations of preparation for a ritual, bearing out the fact that play and ritual often exist in a continuum (Schechner 2000: ¡4–¡9). The preparations reveal that the schoolhouse dance was more important than regular house dances. In fact, these only occurred during island religious and seasonal festivals, such as Christmas, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, and Halloween. Glassie has called similar events in Ballymenone “the formal mechanism for gathering the community together” (¡982: 74). This observation gives an idea of the sense of occasion that accompanied the schoolhouse dance. The organizers also had to ask the school manager, the priest, for the key, a delicate negotiation, depending on the individual’s attitude to dancing, which could often be unfavorable. However, despite their respect for the priest’s power in other contexts, islanders insisted on their right to dance without interference, and frequently resisted the priest’s e›orts to curtail their dancing. The tension between priest and congregation was well established and the islanders’ resistance in this matter represents a traditional antipathy to and rejection of excessive exercising of hegemonic authority outside of its proper boundaries, well known from other areas (Narváez ¡994, Ó Crualaoich ¡998). Obviously, at an event called a dance, entertainment by means of vigorous patterned movement in time to music was a major objective, but it is noteworthy that entertainment alone was not the goal. The correct execution of each step and figure was of utmost concern to the participants, particularly the elders, who functioned as a kind of jury or chorus, evaluating the unfolding action. Recalling the care taken with preparation, such exacting critical standards also pertained to the performance of individual step dances and of songs, both humorous and sorrowful. The aim was to spur the night to its climax by creating a charged, heightened, carnivalesque atmosphere which, in Bakthin’s terms, would elicit the “crying for laughter and laughing for tears” (¡968: 206), that enable an endurance of, and a cathartic release from the challenges of daily life.

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Songs sung could include items concerning sea disasters, or political ballads, in Gaelic and English, but special favorites included courtship or love songs. Long lyrics about unhappy love sung to plaintive slow airs were much sought after, and conversely, lively humorous or satirical songs ridiculing such phenomena as marriages between old men and young women. These could be bawdy and ribald and indeed, fulfilling the conventions of ritual, usual norms of decorum were suspended so that a certain licentiousness was expected of performers. This often resulted in two sets of lyrics, one that could be sung in more restrained situations, and one that was performed without censure during the exuberant, high-spirited carnivalesque atmosphere that constituted the dances. Such risqué material with its sexual innuendo was also an indirect way to bring sexual tensions out into the open and served as a warning to those who might form alliances without taking matters of sexual compatibility into account (Nic Eoin ¡998: ¡73). One such song, popular not just in Tory, but all over Irish-speaking Ireland is titled “An Seanduine Dóite”—“The Burnt-Out Old Man.” The speaker is a young woman who relates how bored she is with her husband and all the tricks she has tried to rid herself of him: Dá bhfeicfeá mo sheanduine ar uair an mheán oíche A chos ar an bhac is é ag deargadh an phíopa Ba chosúil le slat mhara a dhá lorga chaola ’S mur’ ndéanfadh sé ansin é cha déanfadh sé a choíche é. If you had seen my old man at the midnight hour His feet on the hob and he lighting his pipe His two shins resembled nothing more than two sea rods And if he didn’t do it then he would never do it.

Clearly this verse contains a reference to the old man’s sexual potency, or the lack of it. However, in conversation with one of my island consultants, Teresa McCla›erty, I discovered that there was an even bolder version of this verse, with unequivocal phallic imagery. In this version everything is the same until the third line. Instead of saying that his shins resembled a sea rod, this version goes “B’f haide ná slat mhara a lorga tharnocht.” Translated this reads, “His naked cudgel was longer than a sea rod.” Obviously, this explicit reference to the phallus would not be suitable in every performance context, creating the need for a more palatable version that might be performed in more public contexts such as radio broadcasts. Indeed, the conversation about this line centered upon the fact that Teresa’s brother-in-law, Jimmy Duggan, had deliberately changed the line so that he could perform the song in a competition on the mainland. The existence of a more polite


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version would nevertheless remind those who were aware, of the other, bawdier line. Such songs recall Greek comedic traditions in which obscenities were an accepted and expected part of the play (Henderson ¡99¡); although it is clear that the circumstances that allowed such expression have become much more restricted. Nevertheless, the humorous songs, with implicit or explicit sexual content, in allowing a release from these normative constraints, provided one modality of performance which could cause tears of laughter to run down the faces of the participants (Ó Colm ¡995: 252–3). As already mentioned, however, many people, especially the older generation, had a great fondness for the long, slow, lyrics dealing with the trials of unrequited love. Performing “A Phaidí a Ghrá,” with its emblematic cluster of meanings for one family and islanders in general, in such a context, as a commemoration of a tragic event, placed side by side with humorous elements and vigorous dancing, had the e›ect of heightening and increasing the e‡cacy of each aspect. It indicates an integrated approach to mourning that incorporated it into a holistic matrix acknowledging the fundamental circularity of life and death. As Steiner has observed, “absolute” tragedy is rare across cultures, the impulse in scenic forms being tragiccomedy (¡996:¡3¡). The representation of tragedy was also characterized by what Gadamer has called a “transformation into structure” in which the action configured exists within itself, paradoxically leading to a pleasure similar to that of drama: “the joy of knowledge” (¡989: ¡¡2). Such understandings of the dynamics of Tory performance recall the famous Irish wakes so much a part of Irish social life in the past. I suggest that the dance in its organization has taken on aspects of the wake’s function in Tory, as the festivity associated with that ritual declined under the prohibitive influence of the Catholic Church. In this shift, rite was reconfigured as entertainment, a move that covertly allowed the retention of an e‡cacious execution of its di›erent stages, under the ostensible guise of innocuous amusement. To understand such a change in function, the dance of Tory must be placed in a wider socio-historical context. Vernacular Gaelic performance traditions reached a peak in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, with the huge population growth of the rural Irish-speaking poor, until the Great Famine of ¡845–50 decimated their numbers (Connell ¡996 [¡968], Donnelly and Miller ¡998, Connolly 200¡, Logan ¡992 [¡980]). In this period, Irish rural culture was characterized by performances of music, dance, and song, the festive hallmarks of all social occasions. Fairs, weddings, and especially visits to holy wells during pilgrimages dedicated to local saints were marked by exuberant music, dancing and singing performances (Ó Giolláin ¡998). The well-known keening

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tradition, already referred to, was the most significant example of such performance, in which mourners extemporized laudatory verses over a corpse, both in the wake house and during the funeral procession. Women particularly skilled in such practices were often hired by the families of the deceased to ensure that the lamentation was properly performed. The texts often reveal a distinctively dramatic impulse, where the verse instructs mourners to stand back or to draw near, to participate or to be silent, lending the keening woman’s lament a role similar to that of a director (Bourke 2000). Of course, the keening itself was enacted in a situation where ritual games, and music, dance, secular songs and sometimes even cross-dressing, were also performed — the “merry wake” as it has been called, regarded as a resistance to o‡cial attempts to change old, established, cultural patterns (Ó Crualaoich ¡998). Rural Gaelic performance, however, was under pressure to change from the Catholic Church in the wake of its reorganization from the late eighteenth century onwards. As the hierarchy re-asserted its administrative control after the decline of the Penal Statutes, clergy waged a sustained campaign to eradicate or curb such performances, regarded as corrupt abuses and benighted superstition. Chief among these were the music, dancing and singing that accompanied the celebratory aftermath of pilgrimages and of course, the lamentations that were a central part of death rituals. Music, dance and song then, were subject to sometimes radical change, and in the wake of the Famine such change accelerated, to the point where pilgrimages were in decline and keening women were subject to severe censure. Despite such vilification and marginalization by the religious authorities, performance continued to flourish in communities such as Tory, albeit in modified ways. These may be regarded as survivals, but more interesting is the change and adaptation that they have undergone over the period of a hundred and fifty years. Faced with opposition in their ritual expressions, the people of Tory adapted to the prevailing circumstances and reformed their expressive culture along more acceptable lines, while never surrendering their right to manage and control such change. The dance then, remained an important forum for the islanders, a location where symbolic enactments of its central concerns were carried out. Such enactments, at a meticulously prepared public forum, that included enthusiastic animated group and solo dancing, the singing of humorous, ribald songs, as well as love songs of loss and longing, admirably straddle Schechner’s e‡cacy/entertainment braid (2003: ¡29–63). By combining elements of pure entertainment with a profound recognition and acknowledgement of the frequently heartrending dilemmas of participants’ lives, such expressions were refigured and repositioned in a way that guaranteed an aes-


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thetic and ritual continuity, with the entertainment aspect providing a protective overlay for the underlying observance of a stylized act of memorial. A distinctive understanding of the representation of tragedy with clear theatrical intimations is revealed as one aspect of this shifting continuity, something of a core value, constant in the face of adaptations to changing social conditions. Moreover, such a sensibility enables successful artistic performances that continue to develop, while still retaining their dynamic, transforming power. UNIVERSITY OF LIMERICK AND LOYOLA MARYMOUNT UNIVERSITY

Notes Acknowledgment. My thanks are due to the anonymous referees, and especially to Dr. Kelly Younger, The English Department, Loyola Marymount University, for his careful reading of earlier drafts of this manuscript and for his helpful and illuminating comments and suggestions. 1. Co. Donegal is situated in the extreme Northwest of Ireland. Historically part of Ulster, and the most northerly of the island’s counties, it is not in Northern Ireland, but in the Irish Republic. The northwestern part of the county has remained one of the most strongly Gaelic-speaking regions until the present. Tory is a small, maritime island, three miles long by one and a half mile wide nine miles o› the North Donegal coast. It has always been predominantly Gaelic-speaking. I have been visiting the island since the mid–¡980s. For those who read Gaelic, a full account of my work in Tory may be found in Ó Laoire (2002). 2. For references to and discussion of such gatherings and celebrations, and o‡cial reactions to them, see for example Bourke (200¡), Connell ¡996 [¡968], Connolly (200¡ [¡968]), Donnelly and Miller (¡998) especially the essays Connolly, Ó Crualaoich, and Ó Giolláin, and Logan ¡992 [¡980]. 3. A sister who remained in Tory, Grace (¡892–¡984), kept a flourishing flower garden, providing flowers for the altar in the island chapel (Ó Péicín ¡997). Given Tory’s windswept and storm prone climate, this was a considerable achievement. Hugh Dixon (¡890–¡957) built a boat still in use, using only simple hand tools, and James Dixon (¡887–¡970) has achieved international attention as an artist, whose paintings have sold for five figure sums at London art auctions. 4. The Ellis Island records are available at (http://www.ellisislandrecords.org). I am also grateful to Dr. Mary Boyle, Montclair State University, New Jersey, for furnishing me with a copy of Patrick Dixon’s death certificate. 5. Keening continued to have a marginal existence in Tory and in other parts of Ireland well into the twentieth century, and, although moribund, may be said to exist still to some extent. 6. Another sister, Máire, also died young (¡899–¡930). However, she was not remembered in the same dramatic way as her brother Patrick, probably because she

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had died at home with her family, that she had died of an illness (rheumatic fever) and perhaps also because she was female. The mother son bond seems a central motif in the construction of this narrative.

References Cited Barthes, Roland. The Pleasure of the Text. New York: Noonday Press, ¡975. Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World. Trans. Hélène Iswolsky. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, ¡968. Boal, Augusto. Games for Actors and Non-Actors. London: Routledge, ¡992. Bourke, Angela. “Keening as Theatre.” Interpreting Synge: Essays from the Synge Summer School. Ed. Nicholas Grene, 67-79. Dublin: Lilliput, 2000. _____. “Introduction.” Fishstonewater: Holy Wells of Ireland. Anna Packard and Liam O’Callaghan, 7–¡2. Cork: Atrium, 200¡ Connell, Kevin. Irish Peasant Society. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, ¡996 [¡968]. Connolly, Séan J. Priests and People in Pre-Famine Ireland. Dublin: Four Courts, 200¡ [¡968]. _____. “Ag déanamh commanding: Élite Responses to Popular Culture, ¡660–¡850.” In Irish Popular Culture ¡650–¡850, edited by J. S. Donnelly and Kerby Miller, ¡–¡9. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, ¡998. Donnelly, James S., and Kerby A. Miller. Irish Popular Culture ¡650–¡850. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, ¡998. Fox, Robin. The Tory Islanders: A People of the Celtic Fringe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ¡995. Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method. Trans Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall. New York: Continuum, ¡989. Glassie, Henry. All Silver No Brass: An Irish Christmas Mumming. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, ¡975. Glassie, Henry. Passing the Time: History and Folklore in an Ulster Community. Dublin: O’Brien Press, ¡982. Henderson, Je›rey. The Maculate Muse: Obscene Language in Attic Comedy. New York: Oxford University Press, ¡99¡. Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens: The Play Element in Human Culture. Boston: Beacon Press, ¡955. Kilroy, Thomas. The Madam Macadam Traveling Theatre Company. London: Methuen, ¡99¡. Logan, Patrick. The Holy Wells of Ireland. Gerrard’s Cross: Colin Smythe, ¡992 [¡980]. Lowenthal, David. The Past Is a Foreign Country. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ¡985. Narváez, Peter. “‘Tricks and Fun’: Subversive Pleasures at Newfoundland Wakes.” Western Folklore 53 (October ¡994): 263–293. Nic Eoin, Máirín. B’ait Leo Bean: Gnéithe den Idé-Eolaíocht Inscne in dTraidisiún Liteartha na Gaeilge. Dublin: An Clóchomhar, ¡998. Ó Colm, Eoghan. Toraigh na dTonn. Indreabhán: Cló Iar-Chonnachta, ¡995.


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Ó Crualaoich, Gearóid. “The ‘Merry Wake.’” In Irish Popular Culture ¡650–¡850, edited by J. S. Donnelly and Kerby Miller, ¡73–200. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, ¡998. Ó Giolláin, Diarmaid. “The Pattern.” In Irish Popular Culture ¡650–¡850, edited by J. S. Donnelly and Kerby Miller, 20¡–22¡. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, ¡998. Ó Laoire, Lillis. Ar Chreag i Lár na Farraige: Amhráin agus Amhránaithe i dToraigh. Indreabhán: Cló Iar-Chonnachta, 2002. Ó Péicín, Diarmuid (with Liam Nolan). Islanders. London: Fount, ¡997. Ó Súilleabháin, Seán. Irish Wake Amusements. Dublin: Mercier, ¡967. Ó Tuama, Seán. An Grá in Amhráin na nDaoine. Dublin: An Clóchomhar, ¡960. _____. Repossessions: Selected Essays on the Irish Literary Heritage. Cork: Cork University Press, ¡995. Ricoeur, Paul. Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences. Ed. and trans. John B. Thompson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ¡98¡. _____. A Ricoeur Reader. Ed. Mario J. Valdés. Toronto: Toronto University Press, ¡99¡. Schechner, Richard. Performance Theory. Routledge: London, 2003 [¡998]. Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. Saints, Scholars and Schizophrenics. Berkeley: University of California Press, ¡979. First paperback printing ¡982. Segal, Charles. “Song Ritual and Commemoration in Early Greek Poetry and Tragedy.” Oral Tradition 4/3 (¡989): 330–359. Steiner, George. “Absolute Tragedy.” No Passion Spent: Essays ¡978–¡996, ¡29–¡4¡. London: Routledge, ¡996. The Statue of Liberty–Ellis Island Foundation. American Family Immigration History Center. www.ellisislandrecords.org. Accessed: 2/24/2002. Turner, Victor. The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, ¡967.

¡¡ Kimchi and Corn Asian American Liminality in Sung Rno’s Cleveland Raining Kyounghye Kwon Abstract Korean-American playwright Sung Rno’s Cleveland Raining can be read as a model play in the way it depicts the experience of immigrants or Asian Americans. Although the play dramatizes standard immigration problems like generational conflict and immigrant confusion or pain under the dominant host culture, it deviates from the standard assumption that immigrant assimilation by the hegemonic culture is a one-way process. The play sheds light on how diverse are the negotiations of Asian Americans about their identities. This deviation is manifest in Mick’s character development and in the play’s prevalent liminal phases. The paper explores the viability of two major theories about social interaction — those of Robert Park and Victor Turner. It compares gender performance theories to the characters’ performance of their ethnicity. The play depicts the characters as empowered with agency, and its treatment of liminality is consistent with recent views on transnationalism in Diaspora and Asian American studies.

Cleveland Raining, published in But Still, Like Air, I’ll Rise: New Asian American Plays, was written by Sung J. Rno, a second-generation Korean American, in ¡994, and premiered at Los Angeles’ East West Players in ¡995 (Figure ¡). The play won the first prize in the Seattle Multicultural Playwrights Festival, and it has been produced by the Asian American Theater Company and Thick Description, the North West Asian American Theater Company, the San Diego Asian American Repertory Theatre, and the Yale Cabaret. Sung Rno’s other plays, such as Drizzle and Other Stories (NWAAT, ¡994), Gravity Falls from Trees (AATC, ¡997), wAve (Ma-Yi, ¡999), Yi Sang Counts to Thirteen (Seoul International Theatre Festival, 2003), and Infinitude (LCC Productions, 2003), have also received numerous honors and 132

¡¡. Kimchi and Corn (Kyounghye Kwon)

awards. Given that Korean American plays are still underrepresented in mainstream American drama and Asian American drama, Sung Rno’s record is of special significance. According to Karen Shimakawa, the aesthetic style of Sung Rno’s Cleveland Raining is di›erent from that of other Asian American plays. In “Ghost Families in Cleveland Raining,” Shimakawa comments on the play’s surrealist quality and its relatively covert and metaphoric racial/ethnic references. She writes that the play “seems to be a radical departure from the cultural nationalist battle cry” of some other Asian American plays,1 and that it “may be viewed as an index of contemporary Asian Pacific American performance — one among several possible indices — in its rejection of a straightforward historical ‘truth-telling’ in favor of a more lyrical, abstract, and postmodern approach to narrative constructions of experience” (383). More importantly, Shimakawa discusses how immigrant history is represented by

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Cleveland Raining by Sung J. Rno, East West Players, Los Angeles, March 23–April 30, ¡995.

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three Asian Americans in the play, employing Avery Gordon’s concept of ghosts in discourse. For Shimakawa, the ghosts, the absent figures in the play, are the traces of “the pain of immigration and assimilation to whiteness” (395) which haunt the three Asian Americans. Shimakawa’s reading of the play is both powerful and legitimate and I will build on it here. However, I also think that a more comprehensive understanding of the play, regarding Asian Americans and their society, can be achieved if I include a fourth character in my discussion — Mick, a native of Ohio. The play’s abstract surrealism is filled with dreams and is set in “an apocalyptic time.” It turns the play into a register of the experiences of immigrants or Asian Americans in general rather than the experiences specific to Korean Americans. The play dramatizes some significant issues that have been explained by standard theories about race and immigration, but it is important to recognize that it deviates from these theories — especially the assimilation cycle — shedding a new light on the diversity of the Asian Americans’ negotiations about their identities. In this paper I will analyze how the characters perform their identities, exploring the viability and limitations of theories about race and immigration. Chicago sociologist Robert E. Park’s theory about the assimilation cycle (¡92¡) and social anthropologist Victor Turner’s performance theory of social dramas (¡982)2 are similar in that they both suggest a model of human interaction in a society with four stages. Park’s model focuses on “competition, conflict, accommodation, and assimilation” (507), while Turner’s model focuses on “breach, crisis, redress, and either reintegration or recognition of schism” (60). Interestingly, the two models stem from similar sets of binary oppositions. Turner’s theory of social dramas was developed from his observations and comparisons of tribal and modern societies. Park’s theory was developed from his juxtapositions of rural and urban cultures. Together these two theories of human interaction can explain the psychology and behavior of the characters in Cleveland Raining. However, due to Turner’s focus on “redress” during liminality, his theory has a stronger resonance in this play than Park’s with its emphasis on conflict that produces a group “by defining awareness of boundaries” (Yu 40). Cleveland Raining begins in medias res with all characters in a liminal phase during their identity formation. When the play begins, the Kim family, “in a country house in Ohio, about a hundred miles south of Cleveland” (Rno 228) has already been breached and is disintegrating. The mother of Jimmy Kim and Mari Kim has been absent since their childhood. Their father, who went away recently, left behind a note with an ambiguous message: “Remember to forget” (268). Mari Kim is a second generation Korean American. Jimmy Kim was born in Korea, but was brought to the United


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States by his parents when he was a child. Jimmy and Mari seem disconnected from their Korean heritage in the absence of their parents. A major crisis in the lives of all of the characters in the play has already taken place before the first scene of the play, either as confusion between their Korean and American identities3 (in the case of the Korean-American characters) or as dread of acquiring a homogeneous identity (in the case of Mick). All of the characters appear as traumatized human beings who perform their identities, as the play ponders on how they can be healed. Their liminal phases are linked to Rno’s surreal techniques as redressive mechanisms are ritualized in (a) dreams, (b) reflexive monologues sinking into the unconscious, (c) surreal conversations occurring with one’s own conscience, and (d) therapeutic conversations/interactions with other characters. Jimmy Kim’s liminal moments in the play reveal his traumatic experience, growing up in the United States as a Korean American. In Act One, Scene Four, Jimmy “Rodin” Kim is engaged in reflexive monologue during which he revisits the time when he changed his name from Kim to Rodin: ... The rain starts coming down. It rolls down my face and it feels like I’m crying. Then I am crying. I can’t really tell. It’s all mixed together. I lean against a tree and I look up and this is crazy, there’s this huge pencil in the sky. It’s huge, monstrous. Big and yellow, the size of a tree. It’s coming straight towards me, the eraser side down. Like it wants to rub me out.... I’m not crying any more. My foot’s sinking deeper and deeper into this puddle. Can’t move. Can’t think. The rain comes down harder. I try to yell out. I can’t hear my self. I’m drowned out by the wind. And I’m just this tree in a storm, the bark all stripped away. Just a naked piece of wood [24¡].

Jimmy, in the presence of the threatening rain and storm, is su›ering from identity confusion (“I can’t hear my self ”). His “yellow” Asianness is a “monstrous” signifier. He is finally left as a colorless, “naked piece of wood,” without a racial/ethnic bark. He is ready to become someone else by taking the name Jimmy Rodin, a name without a “yellow” racial/ethnic marker. Soon, Jimmy slips into a surreal conversation with his conscience that speaks to him in the form of Mari: MARI:

And who was messing with you big brother?

.... JIMMY: MARI: JIMMY:

Everyone. The kids at school, my teachers. My father. And so you took on the name of Rodin. The French sculptor. Silly, don’t you think? I did what I could [24¡].

This conversation reveals that his identity confusion is tied to a generational conflict — an aspect noted in studies about the immigrant experi-

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ence. Jimmy has been torn between the expectations of his Korean father and the expectations of his American friends and teachers. His conscience that rebukes him vents Jimmy’s guilt for being ashamed of his ethnic identity and his regret for having changed his name. Before this “conversation,” he was rather pleased with his new name ( Jimmy “R”) because he thought it had “a gangster ring to it” and that “no one was going to mess with [him]” (24¡). It perhaps made him think that he could escape from his AsianAmerican “model minority” stereotype. He deluded himself into thinking he was somebody else — a tough guy. His was also an act of rebellion against the ethnic expectations of his Korean father, and a step toward assimilation under the pressure of his predominantly white, Midwestern American peers and teachers. In this sense, the dominance of the white American culture over the identity formation of Asian immigrants like Jimmy (who belong to what I call the “one-and-a-half-plus generation”)4 is comparable to the dominance of “compulsory heterosexuality” over gender identity formation ( Judith Butler’s term). White Americanness in the history of U.S. immigration and heterosexuality have tended to assume a natural and normal appearance, exercising a normative force. Crossing racial boundaries and thereby “dirtying” and “diluting” white Americanness (especially through interracial marriage) was discouraged 5 in a manner similar to that of crossing gender boundaries. In the beginning of the twentieth century, white Americanness, biologically, desired its identity to remain intact, but, culturally, it demanded its identity to be emulated by Asian Americans. By the end of the twentieth century, however, the white Americanness that the Asian Americans were interpellated to mimic began to include a portion of African-Americanness especially among the younger generations. Nonetheless, the racial and cultural conflicts continue to exist for Asian Americans as American Orientalism and immigration law continue to influence the public mind.6 The normative force of Americanness is more evident in Storm, an AsianAmerican character whose performance of identity displays some of the features of Butler’s “gender melancholia,” but only in terms of ethnicity. Although Storm looks Asian, she has been in firm denial of anything Asian. She identifies herself as an “American,” and refuses to be “a boat person” (239). She wears a leather jacket and behaves like an American. She tells Mari that “[she] is not Korean” and orders her to “[j]ust leave [her] out of all [the] ethnic bullshit” (245). Storm has never known her parents. She looks like Jimmy and Mari, and, most likely, she is an Asian American adoptee who has lived with an older American woman whom she calls Granny. It is as if Storm su›ers from “ethnic melancholia,” given the way she overcompensates her American identity to cover her Asian appearance. Butler spoke of heterosexual melancholia


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when she argued that a heterosexual “is formed from the refusal to grieve” a member of the same sex (¡993: 235). Storm, the “American,” is formed from her refusal to grieve for the loss of her Korean identity. She is in ethnic melancholia instead of ethnic mourning,7 because she is in denial of her Asian roots, and hence oblivious of the loss of her Korean identity. Although she never heard about kimchi,8 Korea’s best-known food, until she met Mari in Act One, Scene Ten, her nightmare suggests that her ethnicity is rooted in Korea: Storm: ... Not dead, everyone dead yes, dead, yes, this shaking ground I walk every step a sinking please forgive don’t forget old car driving now, flowers in the window little girl peeking over window broken glass everywhere so many faces. In the storm. Faceless. You got no face, no eyes. Burn my lips, break them. Grandma? Halmuni? [254].

This nightmare not only reveals Storm’s sense of guilt for having accidentally killed her American Granny, but also conjures up in her mind the Korean word for “Granny,” “Halmuni.” In this way it reveals her repressed Korean identity, even though Storm does not speak Korean. The nightmare is Storm’s liminal phase during which she undergoes a painful confusion leading to her confrontation with her ethnic heritage. Following her nightmare, she realizes that she was trying to “escape from something” (262) and is gradually transformed. Later on, she even admits that she likes the smell of kimchi, which is a step toward her acceptance of the Korean part of her identity that she had kept suppressed. Mari’s liminal phase, in turn, is presented in Scene Two of the Prologue. In this scene, Mari engages in a “reflexive narrative” (Turner 77) as describes her surreal experience when she looked at one of her mother’s paintings: My mother, my Uhmmah,9 my painter, she painted a still life of a bowl of cherries and she captured the color just right. I could stare at that painting for hours.... If I stared at that painting my body would move ... the inside would move a little left of the outer ... like when the earth shakes slightly, you feel disoriented. Then one day I couldn’t stand just looking at the picture anymore and I had to lick the surface with my tongue to taste the cherries, but the taste wasn’t there. My tongue got cut, there was the taste of blood. And still, the taste wasn’t there [229].

Mari’s desire to taste the cherries her mother painted reveals her longing for her Korean roots. They beckon her, but only as a reflection of the real cher-

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ries that her mother observed and painted. Her reflexive narrative also reveals that Mari does not have direct access to the “authentic essence” of her ethnicity. Her access to Koreanness is further hindered by her mother’s absence. “The taste wasn’t there” because the cherries were only a reflection, a signifier of her mother’s perception of the tangible cherries. Unlike Storm, Mari acknowledges the loss of her Koreanness and is therefore in ethnic mourning. The liminal phases experienced by Jimmy, Storm, and Mari echo some significant issues discussed in immigration studies, including generational conflicts, the assimilating force of Americanness, and the loss of ethnic origin. As the three Koreans gain a better understanding of themselves and their psychological conflicts, their performance of their identities changes. The rest of the play begins to take a more celebratory tone as the characters negotiate their identities. Jimmy has a prophetic vision of a great flood, and he plans to survive by converting his Volkswagen into a boat and stocking it with kimchi and beer. His taste for kimchi takes on a spiritual dimension (230), and he resorts to cultural nationalism: “Kimch[i]10 is the one distinctive dish that Koreans have. There is no other dish in the world that comes close to it” (230). In the context of his earlier psychological turmoil, his current worship of kimchi is a defensive posture rather than a truly chauvinistic one. The same applies to his oversensitivity to the word “banana.” He was fired from his job at a grocery store when he threw a tomato at a lady customer who had asked him where the bananas were. Jimmy thought that the lady customer used the word “banana” as a racial slur for Asians who act white.11 Ethnicity is now presented as a strategy for cultural survival, in a manner similar to that envisioned by Butler when she described gender as a “strategy” that has “cultural survival at its end” in situations of duress (¡988:522). However, unlike Butler who argued that one’s identity is “never fully self-styled, for living styles have a history, and that history conditions and limits possibilities” (52¡), Jimmy’s performance of his Koreanness is heavily self-styled. He needs kimchi as a cultural prop because he cannot create his ethnic identity out of nothing. However, his performance of Koreannes is a radically individual re-construction of Korean identity. It is based on his own interpretation of Koreanness. He preaches a Korean ethnic essentialism when he says that “there’s a bond” among Koreans, “a secret code” (265). Jimmy deludes himself about the Korean “essence” at this stage of his recovery and healing — as in the case of immigrants and ethnic minorities that “often appropriate ethnographic essentialism as a strategy to authenticate their own experience, as a form of reactive resistance to the [dominant] center” (qtd. in Lavie ¡2). Mari, who functions as Jimmy’s opposite double12 throughout the play,


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does not share his version of Koreanness and Korean ethnic superiority. “I don’t think we’re better than anyone else,” Mari says (265). Both Mari and Jimmy are in ethnic mourning, having acknowledged their loss of Koreanness. However, the two siblings take di›erent paths as the Epilogue clearly shows. Mari’s and Jimmy’s lines are, at first, placed side by side and dovetail, but later begin to diverge: MARI:

The stories really matter don’t they? I still have my memories. And they live in me, like those wild flowers you see by the road. Those flowers survive even the most vicious storm.

JIMMY:

A brush. You start with a brush. Paint. Rich and black.

See how it thickens near the brush? You have to control it. You see them by the road, their colors get more bright in the rain. The water makes — the colors seem more vivid when the brush is wet — from the rain and the petals drip with what has newly fallen to the earth, small drops —

Possible. And you look out past the road, the fields, you see the infinite line of the land against the clouds. Uhm-mah. Uhm-mah, play with me, put your brush down put your brush down.

of paint, which are to be avoided in the beginning if at all — Possible. Watch the canvas carefully, imagine it as more than that, Add depth to it, wrap the cloth around your eye, and paint all the colors you see. From violet to red [269–70].

Mari and Jimmy say that their ethnicity becomes more significant when it is challenged from outside — their colors get brighter in the rain, and “the colors seem more vivid when the brush is wet from the rain.” However, Jimmy “imagin[es] it more than that,” and adds “depth to it.” It is his ethnic

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loss that drives him to become a creative performer of his ethnicity, because his illusion of Koreanness can heal him and shield him against the storm. Mari, on the other hand, quits searching for her ethnic origin. Her pleas to her mother to “put [her] brush down” and come “play with [her],” suggest that Mari follows a di›erent strategy than Jimmy’s for survival — a form of selfOrientalization in a hybrid sense. Although she states that her memories will survive the most vicious storm, she gradually develops along a non-ethnicspecific identity. She does not deny her Korean ethnicity nor does she feel compelled to act (white) American. She simply decides to stop seeking “authentic” Korean identity, thus ending her ethnic mourning. She keeps her memories and moves on, even though her memories are scanty and feeble and do not reveal much about her ethnic origin. In this way, Jimmy and Mari are on separate paths in accordance with their father’s message: “Remember to forget.” This forgetting is related to their understanding that even ethnic origin is fluid. The prevalent immigration models describe the loss of ethnic origin as a painful but unavoidable step during the immigrants’ assimilation in the host country. However, the three Asian-American characters in the play, no matter how di›erently they mature and deal with their liminality, acknowledge their ethnic heritage, and choose not to be assimilated by the hegemonic culture “banana style.” Their conscious choices suggest more than just poignancy. Even for Mari and Storm, who do not join Jimmy in his “ark,” their non-ethnic-specific identity is not a deplorable state of a›airs. They can choose to perform other kinds of identities. However, it is the case of Mick that disturbs or subverts the standard immigrant assimilation cycle the most.13 Like other characters, Mick appears on stage in an agonizing state, which is due to his fear of corn. When Jimmy and Mick start getting to know each other, Mick expresses his fear of corn: You can’t ignore it out here! It’s like ignoring an ocean when you’re swimming in it! It’s a fact of life, it’s there every day, every morning you wake up, staring you in the eyes. So when I closed my eyes, you know what I saw? The stalks of corn — they started breeding, like fish — they started swimming and then there was like a school of them — and they were breeding like faster than you could even count — until there was like a whole fucking country of corn— and I can’t stand corn! [235; emphasis added].

Why did Sung Rno have Mick use the “country of corn” as a synecdoche for the United States? Sung Rno said that he has “never been to Cleveland” but he “wanted to write something that reflected [his] own experience of growing up in Cincinnati” (qtd. in Shimakawa 383). The equation of America with a fast-breeding cornfield could be a comment on American


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capitalism that creates uniform environments across the U.S.A., like endless chain restaurants and mass produced goods. This uniformity is likened to the one-way assimilation and homogenization of the immigrants by the hegemonic culture. Through his interactions with Jimmy and Mari, Mick undergoes a significant change. He has an epiphany when Mari tells him that “there’s only one way to conquer your fears. You have to attack them. Stop running” (26¡). Early in the play, Mick referred to kimchi as “foul cabbage” and told Jimmy that “[i]t warps your brain” (247). At the end of the play, however, Mick eats kimchi again and again as if he is addicted to it: Mick opens the jar of kimch[i]. He starts eating a piece. He starts eating another piece. He sits down next to Jimmy. Long silence. Mick continues to chew and eat. Jimmy takes the painting and places it in the engine... [269].

His change of attitude toward kimchi, his growing interest in Jimmy and Mari, and his decision to join Jimmy in his ark (the Volkswagen/boat) indicate that his intercultural exposure had a transforming e›ect on him. He may actually be cured from his fear of bland corn now that he developed a taste for the spicier kimchi. Mick’s change, positively portrayed in the play, suggests that assimilation should be a two-way process. Mick, as a representative of the host culture, begins to consume and assume a kimchi-corn identity.14 In this sense, the play dramatizes the liminal phase of the United States — a union always already in the process of “becoming” (Turner 77). The Kim family has come to recognize and accept its schism when Jimmy and Mari take di›erent paths, but their society as a whole reaches a new state of integration.15 Complicating the potentially reductive binary between white American and Asian American, the New Dramatists’ recent homepage of Sung Rno describes the character Mick as “multi-ethnic” (“New Dramatists” 2), as opposed to non–Asian American, or a native of Ohio. This change on the web page keeps up with America’s liminal phase and its hybridization. This takes me back to my initial comparison of Park’s assimilation cycle with Turner’s theory of social dramas. While Park’s model prescribes an inevitable assimilation, Turner’s model o›ers at least two options for ethnic groups that are in crisis and in a liminal phase. Park’s understanding of “cultural assimilation” is a one-way street towards progress with America in the lead. Turner’s reintegration does not necessarily mean integration conforming to the hegemonic culture. Turner’s and Park’s theories stem from similar binaries (tribal/rural vs. modern/urban), but Turner’s social dramas allow the nature of society to change after (re)integration — a model that is more liberating for understanding Asian Americans and their society.

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Turner’s theory is cyclical and recurrent. Rno’s characters ( Jimmy, Mick, Mari, and Storm) are not over their liminality, and they will continue to negotiate di›erent kinds of identities that will place them in additional liminal phases.16 Besides, nowadays, the “one-and-a-half-plus” generation of Asian Americans does not have to rely only on its memory of its parents’ memories for access to their ethnicity any more. Technology has made communication between countries faster and easier through travel, television, and the Internet. Also, cultural exchange programs will continue to complicate the standard immigration assimilation model.17 The play a‡rms the significance of the pain and confusion of both immigrants and Asian Americans under the dominant culture of the host country, but it does not end there. The surrealism and liminality of Sung Rno’s Cleveland Raining point to a continuing re-negotiation of various pre-conceived identity boundaries. THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

Notes Acknowledgment. I am very grateful to Professors Chan E. Park, Jon Erickson, and Judy Tzu-Chun Wu for their guidance and insights, as well as to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. 1. Karen Shimakawa takes the examples of Frank Chin’s The Year of the Dragon (¡974) and Edward Sakamoto’s Yellow Is My Favorite Color (¡979). 2. Victor Turner’s concept of “social drama” was developed from the late ¡950s to ¡982. 3. According to Turner, “[s]ome tragic situations arise from conflicts of loyalty to di›erent ‘star’ groups”; “a star group” is “the one with which a person identifies most deeply and in which he finds fulfillment of his major social and personal strivings and desires” (69). One can argue that Korean American characters have two competing “star groups”-Korean and American-to which they feel “obliged ” (69). 4. For convenience’s sake, I will replace “one-and-a-half and subsequent generation” with “one-and-a-half-plus generation.” I intend to distinguish first generations from one-and-a-half and subsequent generations because first generations live in their home country until they become adults. Thus, despite individual di›erences and di›erent historical points of arrival to the host country, I assume that linguistically and culturally the first generation’s ethnic identity tends to be firmer, and their notion of their ethnicity is far less obscure. 5. See Mary Ting Yi Lui’s The Chinatown Trunk Mystery (Princeton, 2005) and John Ku Wei Tchen’s New York before Chinatown ( Johns Hopkins University Press, ¡999) for the fear of and discrimination against interracial marriage between Chinese men and white American women in New York City in the early twentieth century. 6. For further discussion of the legacy of Orientalism, consult Mae Ngai’s Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (Princeton,


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2004), and Henri Yu’s Thinking Orientals: Migration, Contact, and Exoticism in Modern America (Oxford University Press, 200¡), among others. 7. Freud explains that for the melancholic, his/her loss is unknown, unlike those in mourning (584). Butler makes use of this distinction in her concept of “gendermelancholia.” 8. Kimchhi, fermented vegetables with various seasonings, typically red pepper, is extremely popular in Korea. There are various kinds of Kimchi but the most prevalent one is made of cabbage. 9. This means “mom” in Korean. 10. The play spells it “kimchee,” but I follow a more common spelling for this word. 11. From this, we can see that (white) Americanness both interpellates Asian Americans to assimilation and mocks the assimilated Asian Americans. 12. Mari tried to be a doctor to heal people when she realized that “[her] brother had a talent for hurting everybody around him” (Rno 250). 13. Given that his grandparents are from Germany and white is a race that is, generally, not marked in American society (unlike people of color), the character description of a native Ohioan can be interpreted as a white American. 14. Although food functions as a metaphor of the character’s identity in the play, recent studies have also shown tighter connection between actual food consumption and one’s identity. 15. Although the last phase of Turner’s theory is “either reintegration or recognition of schism,” I phrase it as “integration” here instead of “reintegration” because the two groups come to integration for the first time in the play, although this negotiation is not a one-time occasion, but an on-going one. 16. I thank Judy Tzu-Chun Wu for this insight. 17. See Shukla Sandhya’s India Abroad (Princeton, 2003) for further discussion of transnationalism and its complication of the classic immigrant history paradigms.

References Cited Butler, Judith. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” Theatre Journal 40: 4. (December ¡988): 5¡9-53¡. _____. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, ¡990. _____. Bodies That Matter. New York and London: Routledge, ¡993. 223-284. Freud, Sigmund. “Mourning and Melancholia.” The Freud Reader. Ed. Peter Gay. New York and London: Norton, ¡989. 584–589. Lavie, Smadar and Ted Swedenburg. Displacement, Diapora, and Geographies of Identity. Durham: Duke University Press, ¡996. ¡–25. “New Dramatists.” http://www.newdramatists.org/sung_rno.htm. Accessed on March 29, 2005. Park, Robert E., and Ernest W. Burgess. Introduction to the Science of Sociolog y. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, ¡92¡. Rno, Sung. Cleveland Raining. But Still Like Air, I’ll Rise: New Asian American Plays. Ed. Velina Hasu Houston. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, ¡997. 227–70.

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Shimakawa, Karen. “Ghost Families in Sung Rno’s Cleveland Raining.” Theatre Journal 52, 3. (October 2000): 38¡–396. Turner, Victor. “Social Dramas and Stories About Them.” From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play. New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications, ¡982. 6¡–87. Yu, Henri. Thinking Orientals: Migration, Contact, and Exoticism in Modern America. New York: Oxford University Press, 200¡.

¡2 “Fair Fierce Women” From the Rat-Wife and Peg Inerny to Cathleen Ni Houlihan Miglena Ivanova Abstract This comparative study of some creative resonances among Henrik Ibsen’s Little Eyolf, Edward Martyn’s Maeve, and W. B. Yeats’s and Lady Gregory’s Cathleen Ni Houlihan o›ers a more inclusive story of the Irish national drama, underscoring both the influence of Continental models and the vital position Edward Martyn occupied in the cultural revival. Yeats’s dismissal of Martyn’s contribution to the drama movement both as a playwright and a critic, his unacknowledged debt to the artistic models of both Ibsen and Martyn reveal an attempt to present to the world an image of an independent Ireland that possesses a monolithic dramatic tradition and an Ireland confident in her indigenous cultural identity. In addition to compromising Martyn’s accurate historical representation, Yeats’s discriminatory approach overlooks significant aesthetic and ideological elements of the Irish drama movement which promoted intellectual and artistic exchange of ideas between Ireland and modern Europe.

In ¡923 William Butler Yeats was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. In his lecture to the Swedish Academy, entitled “The Irish Dramatic Movement,” he stated that his contribution to literature should not be limited to poetry alone but should include also the poetic drama he promoted in Ireland.1 Tracing the origins and listing the achievements of the Dramatic Movement, Yeats o›ered a rather selective and restrictive view that underscored the creative energy and perseverance of an artistic trinity that included Lady Augusta Gregory, John Millington Synge, and himself. Of the remaining original founders of the Irish Literary Theatre, George Moore merited no mention, in Yeats’s opinion, and Edward Martyn’s role was drastically reduced to that of a mere benefactor (Yeats ¡955:529›.). Among the larger implications of Yeats’s discriminatory approach to the history of drama in 145

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Ireland are the resulting notions that the dramatic movement was largely equivalent with the development of Dublin’s Abbey Theatre (whose directors between ¡905 and ¡909 were Lady Gregory, J. M. Synge, and W. B. Yeats); that national drama found its indigenous voice in heroic legend and the folk-play; and that the partnership with Edward Martyn and George Moore, though useful at first, was ultimately dispensable. Such a restrictive approach overlooks important aesthetic and ideological components of the Irish Dramatic Movement that Moore and Martyn advocated; among these are the thematic and intellectual influence of modern Continental drama and the idea that a literary theatre should encourage intellectual exchange of ideas between Ireland and modern Europe. After the disintegration of the Literary Theatre in ¡90¡, Martyn’s and Moore’s cultural positions were among the factors that motivated a fairly enthusiastic, albeit sporadic, theatrical life both outside the Abbey Theatre and outside Dublin. Among the numerous small theatres which presented the work (in English or Gaelic) of Ireland’s aspiring dramatic talent side by side with some of the best examples of modern European drama are the Players’ Club, the Theatrical Club, Cliuthcheoiri na hEireann (Theatre of Ireland), the Independent Theatre Company, and the Irish Theatre Company — all of which Edward Martyn either co-founded or supported generously — as well as Inghinidhe na hEireann (Daughters of Erin), various branches of the Gaelic League, the Ulster Literary Theatre, the Cork National Theatre, the Cork Dramatic Club, and the National Players Society, among many others. An astute critic of Scandinavian drama, Edward Martyn was one of its most passionate Irish champions. Unlike George Bernard Shaw, however, who saw primarily the reformer and social critic in Ibsen, Martyn was able to appreciate Ibsen’s more subtle poetic side which became stronger and stronger in Ibsen’s later plays, e.g., The Wild Duck (¡884), Rosmersholm (¡886), and Little Eyolf (¡895). Martyn’s first plays, The Heather Field (¡899) and Maeve (¡899) convey insightful dramatic analyses of Ibsen’s realistsymbolic plays, immersed in Irish subject matter and emblematic of local socio-economic dilemmas. An early supporter of the Gaelic League, IrishIreland, and Sinn Féin, Martyn advanced the idea of an Irish cultural sovereignty that stemmed from a symbiotic relationship between a spiritual Irish-Ireland and a modern Europe. He believed that, like Ibsen’s Norway, Ireland was a small country, with a small language. Yet by following the structural and intellectual models of Ibsen’s distinctly Norwegian yet, also, markedly European drama, and by establishing its own national school of acting, Irish theatre would acquire both a national and an international character.2 Martyn’s position thus rested on a unique bond among the most dominant and vocal variants of cultural nationalism in Ireland around the turn

¡2. “Fair Fierce Women” (Miglena Ivanova)

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of the twentieth century, those of the revolutionary nationalists (Maud Gonne and Arthur Gri‡th), the Irish-Irelanders (Douglas Hyde and George Russell), and what Adrian Frazier calls the European Catholic aesthetes (George Moore and Martyn himself ). Maeve is thematically closely related to The Heather Field not only because its central character is a dreamer who cannot bear to be separated from the natural beauty of her land and from the immortal beauty of its ancient past, but also because both plays draw attention to the inevitable decline and imminent death of an Irish way of life. Martyn’s Maeve, a poetic drama in two acts, is set in the present, in County Clare on Ireland’s West coast; the dramatic action barely exceeds twelve hours — from early evening to dawn. Maeve, daughter of an impoverished Irish aristocrat, Colman O’Heynes, Prince of Burren, has given her unwilling consent to marry Hugh Fitz Walter, a rich Englishman, who has agreed to restore her father to his previous social position. Her heart, however, is devoted to another — an abstract reincarnation of ethereal, immortal beauty, whose image is a fusion between the splendor and perfection of the ancient Greeks and the ancient Celts. An old vagrant woman, Peg Inerny, convinces Maeve that the legendary Celtic Queen Maeve is buried in a cairn next to the O’Heynes’s castle and that the Queen now inhabits Tir-nan-ogue, “the land of everlasting youth,” “the Celtic dream-land of ideal beauty” (Martyn ¡995:290–29¡). At night Peg Inerny joins the Queen’s court; she believes that Maeve belongs to the beautiful folk of Tir-nan-ogue. Amid the ruins on an ancient abbey, right outside her father’s castle, Maeve has a vision in which Queen Maeve warns her not to turn her back on her true love. By choosing Hugh Fitz Walter, Maeve —“the vestal of our country’s last beauty”— would both kill her beloved and obliterate the spirit of the Celts. It is past midnight when Maeve returns to her room; she sits in front of an open window, awaiting the Queen’s promised return. A royal procession soon appears before her eyes; Maeve realizes that the Queen has come to take her to the land of eternal youth and, by helping her to “escape the stranger’s bondage,” allows her to achieve her ideal. “The empire of the Gael is in Tir-nan-ogue,” declares the Celtic Queen, leading Maeve away. “Each man who comes to his ideal has come to Tir-nan-ogue” (293). At dawn, the young bride-to-be is discovered dead, her body frozen by the unusually chilly night. Maeve, subtitled “A Psychological Drama,” opened at Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre on ¡9 February ¡900, in a double bill with Alice Milligan’s one-act mythological play The Last Feast of the Fianna. The audience and the reviewers did not miss the nationalist motifs in the plays’ action and characterization, although many were puzzled by the mystique surrounding Maeve’s

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otherworldly character. With his distinctive frankness, Dublin’s most devout theatre-goer Joseph Holloway recorded in his unpublished journal “Impressions of a Dublin Playgoer” that, despite its worth as a piece of literature, Maeve was a complete failure on the Gaiety stage. Why the fact of the matter was that “Maeve’s” cold inanimate manner and wistful, far-away look and visionary talk only created laughter among a most kindly disposed audience. On occasion they could not refrain from irreverent mirth at the daft behaviour of this eminently unlovable young woman, and one old play-goer was heard to remark as he left the theatre that “They ought to have clapped that one into an asylum” [Hogan and O’Neill ¡967:¡0].

Although the flatness and ine›ectiveness of Maeve’s presence on stage might have had a lot to do with the fact that English actors attempted to impersonate Irish characters who expressed anti–English sentiments, another important fact to consider is Dublin’s inexperience with psychological drama. Most playgoers expected to be entertained or to hear a sermon in dramatic form when they went to the theatre. Martyn’s poetic play undermined contemporary theatrical conventions because “it appeals solely to the mind,” a reviewer for The Irish Times complained. A play of real dramatic value, he continued “should appeal — to the eye, to the ear direct, to the emotions direct” (Hogan and Kilroy ¡975:73). The critic was certainly right in pointing out Martyn’s relative inexperience in the art of playwriting. Yet his analysis failed to o›er a coherent interpretation of Maeve, mostly because it shifted arbitrarily among a number of topics: the conventions of the current stage, the ineptness of psychological drama, Martyn’s pretentious dialogue, and, last but not least, what makes a play Irish. “Both Miss Milligan and Mr. Martyn have apparently to learn this — that the mere mention of a few Irish names does not and cannot make an Irish drama,” insisted the critic (74). More than anything else, this opinion — a subtle attack on the pronounced Anglo-Irish foundation of the Literary Theatre — reveals the striking depth of interpenetration of anti-Ascendancy cultural politics and the various manifestations of nationalism in drama and the theatre. Frank Fay, at the time a drama critic for The United Irishman, o›ered a di›erent, though equally politically charged point of view. In agreement with the Irish-Ireland cultural nationalism, he gave the Literary Theatre his full support, asserting that “The sneers of the London log-rollers and the attempts of the West-British [Unionist] element in our midst to throw cold water on the enterprise did not prevent those who attended from expressing their unmistakable and enthusiastic appreciation of the plays presented” (Hogan ¡970:35). Like-minded patriotic spectators had no trouble interpreting Maeve as a political allegory of Irish history: the union between the


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militarily and economically aggressive Anglo-Saxon (Hugh Fitz Walter) and regal but poor Erin (Maeve) could never lead to the realization of Erin’s best interests. When Peg Inerny inquires if Maeve was “content to marry” the Englishman, the young woman answers “(with suppressed scorn) Ha — no one ever troubled before to consider whether she was or not.” Peg Inerny slyly reminds her that Hugh’s riches are considerable and tempting. “Yes indeed,” agrees Maeve but adds bitterly, “and that is how the whole tragedy has come about” (282). Some of the most explicit nationalist sentiments, however, can be discerned in the old woman’s words to Hugh, minutes before Maeve’s icecold body is discovered: “You think I am only an old woman; but I tell you that Erin can never be subdued... (smiling insidiously). Perhaps the Englishman may think that he already holds her? Ah, she will slip like a fairy from his grasp. (She laughs low and sardonically)” (296–297). The generally enthusiastic applause with which Dublin met Martyn’s second play was attributable to such overtly nationalistic passages. In W. B. Yeats’s opinion, it was the old vagrant Peg Inerny, not the ethereal Maeve, who was a symbol of Ireland. Martyn’s portrayal of the old hag left such an impression on Yeats that, only a year or so later, he and Lady Gregory re-created Peg Inerny into the figure of Cathleen ni Houlihan — a mythological embodiment of Celtic Ireland’s sovereignty goddess. In ¡900, Yeats gave tacit credit to Martyn’s creative originality by stating that the prototype of Peg Inerny was rather uncertain. In a short article, entitled “Maive and Certain Irish Beliefs,” which appeared in the second number of Beltaine, Yeats suggested that Peg Inerny might have been based upon Biddy Early, “who journeyed with people of faery when night fell, and who cured multitudes of all kinds of sickness,” and hastened to add “but there were, and are, many like her” (¡900:¡4). Yeats not only accepted Martyn’s claim that “he knew nothing, or next to nothing, about the belief in such women as Peg Inerny among the Irish peasants,” but also used it to enhance the appeal of poetic imagination and archetypal memory. “Unless the imagination has a means of knowledge peculiar to itself,” Yeats wrote, “he [Martyn] must have heard of this belief as a child and remembered it in that unconscious and instinctive memory on which imagination builds” (¡4). Thirty-five years later, however, W. B. Yeats drastically revised his opinion on Peg Inerny’s identity; in Dramatis Personae he claimed that Martyn was inspired to create the vagrant “under the influence of stories gathered by Lady Gregory and myself. She is one of those women who in sleep pass into another state, are ‘away’ as the people say, seem to live among people long dead, in the midst of another civilization” (Yeats ¡955:430). In her study of Martyn and his contribution to Irish literary drama, Sister Marie-Thérèse Courtney challenges the accuracy of Yeats’s poetic memory; referring to evi-

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dence from the Irish Folklore Commission, she establishes that the figure of the old vagrant was indeed Martyn’s original creation. Though infused with folkloristic elements, Martyn’s Peg Inerny had no direct antecedent in Irish folklore (Courtney ¡952:89). In his portrayal of Peg Inerny Martyn most probably borrowed eclectically from at least two folklore traditions: the Celtic and the Germanic. A brief examination of Peg Inerny’s artistic kinship with the character of the Rat-Wife in Ibsen’s Little Eyolf (¡894), for example, reveals striking parallels in theme and function. The characterizations of both women o›er variations of the Pied Piper, a well-known Germanic folk figure, who lured the children of Hamelin away from their homes. According to a popular version of the legend, the Pied Piper led the children into the mountains and to a much happier life. The idea to combine Celtic and Germanic folklore might have occurred to Martyn in ¡896, when he saw the first performance of Little Eyolf in London. Martyn was a man of wide cultural interests, well-read and attentive to the latest developments in European drama. In his esteem, no playwright surpassed the achievements of Henrik Ibsen and, therefore, no critic could undermine the value of Ibsen’s psychological-realistic drama. He followed eagerly Ibsen’s premieres and revivals in London, in Dublin, and, presumably, on the Continent during his yearly pilgrimages to Bayreuth. In ¡895, Martyn left his rooms in the Temple and moved into a more spacious London apartment; this allowed him to follow the theatrical season in greater comfort. Although William Archer’s translation of Little Eyolf did not appear in print until ¡897, the play had already been translated into both French and German (¡895). Its first German production was in Berlin at the Deutsches Theater, in January ¡895; three months later, in April, it was presented at Munich’s Hoftheater; and, in May, it opened in Paris at Théâtre de l’Œuvre. The production Martyn saw was at London’s Avenue Theatre (November ¡896), with Janet Achurch (as Asta), Elizabeth Robins (as Rita), and Mrs. Patrick Campbell (as the Rat-Wife). He acknowledged this in a joint review of Little Eyolf and The Lady from the Sea (¡888), published in ¡9¡2 in The Irish Review, in which he compared Nell Byrne’s Rat-Wife in a recent Dublin performance of Little Eyolf with Mrs. Patrick Campbell’s work on the same part in London (Martyn ¡9¡2–¡9¡3:6¡0–6¡¡). Ibsen’s Rat-Wife is an old, gray-haired woman who goes around the countryside and rids houses and villages from all the rats —“those poor little creatures, hated and hunted down so cruelly”— as she describes them (Ibsen ¡978:875). During what she calls the “lure-game,” she plays enticing music on her mouth-harp and, assisted by her little dog Mopsemand, leads the rats to the shore and, then, into deep water until they drown. “And then they have it as still and as nice and dark as they ever could wish for — little


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beauties,” the Rat-Wife explains to nine-year-old Eyolf Allmers, “Down there they sleep such a sweet, long sleep — all of them that people hate and persecute” (877). Before she started luring little gnawing creatures, she confesses, she lured a man — her “own true love”— who, having broken her heart, found peace “down under, with all the rats” (877–878). At that time people used to call her Miss Varg (i.e., Wolf ). In a rather unusual way, the story confirms Eyolf ’s earlier hunch that Miss Varg turned into a werewolf at night. Initially, her ominous appearance and “glistening eyes” frighten the boy; however, Eyolf is gradually drawn to her, captivated by the irresistible excitement and suspense in her description of the “lure-game.” The RatWife’s enticing story succeeds in producing such a powerful e›ect on her young listener that when she leaves the Allmers’ residence the boy slips out after her without anyone noticing. The incident of the Rat-Wife’s appearance in Little Eyolf finds a close parallel in Edward Martyn’s Maeve. The old vagrant Peg Inerny suddenly shows up in the vicinity of Colman O’Heynes’s castle on the night before the wedding. There she meets Maeve and her sister Finola, who cannot conceal her fear of the “wicked woman” and pleads with Maeve not to listen to Peg Inerny’s enchanting story about the legendary Celtic Queen and, afterwards, not to follow her in the ice-cold, moon-lit mountains. However, like Little Eyolf, Maeve is already caught in the “lure-game.” She does not hear Finola’s warnings because her attention is devoted entirely to Peg Inerny’s insinuations that she has forgotten her beloved: “(insidiously) That one who haunts the mountains and the beautiful old buildings, Princess —” (284). PEG: MAEVE: FINOLA: MAEVE: PEG: MAEVE: PEG:

It is the mountains, Princess, that are white with the dancing feet of the fairies. (desperately) I must go there tonight. You shall not, Maeve. (gazing fondly on the mountains) O beauty of my day-dreams come forth from the mountains. Princess, what is it that you see? (with transport) My love, like an exhalation from the earth to the stars! (moving towards the back) Come, Princess, come [285].

Although Martyn gives a much more explicit rendition of the “lure-game” than Ibsen does, in both plays the victims are led to a certain death while, in a state of excitement, they believe that they are close to experiencing the fulfillment of their dreams. One of Maeve’s most coveted wishes is that her Ice Prince should come to deliver her from bondage, allegorically represented by both marriage and

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life. Maeve’s address to her beloved, shortly before she falls asleep in front of the open window, is a dimly veiled death-wish: “Oh, the beautiful frosty night! I cannot keep it from me. The greatest beauty like the old Greek sculpture is always cold! My Prince of the hoar dew! My golden love, let me see you once more...” (29¡). Little Eyolf ’s dreams are much more realistic, though equally unattainable in life. Crippled in an accident while he was still a baby, Eyolf yearns after a life full of activity and adventure: he wants to climb mountains, to learn how to swim, and to become a soldier. Alerted to his desires by his clothing — the boy wears a suit that looks like a uniform — the Rat-Wife calls him “my little wounded soldier.” This address echoes the ominous tenderness with which she talks about the rats and foreshadows the boy’s fatal fall into the water. The “sweet little creatures” follow the Rat-Wife to their death “because they have to! ... because they don’t want to. Because they are so sickly afraid of the water — they have to go out in it” (877). Highly suggestive, the structural and thematic parallels between the “lure-games” in Henrik Ibsen’s Little Eyolf and Edward Martyn’s Maeve draw attention to the relationship between Peg Inerny and Maeve, which depicts markedly Irish socio-political and cultural dilemmas. Since the play is set in the present, Maeve acquires the symbolic features of those enlightened members of Ireland’s landed aristocracy who, like Martyn, are unable or unwilling to compromise their position by aligning themselves with English materialism and slowly but inevitably pass away. This analogy makes it possible to discern further autobiographical elements in Maeve’s characterization. Martyn’s own preferences for abstract and seemingly impractical scholarly and cultural projects created an aura of eccentricity around him; his aversion to marriage and female company resulted in the extinction of a long Irish aristocratic line. Despite the fact that most of its original spectators perceived Maeve as a poetic drama with overtly nationalist overtones, the play’s patriotic attack on English materialism is balanced against an equally strong sense of nostalgia for an Irish past, cultural tradition, and a social class which had to give way to modernity because they had to and because they did not want to. The lure-game which enters the Yeats-Gregory Cathleen Ni Houlihan (¡902) through Yeats’s reworking of Martyn’s Peg Inerny is rather ambivalent at best. The play centers around two parallel e›orts to lure Michael Gillane — the young man who is getting ready for his wedding day. On the one hand, we see Cathleen Ni Houlihan’s attempts to re-awaken Michael’s patriotism, to influence him to join the ¡798 rebels and their French supporters, whose ships have just reached the Irish shores. On the other hand, Bridget and Delia — Michael’s mother and bride-to-be — desperately try to


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keep him at home, appealing to his duty to the family and love. To the young man, Cathleen’s hopes and aspirations appear far more important than the materialistic and personal motivation of the other two women. He professes readiness to become one of Cathleen’s “lovers,” to sacrifice his life for her and thus help her get her “beautiful [green] fields back again;” he shares Cathleen’s “hope of putting the strangers out of [her] house” (Yeats ¡99¡:3–¡¡, 9) Like Little Eyolf, however, Michael is initially frightened by the old woman. Yet when she tells him that “many a man has died for love for me,” Michael is captivated by the idea of such a powerful and pure feeling. Cathleen answers all his inquiries with hypnotic incantations: “come here beside me and I’ll tell you about them,” “come near, near me,” “if anyone would give me help he must give me himself, he must give me all” (8). Not unlike Maeve’s sister Finola, Delia also tries to break the spell that the native Irish spirit has cast over Michael: “Michael, Michael! You won’t leave me! You won’t join the French and we going to be married! [She puts her arms about him, he turns toward her as if about to yield]. Old woman’s voice outside—” (¡¡), Cathleen Ni Houlihan’s, promises fame and immortality through selfsacrificial death and Michael follows her. An overtly nationalistic reading of the play would certainly position the sources of Michael’s initial alienation from the revolutionary Irish spirit in Delia and Bridget. This is why until Cathleen’s appearance he is unaware of his destiny as an Irishman and he cannot recognize her. Initially, he fears her guided by superstition: Cathleen is a stranger who threatens his union with Delia. Before he steps outside his father’s cottage, however, Michael realizes that it is Delia who is the stranger, not Cathleen. If the characters of Ibsen’s Rat-Wife, Martyn’s Peg Inerny, and Yeats’s Cathleen Ni Houlihan share so many structural and functional features, why was Yeats so eager in ¡923 to play down both Martyn’s place in the Irish dramatic movement and the importance of foreign Continental influences on modern Irish drama? In Yeats’s starting position in ¡899, when he and Martyn worked together to establish the Irish Literary Theatre, we hear echoes of Martyn’s voice and position. In the editorial to the May ¡899 edition of Beltaine, four months after the volume containing The Heather Field and Maeve came out, one distinguishes Yeats’s eagerness to establish relationships of continuity among the emerging literary drama in Ireland and what he sees as its predecessors in Europe, the well-established dramatic traditions of Norway, Germany, and Spain. The rhetorical function of such a strategy is obvious: Ireland’s emerging literary drama is hardly an isolated cultural phenomenon; it has respected predecessors represented by the well-known figures of Henrik Ibsen, Gerhart Hauptmann, Maurice Maeterlinck, and

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José Echegaray, among others. Yeats places special emphasis upon Norway’s example, pointing out its particular relevance to the goals of the Irish Literary Theatre: Norway’s “great and successful school of contemporary drama ... grew out of a national literary movement very similar to that now going on in Ireland. Everywhere critics and writers, who wish for something better than the ordinary play of commerce, turn to Norway for an example and inspiration” (¡899:6). Exactly twenty years later, in a public debate with Lennox Robinson on the broadening of the Abbey repertoire, held on 30 March ¡9¡9, but reported on the pages of The Freeman’s Journal almost a month later (26 April ¡9¡9), Yeats argued that foreign masterpieces had no place on the Abbey stage, that Ireland’s young playwrights should learn their craft at home: by seeing their own plays staged and following the example of native talents like Lady Gregory and Synge. To Robinson’s arguments that the Abbey only stalled the artistic maturity of its young playwrights by exposing them continuously to third-rate peasant drama, Yeats responded with severe criticism of Ibsen’s method and what he called “the modern play,” which “even when Ibsen is the writer — remains still an inadequate form” of art and, implicitly, an inadequate expression of Irish national character: [O]ne reason why I think it is inadequate is because the men who have made it study each other in translation, just as they study paintings from photographs. A photograph leaves out the colour, and a translation leaves out the style. I doubt if Ibsen can have a style in the original, he has certainly none in the English translation. I would far sooner our dramatists learnt dramatic expression from our own people, who have almost all a sense of dialogue and a dialogue where vivid words, where picturesque phrasing, count far more than dry logic [¡9¡9:3].

Yeats’s adamant position against modern drama is confusing, inconsistent, and often hard to understand, but needs to be examined in the context of his pronouncements of disillusionment with the expressive power of words, realistic acting, and popular theatre. Since the middle of the ¡9¡0s, his preferences lay increasingly with the vague suggestiveness of masks, delicate body movement, and the elitism of dance drama. In his opposition to the form of modern drama, which found first expression in his Noh-inspired plays for dancers, one detects Yeats’s troubled relationship with Irish modernity and the growing socio-economic power of the middle classes, whose members more and more noticeably determined the country’s taste for the drama and the arts. Despite his refusal to broaden the Abbey programming with Continental masterpieces (in her correspondence with Lennox Robinson, Lady


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Gregory called them “nasty-pieces”), Yeats did not interfere with Robinson’s plans to establish an artistic foe to the Abbey — the Dublin Drama League — which presented international works to Dublin’s playgoers. In ¡923, however, when he faced an international audience that had gathered in Stockholm to hear his Nobel Prize lecture, Yeats was compelled to present to the world an image of an independent Ireland with a distinctly authentic and monolithic native culture. The cultural politics that underscore Yeats’s re-writing of the history of the Irish dramatic movement, however, produced further, long-lasting e›ects. He established a hierarchy of authenticity which contests not only historical accuracy but also the creation with the Irish Literary Theatre of a tradition of European Irishness in drama that we can still detect today in the works of Brian Friel, Frank McGuinness, Thomas Kilroy, and Seamus Heaney, among others. Yeats’s self-representation and, especially, his misrepresentation of Edward Martyn, both depending on obliterating the boundaries between fact and fiction, thus pose a number of serious problems for scholars of the history of dramatic literature. Due to Yeats’s cultural prestige and prolific autobiographic writing, many have adopted his poetic version of Irish literary history and with it, inevitably, Yeats’s personal and cultural prejudices. Although Una Ellis-Fermor is one of the few historians of early twentieth-century Irish theatre to acknowledge the importance of Ibsen and Scandinavian drama — as interpreted by Edward Martyn — she viewed this tradition as the outcome of a single artistic credo, W. B. Yeats’s. In an influential study entitled The Irish Dramatic Movement, Ellis-Fermor argued that “The movement which created a living drama in Ireland sprang ... from the poetic faith of one man” (¡939:59). Having adopted Yeats’s views regarding the history of literary drama in Ireland — that its sole champion was the Abbey — Ellis-Fermor presented as unified and uniform picture of artistic development as Yeats did in ¡923. Edward Martyn’s contribution was again undermined: “Through the rough-and-tumble of the early years ... the managers of the theatre, the actors and the dramatists alike carried through unbroken the ideals of imaginative reality and of poetic truth.... The faith is most clearly to be seen in the early critical writings of Yeats” (59). Despite the separate chapter she devoted to Edward Martyn and George Moore, EllisFermor underscored what she perceived as weaknesses in Martyn’s activities as a scholar, cultural critic, and playwright. Greatly a›ected by Yeats’s opinion of his former literary associate,3 Ellis-Fermor demonstrated keen interest in the conflicts rather than the accords between Edward Martyn’s artistic aspirations and Yeats’s. Having acknowledged the profound influence of Una Ellis-Fermor upon her work, a more recent scholar, Katharine Worth, also privileges Yeats cen-

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tral role in the conception of Ireland’s European drama. The title of her book, The Irish Drama of Europe from Yeats to Beckett (¡978), reflects quite adequately the author’s approach to the Continental connections of modern Irish drama. Worth’s European perspective, however, underscores the creative resonances Maurice Maeterlinck initiated upon the modern Irish stage. While she acknowledges somewhat half-heartedly the importance of Scandinavian drama, “the phase of Ibsen-inspired realism which every theatre in Europe apparently has to experience” (¡978:¡), soon afterwards she writes, “Yeats is at the centre of this study, for he is at the centre of the modern movement in the drama” (3) which Worth compares to a “revolution which Yeats carried through single-handed in Dublin in the first two decades of the century” (2). The primary objective of the present study is to o›er historical recognition to the work of an early architect and promoter of Irish Europeanism in the drama, whose name tends to be omitted from its o‡cial narrative: Edward Martyn. “Plutarch lied: the great thing cannot be altogether the creation of one great man,” insisted Padraic Colum from the pages of The Dublin Magazine, when in ¡950 he revisited the early days of the modern Irish drama (24): “There are certain imponderables working through minor men and women that instigate great men to give form and scope to what the others are reaching towards. Without these imponderables, without the fermenting but unkeyed-up minds surrounding the great man, no dominating work is ever achieved” (Colum ¡950:24–25). Martyn’s success, and failure, in adapting aspects of Ibsen’s dramatic technique for the Irish stage, as seen in the reception of his Maeve and the play’s influence on W. B. Yeats, is a case in point. COASTAL CAROLINA UNIVERSITY

Notes 1. The lecture “The Irish Dramatic Movement” appeared in print in ¡955 in W.B. Yeats’s Autobiographies as part of The Bounty of Sweden (London: MacMillan and Co Ltd., ¡955), 529–572. 2. In many ways, the cultural politics adopted by Edward Martyn echoed and complemented similar movements toward achieving self-reliance by following the example of small European countries. The Agricultural Movement in the ¡890s, in which prominent figures were Sir Horace Plunkett and George Russell, provides one of the most illuminating examples. 3. In Dramatis Personae, for example, Yeats wrote of Martyn: “His religion was a peasant religion; he knew nothing of those interpretations, casuistries, whereby my


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Catholic acquaintance adapt their ancient rules to modern necessities. What drove him to those long prayers, those long meditations, that stern Church music? What secret torture?” (388). Even when faced with the undeniable fact that Dublin’s drama critics and the general audiences deemed Martyn’s The Heather Field a better artistic achievement than his own The Countess Cathleen, Yeats refused to give credit where credit was due. Playing down Martyn’s accomplishment as merely imitative and transient, Yeats wrote that, “The Heather Field was a much greater success than The Countess Cathleen, being in the manner of Ibsen, the manner of the moment. The construction seemed masterly. I tried to believe that a great new dramatist had appeared ... but I was certain even then, I think, that though he would find subjects, construct plots, he would never learn to write; his mind was a fleshless skeleton” (388). Unable, or perhaps unwilling, to see the poetic elements in most of Ibsen’s work, Yeats also overlooked them in Martyn’s plays.

References Cited “Abbey Theatre: Mr. W.B. Yeats and Mr. Lennox Robinson Discuss its Policy.” The Freeman’s Journal (26 April ¡9¡9): 3. Colum, Padraic. “Early Days of the Irish Theatre.” The Dublin Magazine, Vol. 25 (¡950): 24–25. Courtney, Sister Marie-Thérèse. Edward Martyn and the Irish Theatre. New York: Vintage Press, ¡952. Ellis-Fermor, Una. The Irish Dramatic Movement. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd, ¡939. Frazier, Adrian. George Moore, ¡852–¡933. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000. Gwynn, Denis. Edward Martyn and the Irish Revival. New York: Lemma Publishing Corporation, ¡974. Hogan, Robert and James Kilroy, eds. The Irish Literary Theatre: ¡899–¡90¡. Dublin: The Dolmen Press, ¡975. Hogan, Robert, and Michael J. O’Neill, eds. Joseph Holloway’s Abbey Theatre: A Selection from His Unpublished Journal “Impressions of a Dublin Playgoer.” Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, ¡967. Ibsen, Henrik. Little Eyolf. In Ibsen: The Complete Major Prose Plays, translated by Rolf Fjelde, 862–936. New York: Plume, ¡978. Martyn, Edward. Maeve. In Selected Plays of George Moore and Edward Martyn, edited by David B. Eakin and Michael Case, 269–298. Gerrards Cross, Bucks: Colin Smythe, ¡995. _____. “Plays of the Month: ‘Little Eyolf ’ and ‘The Lady from the Sea’ at the Theatrical Club.” The Irish Review. Vol. 2 (March ¡9¡2–February ¡9¡3): 6¡0–6¡¡. Worth, Katherine. The Irish Drama of Europe from Yeats to Beckett. Bristol: The Athlone Press of the University of London, ¡978. Yeats, William Butler. “Plans and Methods.” Beltaine: The Organ of the Irish Literary Theatre, No. ¡ (May ¡899): 6. London: At the Sigh of the Unicorn. _____. “Maive and Certain Irish Beliefs.” In Beltaine: An Occasional Publication, The

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Organ of the Irish Literary Theatre. No. 2 (February ¡900): ¡4–¡7. London: At the Sigh of the Unicorn. _____. The Bounty of Sweden. In Autobiographies, 529–572. London: MacMillan and Co Ltd., ¡955. _____. Dramatis Personae: ¡896–¡902. In Autobiographies, 383–458. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd., ¡955. _____. Cathleen Ni Houlihan. In Modern Irish Drama, edited by John P. Harrington, 3–¡¡. New York and London: W.W. Worton & Company, ¡99¡.

¡3 Crossover Cross-Dressing Vampire Lesbians and the Assimilation of Ridiculous Theatre Kenneth Elliott Abstract The accidental journey of Charles Busch’s Vampire Lesbians of Sodom from the relative obscurity of an East Village club in ¡984 to a five year run at a venerable O›-Broadway theatre was a key step in the assimilation of Ridiculous Theatre and drag performance into mainstream culture. The crossover success of Vampire Lesbians was made possible in part by cultural and historical factors of the period such as gentrification, the gradually increasing public tolerance of gays and lesbians, and the AIDS crisis. Also important, however, was the original impulse of the playwright. Unlike his avant-garde Ridiculous predecessors such as Ludlam, Ronald Tavel, and John Vaccaro, Busch did not create an angry negation of the prevailing social order. As a drag performer, he was more entertainer than provocateur, which made his performances accessible to general audiences.

Not long ago it was unusual to find drag queens on Broadway stages. Now they are everywhere: Hairspray, Dame Edna, Rent, The Producers, the recent revival of La Cage aux Folles. And on 28 March 2005, Charles Busch appeared in resplendent drag for an Actors’ Fund benefit at Broadway’s Music Box Theatre celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the O›-Broadway opening of his Vampire Lesbians of Sodom. (I produced, directed and appeared in the original production.) Vampire Lesbians is not likely to be revived on Broadway. It is noteworthy neither for the literary merit of the script nor for its incisive social critique. It consists of a series of short comedy sketches intended more to entertain than enlighten. There was nothing revolutionary about the style of the production, either. As many critics at the time pointed out, it was obviously influenced by Charles Ludlam’s Ridiculous Theatrical Company. 159

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But Vampire Lesbians was O›-O› Broadway theatre that captured the spirit of a particular time and place in which gay culture was rapidly gaining visibility. Its accidental journey from the relative obscurity of an East Village club in ¡984 to a five year run at a venerable O›-Broadway theatre was a key step in the assimilation of Ridiculous Theatre and drag performance into mainstream commercial theatre. That assimilation is something that earlier practitioners of Ridiculous Theatre such as Jack Smith, Ronald Tavel, John Vaccaro, and Ludlam would never have imagined or desired. Ridiculous Theatre began in the early ¡960s as an anti-mainstream underground, alternative theatre rooted in the gay subculture. It critiqued the hypocrisy of homophobic middle-class morality, the vacuous contemporary mass media, America’s commodity culture, and capitalism itself. It exposed the ridiculousness of contemporary society through parody that flattened the hierarchy of high and low culture. Its explicit treatment of unconventional sex and its blurring of normative gender roles through drag performance gave it a genuine outlaw status. Much of its humor derived from the performance strategy of camp. By the ¡970s Ridiculous Theatre became almost entirely associated with the work of Charles Ludlam, who won Obie Awards, grants, and rave reviews in the New York Times. Yet his Ridiculous Theatrical Company remained a decidedly fringe operation playing to a mostly gay audience. Even in his most successful shows such as Bluebeard (¡970) and Camille (¡973), Ludlam’s sensibility did not lend itself to the mainstream culture of the time. Gregory W. Bredbeck observed that many of the jokes in his shows “play solely to the urban gay men populating the some thirty blocks that make up Ludlam’s world, the West Village of Manhattan” (65). While Ludlam was certainly interested in expanding his audience, he was reluctant to make the compromises necessary to do so. It was Vampire Lesbians of Sodom that transformed Ridiculous Theatre into commercial theatre, and it happened quite by accident. The historical moment that made this crossover possible came about as a result of various trends and circumstances, the most important of which was the AIDS crisis. Nineteen eighty-four was a grim year in New York City, which had become ground zero of the AIDS epidemic. Of 6,402 reported cases of AIDS nationwide by October ¡984, 2,65¡ of them were in New York (Sullivan). Attending funerals and memorial services became a routine activity for many gay men and their friends. The response of the federal government to AIDS was notoriously slow. As the death toll mounted, fear, despair, and anger pervaded the city’s gay community. A public backlash against homosexuals was predicted by some, but it never really materialized. Instead, AIDS led to increased visibility for the gay community as the disease forced

¡3. Crossover Cross-Dressing (Kenneth Elliott)

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many unwillingly out of the closet. And by ¡984, much of the media coverage (especially in the New York Times) was sympathetic. This was a marked shift from frequently unflattering mainstream depictions of homosexuals of just a few years earlier — for example, William Friedkin’s film Cruising (¡980). Economics was also a factor in this historical moment. The recession may have been over by ¡984, but the Reagan era brought massive budget cuts, reduced services, and increased homelessness to New York City. There were at least 40,000 homeless people living on the streets in ¡984, which turned many neighborhoods into what then Mayor Edward I. Koch bluntly called “outdoor psychiatric wards” (Chaze 57). Wall Street was booming, and the disparity between the rich and poor in the city was painfully evident — especially in neighborhoods like the East Village, which had developed a reputation as a center of violent crime, drug-dealing, and urban decay. For most New Yorkers, the East Village was a scary part of town to be avoided. However, for some young artists and performers it represented an opportunity because of low rents in a city that was otherwise all but una›ordable. On Friday, 9 March ¡984, Busch and I attended a performance our friend Bina Sharif was giving at the Limbo Lounge on Tompkins Square Park in the East Village. The club was appropriately named; the entire neighborhood appeared to be in a state of limbo just short of complete obliteration. The streets were lined with buildings that had been torched by landlords hoping to collect insurance money. There were numerous vacant lots strewn with rubble. And despite a recent police crackdown on drug dealing, there still appeared to be plenty of homeless junkies and alcoholics wandering the streets. It was a grim, menacing environment. However, if you knew where to look amid this urban blight there were dozens of new art galleries, restaurants, and clubs mostly run by young people in their twenties and thirties who would have been unable to a›ord retail rents in more established neighborhoods. The Limbo Lounge, located at 339 East ¡0th Street on the north side of Tompkins Square, was a narrow “railroad” storefront, the floors, walls and ceilings of which were painted black. When Busch and I arrived there for the first time there was a lively crowd of very pale young men and women mostly dressed in black milling around drinking Rolling Rock beer while music blared from the speakers. The club served as an art gallery by day, and there was an installation of colorful abstract art for sale. There was no actual stage, only a small area of floor space allotted to the performers at the rear of the front room. The lighting consisted of a few clip lights, and there was no seating other than two or three booths on one side of the room. Most of the audience sat on the floor.

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After Sharif ’s performance, Busch turned to me and said, without irony, “Wouldn’t it be fun to do a show here?” I agreed that it would, and we approached the owner of the club, a man who called himself Michael Limbo. He had no idea who we were, and didn’t seem to care. He booked us on the spot. Fortunately, Busch had a play in his trunk with a splendid, scenestealing drag role for himself. It was actually two loosely connected sketches that contained a semblance of linear narrative: the story of a pair of feuding showbiz lesbian vampire divas battling it out over the centuries. We assembled a cast, xeroxed some flyers, and on 20 April Vampire Lesbians of Sodom had its premiere before a (mostly) gay audience packed into the Limbo Lounge. There was a festive, party-like atmosphere on opening night, and the audience responded with laughs and cheers. But the show’s prospects were greatly enhanced by an urban trend that was about to radically change the character of the East Village: gentrification. This trend was given a major boost the very week after our performance when the widely read New York Magazine ran a cover story by Craig Unger titled “The Lower East Side: There Goes the Neighborhood.” This article had a huge impact on the East Village by turning a spotlight on the underground artists and performers working downtown. It was accompanied by a cartoon map identifying the neighborhood hot spots so that New Yorkers desperate for the latest fad could navigate the area. Most of the East Village entrepreneurs, including the owners of the Limbo Lounge, were initially delighted by the attention because it was an opportunity to make money, although many later decried the commodification of downtown culture. Nevertheless, the scary Lower East Side was suddenly the hippest part of town. It was not unusual to see limousines parked in front of storefront clubs and galleries on otherwise burnedout blocks. As a throwaway tag line in one of his closing paragraphs, Unger mentioned Vampire Lesbians (4¡). Soon after the story was on the newsstands, Michael Limbo reported that the reservation line at the Limbo Lounge was ringing o› the hook for our next performance. That single, brief reference in New York Magazine became the catalyst for our theatrical ambitions. We were convinced that the old showbiz cliché about being in the right place at the right time was proving to be true. Suddenly we had our own Ridiculous theatre company, which we called Theatre-in-Limbo. We made big plans, as did most of the area’s club and gallery owners, hoping to take advantage of the cachet of the East Village. Michael Limbo moved his club to a larger space (a former sanitation garage) in the neighborhood that fall, and we moved with him for a season of Ridiculous repertory. Our audiences grew larger throughout the fall, but the audi-


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ence demographic remained essentially the same as it had been on the first night at the old Limbo Lounge. Arnold Aronson described a typical Vampire Lesbians audience in an article for The Drama Review: The audience is primarily gay and conservatively dressed; this is not the East Village Punk scene one sees on the street a block or two away. It is a cult audience familiar with the work of playwright/actor Charles Busch, and with the high-camp style of this company. It is not a “theatre audience”— by and large, these spectators are not familiar with nor interested in the range of avant-garde theatre available elsewhere in the city. It is a young audience and many are not familiar with the early work of John Vaccaro, Ron Tavel, Charles Ludlam, and Hot Peaches which is a clear precedent for this performance. This is an audience out for simple entertainment [40].

Aronson’s observation that the audience desired “simple entertainment” points to a major di›erence between Theatre-in-Limbo and its earlier Ridiculous precedents, and it relates to the cultural context of each. Tavel, Vaccaro and Ludlam all began their careers before Stonewall in the ¡960s, and they were reacting to the oppressive societal order of that period. Theatre-in-Limbo began performing in ¡984 as the AIDS crisis was escalating. Our “primarily gay” audience craved “simple entertainment” as an escape from this relentless tragedy. Busch seized the moment by providing it. David Román argues in his book, Acts of Intervention, that there is a variety of “ways that gay men have used theatre and performance to intervene in the crisis of AIDS” (xiii). While Busch’s plays did not address the subject of AIDS directly like plays such as The Normal Heart and As Is, there was a sense in which Theatre-in-Limbo was providing very welcome relief from the miserable reality of the AIDS crisis. Many of the men in our audiences were su›ering from HIV–related illnesses. Most had friends or acquaintances that had died or were dying. To briefly escape from this grim and tragic reality into an utterly silly world of witty, campy vampire lesbians with big hair created a feeling of giddy exhilaration in our audiences. The atmosphere at the Limbo felt something like what it must have been like at a USO show during wartime. The consistently large and enthusiastic audiences convinced Busch and me that Vampire Lesbians had commercial possibilities. I contacted numerous producers about the possibility of moving the show to an O›-Broadway theatre. Their usual response, implicitly homophobic, was that the show belonged at the Limbo Lounge and would never attract audiences at a more “legit” venue. Just a few years earlier they probably would have been right. It was not a prescient understanding of cultural shifts that convinced me that

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our show might have “legs.” I was merely swept up by the idea that we had a hit, so I decided to produce it myself. Veteran theatre producer Arthur Cantor convinced me to book the show into the Provincetown Playhouse, which he was managing at the time. The move from the Limbo to the Provincetown Playhouse was only a few blocks across town, but we were entering the entirely di›erent world of O›-Broadway. It was a physical move from the fringe to the mainstream. Vampire Lesbians of Sodom would be performed in a real O›-Broadway theatre with a marquee, a box o‡ce, a lobby, and real theatre seats. The audience would buy tickets, and they would be given Showbills (which was then the O›-Broadway version of Playbill). There would be ads in the New York Times, and we would be reviewed by all the major newspapers. The entire cast would be working under Actors’ Equity Association contracts. Although some of these may seem to be trivial details, all of them were important to our company because they were the outward signs that we would be an accepted part of the established theatre community: the first Ridiculous theatre to receive a professional, commercial O›-Broadway production. Ludlam’s Ridiculous Theatrical Company remained non-Equity and operated on a non-profit basis. We opened on ¡9 June ¡985, and the New York Times review (read backstage in storybook fashion) was a rave. Critic D. J. R. Bruckner praised the entire production, noting “costumes flashier than pinball machines, outrageous lines, awful puns, sinister innocence, harmless depravity — it’s all here.” He concluded by observing “the audience laughs at the first line and goes right on laughing at every line to the end, and even at some of the silences. That’s no mean achievement.” Naturally, we were delighted by the praise, but the key word in Bruckner’s review is “harmless.” He reassures his readers that the outrageousness of the production is all in good fun and in the spirit of innocence. The strongest word he uses to describe the show’s satire is “irreverent.” He states that Busch tweaks his satirical targets “without assaulting any of them directly.” In other words, the audience need not fear that its values will be seriously challenged. Other critics agreed that Vampire Lesbians could not be considered social critique. Mary Campbell of the Associated Press suggested that “the play, which doesn’t have a bite of redeeming social value, might disappoint some theatergoers because there’s no nudity and it isn’t even very o›ensive.” The lack of o›ensiveness was a‡rmed by Robert Feldberg of the Bergen Record, who rather condescendingly praised the show for its “good natured combination of outrageousness and let’s-dress-up-and-have-a-good-time innocence.” Marilyn Stasio of the New York Post revealed a hint of homophobia by patronizingly referring to it as “a giddy little drag show.”


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At the heart of much of this criticism was the comparison between Busch and Theatre-in-Limbo and Ludlam and the Ridiculous Theatrical Company (the Times review was one of the few not to mention Ludlam). The critics generally found Busch to be a lightweight by comparison. Michael Feingold had led the charge months earlier with his review of the Limbo production in the Village Voice: Charles Busch’s Vampire Lesbians of Sodom su›ers in my mind from the inevitable comparison with Irma Vep, next to which it looks as bloodless as Helen Chandler after a bout with Lugosi. It has enough humor and cheerfully spunky inanity to pass its brief time well enough as a late show in a liquor-serving establishment, but it hasn’t much dramatic drive or substance [¡984].

Stasio complained that “one waits in vain for the literary conceits and clever phrase-mongering that makes Charles Ludlam and his Ridiculous Theatrical Company so amusing.” Don Nelson of the Daily News noted that “like the RTC, Busch and cohorts play multiple roles both male and female, but their material does not project the innovative comic brilliance that Ludlam is capable of.” Allan Wallach of Newsday felt that “theatergoers familiar with the similar work of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company may miss the often clever wordplay and ingenuity of Charles Ludlam’s best e›orts,” while William A. Raidy, writing in the Newark Star-Ledger noted that Busch “does not as yet have Ludlam’s finely honed sense of double dimension comedy or his incredible ability for facial expression.” There is no question that Ludlam’s plays contain more erudite (and sometimes obscure) literary references, and their political point of view is more explicitly articulated. He wrote that “camp is motivated by rage” (254), and in his manifesto he urged testing out “a dangerous idea, a theme that threatens one’s whole value system” (¡58). Busch has stated that Vampire Lesbians “was created merely to entertain a late night crowd on a hot summer night in the East Village” (xi). While Ludlam was a provocateur, Busch was innocently “irreverent,” with an overriding desire to please the audience. Ludlam reveled in the grotesque, such as the artificial genital Black Eyed Susan wore in Bluebeard, or the appearance of a 500 pound nude woman in Salammbo. Busch preferred beauty and glamour, which was reflected in his approach to drag. And yet in ¡985 the very act of appearing in drag could still be considered dangerous. Drag performance, though not unheard of in mainstream venues, was still viewed as freakish. The hit musical La Cage aux Folles, which had opened in ¡983 and was still running when Vampire Lesbians opened, depicted the drag queen Albin as a pathetic outsider who had to summon

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all the inner strength he could muster to sing “I Am What I Am.” There were no moral qualms about drag in Busch’s performance. He was clearly enjoying himself. He played his female characters with the aplomb and selfassurance of Ina Claire in a boulevard comedy. The mainstream critics all overlooked an important element of Vampire Lesbians which was embedded in the dual nature of its performance text. On the one hand, it is a “silly” and “harmless” tale of an unfortunate young girl who survives a vampire attack to become one of the undead herself, and ultimately achieves stardom (if not happiness) on stage and screen. However, the performance was originally addressed to gay male audiences, and they could read a good deal more into it. In the world of Vampire Lesbians, normative gender roles are upended. Heterosexual males are entirely absent. The colorful and outrageous leading lady is obviously a man (in those days Busch made no attempt to pad his boyish frame; see Figure ¡). Her triumph against all odds is due to her ingenuity and wit, and the defensive humor she employs along the way is pure camp. Gay men were particularly amused by the plot device of movie stars concealing their true identities as vampires — hypocrisy with obvious parallels to movie stars like Rock Hudson who concealed their sexual identities. When the two vampires reconcile in the final moments of the play, the implicit message to gay audiences is “we can make it if we stick together and celebrate ourselves.” This idea resonated powerfully in ¡984 and ¡985, which was a truly dark period in the AIDS crisis. That there were two parallel readings of the performance was borne out by the varying audience response to the show soon after we moved to the Provincetown Playhouse. Some audiences seemed attuned to every reference and were convulsed with laughter from beginning to end. Others simply didn’t get it, and they sat in ba·ed silence. The cast immediately began to theorize about Charles Busch as Madeleine Astarté in the the cause of this radical shift in original production of his Vampire Lesbians audience response from one of Sodom. (Photograph by George Dudley)


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performance to the next, and there was soon general agreement that predominantly gay audiences laughed at the show and predominantly straight audiences were “smilers.” But while mainstream audiences were not always fully attuned to the Ridiculous aesthetic, they were curious, attentive, and they bought tickets. Soon after the Provincetown opening, a Variety article by Richard Hummler trumpeted a new “visibility for gay legit,” noting that “although many gays feel social repression continues to exist, there’s little doubt that homosexuals have made vast strides in the past decade or so in overcoming prejudice and obliterating stereotypes.” He pointed to the Broadway production of Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song Trilog y (¡982) as the beginning of the trend, and cited La Cage aux Folles, As Is, The Normal Heart, The Execution of Justice, The Lisbon Traviata, and Vampire Lesbians of Sodom as evidence that gay plays were “demonstrating new mainstream box o‡ce vigor” (¡¡¡). Unlike the other plays on this list, Vampire Lesbians does not deal in any serious way with gay issues or subject matter. That the vampires happen to be lesbians is tangential to the plot. Rather, it was the conventions of Ridiculous Theatre — especially drag performance and camp humor — that made it an example of “gay legit.” Ridiculous Theatre, which was developed by gay artists in front of largely gay audiences in underground and alternative spaces in the ¡960s and ¡970s, was making its commercial debut. Vampire Lesbians played to sellout crowds at the Provincetown Playhouse throughout the summer of ¡985, and its running expenses were low enough to enable it to run for almost five years. Eventually the audience was largely composed of tourists. This commercial success was related to such disparate events as the AIDS crisis and gentrification, combined with Busch’s unflagging desire to entertain rather than confront his audiences. Mainstream audiences today are unfazed by outrageous drag performances in the Ridiculous tradition, such as Harvey Fierstein’s recent star turn in the Broadway musical Hairspray. But to those of us involved with Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, the distance traveled from late night performances in a gay East Village club to eight performances a week in a “legitimate” O›-Broadway theatre seemed vast, disconcerting, bizarre, and almost miraculous. CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, BAKERSFIELD

References Cited Aronson, Arnold. “Vampire Lesbians of Sodom at the Limbo Lounge.” The Drama Review 29.¡ (Spring ¡985): 32–4¡.

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Bredbeck, Gregory W. “The Ridiculous Sound of One Hand Clapping: Placing Ludlam’s ‘Gay’ Theatre in Space and Time.” Modern Drama 39.¡ (Spring ¡996): 64–83. Bruckner, D.J.R. Review of Vampire Lesbians of Sodom by Charles Busch. New York Times (20 June ¡985): C¡8. Busch, Charles. The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife and Other Plays. New York: Grove Press, 200¡. Campbell, Mary. “Vampire Play is Light Summer Send-up.” Associated Press (¡9 June ¡985). Chaze, William L. “Behind the Swelling Ranks of America’s Street People.” U.S. News and World Report (30 January ¡984): 57–58. Feingold, Michael. “When We Undead Awaken.” Village Voice (¡6 October ¡984):??. Feldberg, Robert. “Vampire Camping It Up for Summer.” Bergen Record (20 June ¡985). Hummler, Richard. “Mainstream Visibility for Gay Legit.” Variety (¡7 July ¡985): ¡¡¡. Ludlam, Charles. Ridiculous Theatre: Scourge of Human Folly. New York: Theatre Communications Group, ¡992. Nelson, Don. “Vampire Lesbians: Theatre Summer Camp.” New York Daily News (23 July ¡985). Raidy, William A. “Vampire Drag-Races through Campy Hilarity.” Newark StarLedger (28 June ¡985). Román, David. Acts of Intervention: Performance, Gay Culture, and AIDS. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, ¡998. Sullivan, Ronald. “In City, AIDS A›ecting Drug Users More Often.” New York Times (2¡ October ¡984): 42. Stasio, Marilyn. Review of Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, New York Post (20 June ¡985). Wallach, Allan. “Theater Review: Taking a Bite Out of the Dracula Legend.” Newsday (25 June ¡985).

¡4 Poets and Ghosts Before Breakfast O’Neill, Keats, and Le Fanu Brian Desmond Abstract In what is arguably the most dramatic moment of an early O’Neill one-act entitled Before Breakfast, an o›stage husband makes his only appearance when he thrusts his hand through a half-open door to receive a bowl of hot water from his onstage wife. The husband, Alfred, is an unemployed poet who is about to commit suicide. Thus, as he reaches through the open door, what we see is, in fact, the hand of the walking dead, or what may also be described as the hand of a ghost.¡ At this climactic point in the action, O’Neill creates one of the play’s most memorable visual and thematic moments by bringing the hand of the poet and the hand of the ghost together. This essay explores that convergence, examining both its dramaturgical significance and its relationship to an unfinished poem by John Keats and a ghost story by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu.

Poets and ghosts are so prevalent in the plays of Eugene O’Neill that they can be said to haunt the very texts they inhabit. Yet scholars and critics frequently overlook these figures.2 Perhaps that is to be expected, for ghosts are often unseen, and poets are often unheard. It is my contention, however, that O’Neill’s poets and ghosts contribute substantially to the e›ectiveness and popularity of his plays. In general, the ghost, or ghost-story structure, provides much of the plays’ dramaturgical suspense, while the poet inhabits some of O’Neill’s most memorable characters. Depending on the balance between the two and the particular approach to each, it is often a combination of the ghost and the poet that helps to determine the relative success of each of O’Neill’s plays. The closer the dramaturgical relationship between the poet and the ghost, the stronger the play. In his early plays, O’Neill presents numerous 169

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poets and ghosts,3 but, for the most part, the figures are vaguely drawn, and rarely does he bring the two together. When he does bring the poet and the ghost together, the union usually lasts for only a moment. Interestingly, that moment is almost always one of the most powerful moments in the play. During what is commonly referred to as O’Neill’s middle period, a period that contains many of his more forgettable plays, the playwright abandons both the poet and the ghost. There are exceptions, of course, notably Desire Under the Elms, Strange Interlude, Mourning Becomes Electra, and Ah, Wilderness!, each of which contains some version of the poet and/or ghost. Perhaps not coincidentally, these are the four plays from O’Neill’s middle period that are most often produced. Yet, even in these plays, the playwright rarely brings the poet and the ghost together. In his final plays, however, O’Neill brings the poet and the ghost into such ethereally aesthetic harmony that the texts have been deemed masterpieces by most who encounter them. In each of the last four, completed, full-length plays —A Touch of the Poet, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day’s Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten— the poet and the ghost make significant and interrelated dramaturgical contributions. Attempting to understand how O’Neill’s plays achieve their status has been the struggle of many a scholar, and now I, too, venture down that troublesome road. Fortunately, I have a hand to guide me: a hand that is at once the hand of a poet and the hand of a ghost. In what is arguably the most dramatic moment of an early O’Neill one-act entitled Before Breakfast, an o›stage husband makes his only appearance when he thrusts his hand through a half-open door to receive a bowl of hot water from his onstage wife. The husband, Alfred, is an unemployed poet who, by the end of this eight-page monodrama, will have committed suicide while shaving in his o›stage bedroom. He seems to have been contemplating this act of selfdestruction for quite some time. Thus, as Alfred reaches through the open door, what we see is, in fact, the hand of the walking dead, or what may alternately be described as the hand of a ghost. At this climactic moment in what is almost the precise center of the text, O’Neill creates one of his most memorable visual and thematic moments in an otherwise fairly mediocre play by bringing the hand of the poet and the hand of the ghost together. In December ¡9¡6, O’Neill, an intensely autobiographical playwright and an extremely nervous actor, made his final onstage appearance as Alfred, the struggling poet who reaches his sensitive, trembling hand through the halfopen door. Thus, Before Breakfast provides an even more compelling convergence of poet, ghost, and playwright. It is sometime before breakfast. We have been waiting for someone — or something — to appear ever since Mrs. Rowland, in accordance with the

¡4. Poets and Ghosts Before Breakfast (Brian Desmond)

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stage directions in the opening pantomime, “look[ed] sharply at the bedroom door and listen[ed] intently for a moment or so” (¡988: 39¡–392). That look and that listen have created a tension between the seen and the unseen, between what the audience witnesses onstage and what it imagines is o›stage. The tension between the seen and the unseen is a common device in ghost stories, and O’Neill uses it in this early play to great e›ect. After calling Alfred’s name a couple of times, Mrs. Rowland “continues suspiciously” and says, “You needn’t pretend you’re asleep” (392). There is no reply, and that unrelenting o›stage silence further increases the tension, especially as Mrs. Rowland “tiptoes cautiously to the dish closet, ... slowly opens one door, taking great care to make no noise, and slides out, from their hiding place behind the dishes, a bottle of Gordon gin and a glass. In doing so she disturbs the top dish, which rattles a little. At this sound she starts guiltily and looks with sulky defiance at the doorway to the next room” (392). In a trembling voice, she once again calls Alfred’s name. Still, there is no answer. Shortly thereafter, the pantomime continues as Mrs. Rowland rifles through Alfred’s coat and vest pockets and discovers a letter from an apparent mistress of his: “She opens the letter and reads it. At first her expression is one of hatred and rage, but as she goes on to the end it changes to one of triumphant malignity” (392). The stage remains silent, and the tension builds. Finally, Mrs. Rowland calls Alfred’s name yet again, and, for the first time, we hear an o›stage noise, a “mu·ed, yawning groan” (393). Now that we are sure there is someone o›stage, the tension subsides somewhat, and that release continues as Mrs. Rowland spends the next several minutes haranguing her husband for his lack of employment, his drinking, the company he keeps, and his writing: “All you do is moon around all day writing silly poetry and stories that no one will buy” (393). Mrs. Rowland’s descriptions of her husband’s sordid and literary lifestyle provide the audience with some sense of the unseen man. Ultimately, however, our interest in the character as a poet is diminished by the fact that we never hear him speak. The fact that he is a writer is, for the most part, inconsequential. He could just as easily be a philandering salesman or an unemployed architect. What is of interest to the audience is the fact that Alfred remains unseen. Thus, although he has lost his stature as a poet, he has gained significance as an invisible, ghostly presence. Nevertheless, the dramatic tension provided by that o›stage ghost begins to disappear as the focus shifts more and more to Mrs. Rowland’s onstage actions. Although — and because — she continues to divulge and belittle the details of her husband’s life, the character about whom we learn the most is actually the one in front of us. As Mrs. Rowland’s verbal and physical gestures add flesh to her “shapeless stoutness” (39¡), the ghost in the other room starts to fade.

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Suddenly, exactly halfway through the monodrama, when the production is most in need of a new dramatic action of some kind, a hand appears. The hand is not entirely unexpected, for Mrs. Rowland does not enter the bedroom but rather stands at the door and holds out a bowl of hot water with which she has asked her husband to shave. Still, because the audience has come to believe that Alfred might never be seen, it is somewhat of a shock to see part of his body. That latter fact — that it is only a part of his body, and not the whole — contributes substantially to the moment’s dramatic and symbolic power. For what we see is a very specific part of the body: the poet’s hand. And it is not an ordinary hand. It is a hand that trembles. The mysterious appearance of a hand is a fairly familiar image in the ghost-story genre. Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, the Irish writer who “was to dominate Victorian supernatural fiction” (Cox and Gilbert 2003: xvii), once penned a short story entitled “Narrative of the Ghost of a Hand.”4 Here is a section from the latter part of that story: The singularity of the narrative seems to me to be this, that it describes the ghost of a hand, and no more. The person to whom that hand belonged never once appeared; nor was it a hand separated from a body, but only a hand so manifested and introduced that its owner was always, by some crafty accident, hidden from view [¡899: 62].

O’Neill’s use of a trembling hand in the middle of Before Breakfast— a hand that conjures for the audience images of ghost stories from the past, a hand that proves to be the only and momentary evidence of flesh behind the door — certainly qualifies as the climactic moment of the play. At this moment, the poet, embodied by his “sensitive hand with slender fingers” (395) meets the ghost story. Thus, it is no surprise that much of the play’s dramaturgical power resides in that brief exchange. Once the image from the ghost story has been conjured for the audience, it is easy to see the remainder of the action through that specific generic lens. O›stage noises begin to carry more and more dramatic weight. The next o›stage noise is the “sound of a razor being stropped” (395), and one immediately gets the sense that the razor has more than a single purpose. As the play progresses, death, in a variety of manifestations, becomes ever more prevalent. Mrs. Rowland continues her extended monologue, during which we learn about the untimely death of Alfred’s father and the birth of their stillborn child. Shortly thereafter, “there is a sharp exclamation of pain from the next room” (396). Mrs. Rowland seems oblivious to — or doesn’t care about — her husband’s pain. She confronts Alfred about his unfaithfulness and discusses the contents of the letter she has found, focusing specifically on the mistress’s unplanned pregnancy.


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Life looks bleak for poor Alfred, and, as Mrs. Rowland talks, one gets the sense that something dreadful is about to happen. There is certainly tension in the air and perhaps even the possibility of a second climax of some kind. Suddenly, for the third and final time, Alfred verbalizes an o›stage sound; we hear “a stifled groan of pain from the next room” (398). Mrs. Rowland “listens intently,” then says, “You’ve overturned the water all over everything. Don’t say you haven’t. I can hear it dripping on the floor.” A “vague expression of fear” comes over Mrs. Rowland’s face. She calls for Alfred, but there is no answer. “She moves slowly toward the room,” and, as she does so, “something crashes heavily to the floor.” She stops, “trembling with fright.” Again, she calls for Alfred, but there is still no answer. “Unable to stand the tension a second longer, she rushes to the door of the bedroom,” calling his name one final time. “She stands in the doorway ... transfixed with horror,” then “runs shrieking madly into the outer hallway” (398). The curtain falls. The final moments of the play contain many elements found in a typical ghost story: a stifled groan, the sound of dripping (blood?), unanswered calls, expressions of fear and horror, slow movements, an unseen crash, a trembling protagonist, and mad shrieks. The sheer number of these elements, however, together with the fact that they happen in such rapid succession, makes O’Neill’s version of the ghost story much too melodramatic. Eventually, the playwright will learn to moderate his melodramatic tendencies, and the “ghost stories” he creates will be both subtler and more poignant. Travis Bogard sees much of the later O’Neill in the playwright’s first one-act play, a vaudevillian sketch entitled A Wife for a Life, written in ¡9¡3 (9–¡4). There is a great deal of the later O’Neill in Before Breakfast as well. This short one-act contains an unhappy marriage, an extended monologue, a battle between a sensitive artist and a vulgar materialist, alcoholism, suicide, significant o›stage sounds, and tension between the seen and the unseen. In addition, the play reverberates with faint echoes of other elements found in O’Neill’s canon: a mirror, a dead child, abortion, and prostitution. And, because O’Neill’s lexicon is somewhat limited, it should come as no surprise that Before Breakfast also contains the titles of two of his other plays, The Straw and Bread and Butter. More important than all of these elements, however, is the fact that we get an early glance at both the poet and the ghost and witness a brief conflation of the two. The importance of that crucial moment should not be underestimated. Unfortunately, however, some directors have done just that. In a production at the American Theatre Arts Conservatory in Los Angeles in ¡98¡, “the director chose to make Alfred an onstage presence for the duration of the play” (Smith and Eaton 200¡: ¡68), and, according to the critics, the pro-

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duction failed. In ¡986, in a production by The Winter Company in Boston, Alfred’s hand never appeared, and “the audience was left to wonder whether he exist[ed]” (¡68). The critics panned that production, too. In both cases, the critics’ comments point directly to the primary reason for the failure of those productions. In the Los Angeles production, the director, by making Alfred an onstage presence, negated the ghost. In the Boston production, the director eliminated the writer’s trembling hand and diminished the poet. Both directors failed to recognize the significance of the play’s central, climactic moment and made the mistake of tampering with the crucial conflation of poet and ghost. Unfortunately, the choices those directors made forced them to cut what might be called — after Le Fanu —“the narrative of the hand.” Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu certainly understood the importance of the hand, and his brief “narrative of the hand” seems to speak directly to the climactic moment in Before Breakfast. Yet, despite O’Neill’s interest in ghost stories, there is no evidence that the playwright ever read Le Fanu. Jean Chothia includes a number of ghost-story writers in “O’Neill’s literary biography,” but Le Fanu is not one of them (¡979: ¡98–206). Of the writers on Chothia’s extensive list, Dickens, Kipling, and Poe are perhaps the most notable practitioners of the ghost-story genre. Of course, O’Neill was influenced by many other writers as well, several of whom also explored the supernatural, including Coleridge, Baudelaire, Rossetti, and Wilde. O’Neill’s interest in ghost stories stems from a variety of sources: his childhood nurse would put him to sleep at night after regaling him with tales of ghosts and murder; he grew up watching his father perform in a number of melodramas, the primary one of which, The Count of Monte Cristo, includes a number of “ghostly” situations; and he read many of the Modernist plays, several of which, like Strindberg’s The Ghost Sonata (which received its American premiere as the inaugural production of O’Neill’s “Experimental Theatre” in ¡924), contain some version of a ghost. In addition, O’Neill was an inveterate reader of “popular” literature. According to Chothia, during the summers of his school years, the young O’Neill “read and reread James O’Neill’s books,” which included works by Dumas, Hugo, and Charles Lever (Chothia ¡99). Chothia points out that O’Neill “took many of his phrases and Irish idioms ready-made from Charles Lever’s romance, Charles O’Malley” (Chothia 208). In addition to writing romances, Lever penned a number of historical novels, a genre he explored in tandem with his younger friend, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. If O’Neill took phrases directly from one Irish writer, perhaps he borrowed from another one as well. Although Le Fanu’s name is absent from scholars’ lists of writers who influenced O’Neill, it seems more than


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likely, given all of these facts, that the playwright was familiar with the tales of one of the most widely read ghost-story writers of the nineteenth century. Henry James, who demonstrated his own facility in the ghost-story genre with pieces like “The Turn of the Screw,” attested to Le Fanu’s enduring popularity. In a short story entitled “The Liar,” James wrote, “There was the customary novel of Mr. Le Fanu, for the bedside; the ideal reading in a country-house for the hours after midnight” (¡999: 9¡¡). Of course, it is possible that O’Neill simply and unconsciously accessed an image from the wide-ranging Victorian literature he so frequently read. Nevertheless, Le Fanu’s specific description of the hand and its hidden owner seems particularly relevant to the action of Before Breakfast. And, upon further exploration, it becomes clear that Le Fanu’s stories influenced O’Neill’s dramaturgy in several other ways as well. Perhaps it is not surprising that the writer of a novel entitled Haunted Lives would have a great deal in common with a playwright who dramatized his own haunted lives. What is surprising is the confluence of some of the specific details in the work of these two writers. In Le Fanu’s Uncle Silas, for example, the titular character is addicted to opium and is often described in ghost-like terms. When Maud Ruthyn, the story’s narrator, first sees Silas, she is bewildered by the expression on his face: “Was it derision, or anguish, or cruelty, or patience?” (2000: 20¡). Maud later learns that Silas had once been a womanizer and had lost a great deal of money gambling on horse races. O’Neill certainly would have recognized similar characteristics in his mother and brother, and perhaps the playwright drew on Le Fanu’s descriptions as he turned his family life into fiction in Long Day’s Journey into Night. Le Fanu once “persuaded a gullible, patriotic Irish antiquarian that Shakespeare was Irish by explaining that the name was originally Shaugspeare, a shortened version of a nonexistent Irish family, O’Shaughnessy-Spear” (Melada ¡987: ¡2). In Long Day’s Journey into Night, the pig farmer’s name is Shaughnessy; and James Tyrone, who might very well be called a patriotic Irish antiquarian, insists that “Shakespeare was an Irish Catholic” (¡962: ¡27). The Tyrone name itself, although it undoubtedly has several possible sources,5 is also used by Le Fanu. One of his first short stories, written between ¡838 and ¡840, is entitled “A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family” (“Tyrone” 29–¡35). Although Le Fanu’s story is markedly di›erent from O’Neill’s play, the tale is set in a haunted house and includes a sibling with consumption, an Irish servant, a self-centered husband, and a wife confined to an upstairs bedroom, all of which also appear in Long Day’s Journey into Night. There is no doubt that those elements have as their original source O’Neill’s own life story, but the playwright’s decision to use the pseu-

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donym “Tyrone” when portraying that story may very well have something to do with the blurring of autobiographical fact and Le Fanu’s fiction. Many of the settings for O’Neill’s plays also derive from his personal history, but their particular characteristics might owe something to Le Fanu. The Victorian writer’s “Narrative of the Ghost of a Hand,” often included in anthologies as a self-contained short story, is actually a chapter in The House by the Churchyard. The setting for that novel includes a village tree described as a “stalworth elm” (¡899: 3), and the story begins with “a weight in the atmosphere, and a sort of undefined menace brooding over the little town” (9), details that are reminiscent of the “sinister” elms that “brood oppressively” over the farmhouse in O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms (¡959: 2). In addition, the novel’s old inn foreshadows the neglected tavern in O’Neill’s A Touch of the Poet, in which Con Melody recites lines from Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. The novel that Le Fanu wrote after The House by the Churchyard is entitled Wylder’s Hand. Like O’Neill, Le Fanu dipped his pen into the same dark well on more than one occasion. Wylder’s Hand not only includes a line from Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, it also, of course, includes that ubiquitous and spectral hand: Something like a stunted, blackened branch was sticking out of the peat, ending in a set of short thickish twigs. This is what it seemed. The dogs were barking at it. It was, really, a human hand and arm, disclosed by the slipping of the bank, undermined by the brook, which was swollen by the recent rains. The dogs were sni‡ng and yelping about it. “It’s a hand!” cried Wealdon, with an oath. “A hand?” I echoed. We were both peering at it, having drawn near, stooping and hesitating as men do in a curious horror. It was, indeed, a human hand and arm, disclosed from about the elbow, enveloped in a discoloured coat-sleeve, which fell back from the limb, and the fingers, like it black, were extended in the air [¡978: 369].

Once again, Le Fanu provides his reader with a compelling and horrifying image of a hand. As in the earlier “Narrative,” the hand is not disembodied; it is part of a limb that protrudes from an unseen body. Mark Wylder’s retributive hand has come back from the dead to ensnare and destroy Captain Stanley Lake, the man who murdered him. The hand as a symbol of retribution is not uncommon. In retributive moments, the past and the present unite, and the spectral hand is an e›ective agent for that kind of conflation. Hands that serve as symbols of a past haunting the present abound in Victorian literature.6 In Wuthering Heights, Catherine’s disembodied hand knocks on Heathcli› ’s window; and Alfred, Lord


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Tennyson’s profoundly moving elegy for Arthur Henry Hallam, In Memoriam, includes the lines, “So quickly, waiting for a hand/A hand that can be clasp’d no more” (¡88¡: 288). Perhaps the most familiar image of the clasping hand occurs in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, when the purgatorial mariner, obliged to wander the earth confessing his story, detains the wedding guest “with his skinny hand” (¡978: ¡3¡). In that late eighteenth-century poem, which contains several images O’Neill would make use of in his maritime plays, the past and the present come together in the mariner’s act of confession. O’Neill, who, in ¡923, adapted The Rime of the Ancient Mariner for the stage,7 and who made a living dramatizing his own confessions, had a particular attraction to moments in which the past and the present unite. That conflation of time is a recurrent motif in O’Neill’s plays, exemplified by Mary Tyrone’s statement in Long Day’s Journey into Night that, “The past is the present, isn’t it?” (¡962: 87). But Mary Tyrone doesn’t end there. She goes on to say, “It’s the future, too,” conflating all three “kinds” of time. Her son, Edmund, has a similar revelation later in the play, when he says, “I belonged, without past or future, within peace and unity and a wild joy, within something greater than my own life, or the life of Man, to Life itself!” Further on in the same speech, he describes his epiphany as “a saint’s vision of beatitude. Like the veil of things as they seem drawn back by an unseen hand” (¡53). Edmund experiences an all-too-fleeting moment of timeless peace with the aid of that unseen hand. But the hand returns and “lets the veil fall,” and with that hand comes the march of inexorable and debilitating time. Eugene O’Neill, who, like both his mother and his “stage-mother,” su›ered from a nervous condition that, as he aged, seriously impaired the use of his hands, understood well the real and symbolic import of the spectral hand. O’Neill knew his ghost stories, and he also knew his poets. Not surprisingly, he was particularly attracted to the English Romantic poets who dabbled in phantasmagoria. In addition to Byron and Coleridge, O’Neill had a fondness for Keats, who, in many respects, seems to be the Romantic poet with whom the playwright most easily identified. During his destitute days in Buenos Aires, O’Neill shared his enthusiasm for Keats’s poetry with a freelance reporter named Charles Ashleigh (Gelb 2000: 287–288). Years later, O’Neill made a further connection with the Romantic poet when, while describing his own bout with tuberculosis, he told an interviewer, “Keats died of it” (383). Like Keats, O’Neill battled tuberculosis as a young man and had to be hospitalized. Unlike Keats, O’Neill obviously survived. He then went on to write some of the early twentieth century’s most experimental plays, many of which revolutionized North American playwriting.

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Although Keats was first and foremost a poet, he harbored dramaturgical ambitions similar to those put forth by O’Neill as the playwright attempted to create “the theatre of tomorrow.”8 In a letter to Benjamin Bailey in ¡8¡9, Keats stated that he wanted “to make as great a revolution in modern dramatic writing as Kean [had] done in acting” (“Bailey” 323–324). Unfortunately, the tubercular poet ran out of time. He did collaborate with a friend of his on a play entitled Otho the Great, but the dramaturgy was far from revolutionary. He also began a second play, King Stephen, but abandoned the project early on when he learned that Kean would be unable to act in it (Cook ¡994: xvi–xvii). Like O’Neill, who wielded considerable influence on the casting of his plays, Keats recognized the importance of finding an actor who could do justice to his text. Despite his unfulfilled ambitions as a playwright, one can discern in Keats’s poetry certain tendencies that would lend themselves well to the stage. Perhaps the most relevant dramaturgical element in his poems is the apostrophe. In pieces like “To Kosciusko” (which contains a reference to someone named “Alfred”), “To Charles Cowden Clarke,” and “To Fanny,” the poet’s voice seems to speak directly to the person being addressed. Nowhere is this dramatic tendency more evident — and more relevant to this study of O’Neill — than in the untitled fragment often referred to by its opening phrase: “This living hand.” Edward Hirsch calls the eight-line fragment, “probably the last serious lines of poetry Keats wrote” (¡999: 48). (Perhaps it is no coincidence that the only time O’Neill quotes directly from Keats in one of his plays occurs in his last work, A Moon for the Misbegotten.) O’Neill read Keats’s work before he started writing plays, and it is likely that he was aware of “This living hand” as he composed Before Breakfast. The playwright certainly had access to the piece, first published in H. B. Forman’s one-volume Poetical Works of John Keats in ¡898. So it is not surprising that O’Neill uses the symbolic hand in Before Breakfast in a manner similar to that employed by Keats in his poetic fragment. In both cases, the hand belongs to someone on the verge of death. If the hand that Keats describes is his own, then both writers describe a poet’s hand as well. Both Keats and O’Neill focus specifically on the relationship between the hand and the “other.” And, in both the fragment and the play, the hand has the ability to haunt the “other” and is therefore an agent of guilt and retribution. In Forman’s The Complete Works of John Keats, Volume III, published in ¡90¡, the editor appended the following title to the fragment: “Lines Supposed to Have Been Addressed to Fanny Brawne” (223). Several other editors followed Forman’s lead. Thus, readers of the fragment not only interpreted the lines as a direct address but also imagined a gender-specific


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relationship where none was actually indicated. The editors’ titles made it easy to read the fragment in autobiographical terms, as an expression of Keats’s painfully complicated relationship with Fanny Brawne. O’Neill, whose own di‡cult experiences with the opposite sex seem to have been modeled on the plays of his favorite playwright, August Strindberg, would certainly have identified with Keats’s fragment along those lines. On the other hand, O’Neill would also have related to the speculations of editors who propose that the fragment (written upside down on the last page of Keats’s draft of The Cap and Bells) is not addressed to Fanny Brawne at all, but is rather a piece of dialogue from an unfinished play. The lines have considerable dramatic power, and they do seem to be addressed to someone standing nearby. Perhaps O’Neill envisioned a theatrical scenario that would accurately reflect the battle of the sexes implied by Keats’s fragment. Perhaps the playwright put aside one of his own unfinished plays and created a suitable frame for Keats’s lyrical and haunting picture. Imagine the dying poet in Before Breakfast speaking the fragment’s eight lines. As Alfred reaches his trembling hand through the half-open door, he says to the nagging wife who is driving him to suicide: This living hand, now warm and capable Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold And in the icy silence of the tomb, So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights That thou would wish thine own heart dry of blood So in my veins red life might stream again, And thou be conscience-calm’d — see here it is — I hold it towards you [Keats ¡990: 258–259].

Perhaps O’Neill simply and belatedly recalled Keats’s final fragment as he struggled to create the climactic moment in Before Breakfast, a moment when the past, present, and future all come together. We can only speculate about the workings of the playwright’s imagination, but we should have no di‡culty hearing Alfred speak Keats’s lines. Nor should we have any trouble envisioning the nervous playwright reaching his “living hand” onstage one last time. The fragment depicts, beautifully and somewhat chillingly, what might be described as one of the final gestures of Keats, Alfred, and O’Neill. Understood in that context, it, too, is a wonderfully apt conflation of poet, ghost, and playwright. PACIFIC LUTHERAN UNIVERSITY

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Notes ¡. Although it may seem to be a bit of a stretch to call someone who is about to commit suicide a “ghost” or one of the “walking dead,” O’Neill himself uses similar metaphors to describe suicidal characters in several of his plays. Perhaps the most notable example occurs in The Iceman Cometh, when Don Parritt is described as “dead” (¡988: 687) not long before he throws himself o› the fire escape. 2. Several scholars have touched on O’Neill’s poets and ghosts, but not in the way described in this essay. For more on O’Neill’s poets, see Chothia 43–52, Lee 64–97, and Skinner 24–36. For more on O’Neill’s ghosts, see Berlin 57–¡¡2, Burr 37–47, Golub ¡7–39, and Tiusanen, 3¡6–330. 3. Poets and ghosts appear in many guises in O’Neill’s plays. The poet-figure appears as a miner, a sailor, a poet, a farmer, a photographer, a playwright, an architect, a novelist, an innkeeper, a hardware salesman, and two brothers. The ghost manifests itself as a consumptive hooker, a crying baby, a woman in black, formless fears, a disdainful heiress, a dead mother, a former lover, an old soldier, a drunk, a morphine addict, and a night clerk. 4. Although Le Fanu’s tale is often referred to and anthologized as a short story entitled “Narrative of the Ghost of a Hand,” it is actually Chapter ¡2 in his novel The House by the Churchyard, and its full title is “Some Odd Facts about the Tiled House — Being an Authentic Narrative of the Ghost of a Hand.” 5. For more about the origins of the names of O’Neill’s characters, including an alternative source for the name “Tyrone,” see Törnqvist ¡07–¡27. 6. For further discussion of “the ghost of a hand” in the work of Victorian writers like Brontë, Le Fanu, and Tennyson, see Sage 53–60. Of course, the symbolic hand appears in the literature of many periods and places, and it is often associated with the supernatural. For example, in his volume of poetry entitled The Open Hand, the twentieth-century Mexican poet Octavio Paz includes the poem “I Speak of the City,” in which a voice describes a city “built by the dead, inhabited by their stern ghosts” (¡987: 5¡3). 7. O’Neill called his adaptation of Coleridge’s poem The Ancient Mariner, and it was produced by The Experimental Theatre at the Provincetown Playhouse in ¡924. For more on that production, as well as O’Neill’s adapted text, see The Unknown O’Neill ¡67–¡90. 8. The Theatre of Tomorrow is the title of a seminal book published in ¡92¡ by O’Neill’s friend and sometime collaborator, Kenneth Macgowan. In addition to his work as a theatre critic and associate editor of Theatre Arts Magazine, Macgowan was part of “the triumvirate,” along with O’Neill and designer Robert Edmond Jones, that started The Experimental Theatre in ¡923.

References Cited Berlin, Normand. O’Neill’s Shakespeare. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, ¡993. Bogard, Travis. Contour in Time: The Plays of Eugene O’Neill. New York: Oxford University Press, ¡972.


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Burr, Suzanne. “O’Neill’s Ghostly Women.” Feminist Rereadings of Modern American Drama. Ed. June Schlueter, 37–47. London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, ¡989. Chothia, Jean. Forging a Language: A Study of the Plays of Eugene O’Neill. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ¡979. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. In The Portable Romantic Poets. Eds. W. H. Auden and Norman Holmes Pearson, ¡30–¡52. New York: Penguin, ¡978. Cook, Elizabeth. “Introduction.” The Oxford Poetry Library: John Keats. Ed. Elizabeth Cook, ix-xviii. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, ¡994. Cox, Michael, and R. A. Gilbert, eds. “Introduction.” The Oxford Book of Victorian Ghost Stories. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Forman, H. Buxton. The Complete Works of John Keats, Volume III. Ed. H. Buxton Forman, 223. Glasgow: Gowars & Gray, ¡90¡. Gelb, Arthur, and Barbara Gelb. O’Neill: Life with Monte Cristo. New York and London: Applause, 2000. Golub, Spencer. “O’Neill and the Poetics of Modernist Strangeness.” Eugene O’Neill’s Century: Centennial Views on America’s Foremost Tragic Dramatist. Ed. Richard F. Moorton, Jr., ¡7–39. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, ¡99¡. Hirsch, Edward. How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry. San Diego and New York: Harvest-Harcourt, ¡999. James, Henry. “The Liar.” Henry James: Collected Stories, Volume I (¡866–9¡). Selected and introduced by John Bayley. New York and Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf, ¡999. Keats, John. “Letter to Benjamin Bailey, ¡4 August ¡8¡9.” Selected Letters of John Keats, Revised Edition. Ed. Grant F. Scott, 323–324. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2002. _____. “This living hand.” John Keats: Poetry Manuscripts at Harvard. Ed. Jack Stillinger, 258–259. Cambridge: Belknap-Harvard University Press, ¡990. Lee, Robert Charles. “Eugene O’Neill: A Grapple with a Ghost.” Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, ¡965. Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan. “A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family.” The Purcell Papers, Vol. 3, 29–¡35. New York: Garland, ¡979. _____.“Narrative of the Ghost of a Hand.” The House by the Churchyard, 57–63. London and New York: Macmillan, ¡899. _____.Wylder’s Hand. London: Dover, ¡978. _____. Uncle Silas. Ed. Victor Sage. London: Penguin, 2000. Melada, Ivan. Sheridan Le Fanu. Boston: Twayne, ¡987. O’Neill, Eugene. The Ancient Mariner (A Dramatic Arrangement of Coleridge’s Poem). In The Unknown O’Neill: Unpublished or Unfamiliar Writings of Eugene O’Neill. Ed. Travis Bogard, ¡67–¡90. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, ¡988. _____. Before Breakfast. In Eugene O’Neill: Complete Plays ¡9¡3–¡920. Selected and annotated by Travis Bogard, 389–398. New York: Library of America, ¡988. _____. Desire Under the Elms. In Three Plays of Eugene O’Neill, ¡–58. New York: Vintage-Random, ¡959. _____. The Iceman Cometh. In Eugene O’Neill: Complete Plays ¡932–¡943. Selected and annotated by Travis Bogard, 56¡–7¡¡. New York: Library of America, ¡988.

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_____. Long Day’s Journey into Night. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, ¡962. Paz, Octavio. “I Speak of the City.” The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz, ¡957–¡987. Edited and translated by Eliot Weinberger, 5¡0–5¡7. New York: New Directions, ¡987. Sage, Victor. Le Fanu’s Gothic: The Rhetoric of Darkness. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Skinner, Richard Dana. Eugene O’Neill: A Poet’s Quest. New York: Longmans Green, ¡935. Smith, Madeline C., and Richard Eaton. Eugene O’Neill: An Annotated International Bibliography, ¡973 through ¡999. Je›erson, NC: McFarland, 200¡. Tennyson, Alfred Lord. In Memoriam. In The Works of Alfred Tennyson: Poet Laureate, 286–330. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co., ¡88¡. Tiusanen, Timo. O’Neill’s Scenic Images. Princeton: Princeton University Press, ¡968. Törnqvist, Egil. Eugene O’Neill: A Playwright’s Theatre. Je›erson, NC: McFarland, 2004.

¡5 Playing with History in a Private Space in Taesok Oh’s Gynewah Gyrung yee and Apsana Dang yugra Ogeuma Miryora Young joo Choi Abstract The text of Taesok Oh’s plays cannot be understood without taking into consideration the e›ects of live performance created by sets, props, and acting styles that he combines in his explorations of Korean culture and identity. His two plays, Gynewha Gyrungyee and Apsana Dangyugra Ogeuma Miryora, show his awareness of history in the past and the present. They also introduce alternative interpretations to the o‡cial version of history by voicing the common people’s concerns on the stage. Nonetheless, these two plays do not create a social forum that could successfully revise or subvert formal interpretations of history. The method he uses to present alternative versions of history is multi-dimensional. However, the rich theatricality resulting from the performances of these plays lures the audience’s attention toward theatrical pleasure. The stylized gaze of the performers privatizes the narration, creating a private space where history is playfully reenacted but is not e›ectively altered.

Over the course of a thirty-year career as playwright and director, Taesok Oh has come to be regarded as the foremost representative of modern Korean theater. He has written and directed nearly sixty plays which, depending on their subject matter and theatrical style, fall into four distinct periods: a) imitations of Western theatre during the early ¡960s; b) spousal conflicts staged in a style that mixed realistic theatre with the theatre of the absurd during the late ¡960s and up until ¡972; c) explorations into Korean identity and culture staged in the style of expressionism or surrealism, blend183

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ing Korean tradition with Western modernity from ¡972 to the mid–¡980s; and d) engagement with the Korean past beginning with Bujayuchin in ¡987. During this last period, Oh used abstract and simplified historical images and sensationalism to stage the conflict and agony of actual historical figures. His plays from the third and fourth periods have significantly influenced contemporary Korean theater.¡ As Sangchul Han noted, “Oh was one of the first playwrights to divert the current of Korean theater in the early ¡970s, which for sixty years had been trying to take root in Western realism” (¡994: 284). Typical academic studies have focused on two major aspects from Oh’s last two periods. The first aspect concerned his explorations into Korean identity — the way he described the emotion of “han,” a repressed, tragic emotion, and the humor of “haehak,” a satirical humor based on discernable, but indirect, language and gestures. Oh’s language is original, poetic, and even musical, reviving old, forgotten expressions and colloquial rhythms forged by three or four syllables per breath. The second aspect concerned his creation of a stylized Korean theatre. Oh and the members of his Mokhwa theater company2 have ingeniously used elements of staging, acting, music sound, and costume from the traditional Korean theatrical culture.3 Although the plays require minimum sets, the company used elaborate props to maximize their theatricality. The ingenious and sophisticated props command audience attention and trigger the imagination. The adaptation of traditional Korean acting styles and of such techniques like the inimitable Korean posture of squatting and the direct staring of actors at the audience members, give these performances a distinctly Korean flavor. These two major aspects — explorations into Korean identity and the creation of a stylized Korean theatre — are inextricably linked with issues of history and aesthetics. History has been a grand discourse in Oh’s plays since the mid–¡970s. In a recent interview, Oh emphasized the importance of history as a theatrical project: We spent 57 years without thinking how to live since independence from Japan. Life hasn’t been changed and the young generation has continued to sacrifice themselves during those years. To find where we made mistakes and what we missed, we should delve into history. If we’re lucky we may find an unbroken part or find what is wrong in our nature. Theater is an act to digest history [2002: 230–233].

Chunpungui Chuh / Chunpoong’s Wife (¡976), Baekma Gang Dalbamae / Baekma River in the Moonlight (¡993), and Bujayuchin / Intimacy between Father and Son (¡987) are three of Oh’s historical masterpieces. They alle-

¡5. Playing with History in a Private Space… (Youngjoo Choi)

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gorized contemporary Korean society by using stories from history, but they “failed to interpret history in the light of modern political conflicts” (Kim ¡994: 367). Since the mid–¡990s, Oh has turned his attention to modern political and social conflicts in Korea, and his work has becomes more critical and astute. With plays like Yowoowha Sarangeul / Love with a Fox (¡996), Cheunnyuneui Suin / Prisoner for a Thousand Years (¡998), Kosobo grigo Yurang / Kosobo and Wandering (¡999), Yeeroborin Gang / The Lost River (2000), Gynewah Gyrung yee / A Thousand Year Old Centipede and a Thousand Year Old Earthworm (200¡), Naesarang DMZ / My Love DMZ (2002), Apsana Dang yugra Ogeuma Miryora / Pull Me, Village Mountain! Push Me, My Knee! (2002), and Manpasikjuk / A Pipe for Peace (2005), Oh constructed a social forum in an attempt to subvert the o‡cial interpretations of history presented by the political established at that time. To do this he transformed the o‡cial history into the private stories of neglected individuals. This recent phase in his development might also be considered as a fifth period that has marked his work since the mid–¡990s. He makes a heavier use of metaphors and images to tell his own stories that eventually represent a moment in history that had been omitted from o‡cial historical accounts. His stories divulge “secrets” and modify established understandings of past events and persons. It was for this reason that he was seen as a moralist and an idealist by Yoonchul Kim (¡994: 266) and Bangok Kim (¡997: 333). However, to please and educate audiences remain Oh’s twin vital goals. He subscribes to the Brechtian idea that a play or a performance must be judged by its e›ect on audiences rather than by abstract aesthetic principles. The theatrical historiography of Oh and the acting of the Mokhwa performers share Brecht’s ideal, but also go beyond it. Their esthetic is “theatricality”; their playfulness is a strategy for dealing with serious political issues. Like the Western modernists who embraced theatricality against the “artless” art of realism and exploited the “stagedness” of the architectural mise-en-scène, and like the Western postmodernists who pushed for an aesthetic that would authenticate theatrical stylization, Oh and the Mokhwa performers foreground theatricality to represent Korean history in the past and the present pushing for an aesthetic of their own. The Mokhwa performers look directly into the eyes of the audience members and control their gaze. Oh’s plays are a blueprint for the Mokhwa performers, focusing on a historical moment and causing theatrical reversals and historical inversions. Oh intervenes and reconstructs history in a playful but conscientious manner. History is rewritten by individual players who suggest alternative courses of political action. Their exhibitory actions, the encoded actions, and the embodied actions interact metaphor-

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ically with the props before they reach the audience. The audience members decode the apparent contradictions in the actions of the Mokhwa performers and, with their help, break down and transform the o‡cial versions of history into their own personal stories. Despite the widespread acclaim that Oh’s theatrical historiography has attracted, Korean scholars and audiences alike agree that some of his plays are incomprehensible, confusing, or di‡cult to understand. In an e›ort to explain these complex plays, some academics use theories derived from deconstruction and surrealism. Their explanations may clarify some aspects of his plays, but they also limit some of the possibilities that are open to the audiences watching these plays in performance. Therefore, Insuh Myung suggested that Oh’s “written play text is a condensed symbol, waiting to be translated di›erently and to be subverted from the original text. And it should be considered along with the performance space” (¡995: 85). Myung pointed to the right direction, but failed to provide a key. I suggest that Oh’s plays can only be understood as a live theater experience. Because Oh has been a practicing playwright and director, his written texts and theatrical performances are tightly connected and complement each other. The narrative of the written text is incomplete without its performance. However, it is worth noting that his playwriting and directorial style work against his thematic intentions. As a result, his plays create private spaces of narrativity without e›ectively altering the o‡cial versions of history. I will demonstrate this point by analyzing two of his recent plays, Gynewah Gyrung yee and Apsana Dang yugra Ogeuma Miryora.

Gynewah Gyrung yee Oh writes his plays by borrowing materials about older events from history books and about current events from newspapers. He wrote Gynewah Gyrung yee when he saw a photograph in a newspaper depicting a scene from Yeusoon Hangjaeng.4 Here is how Oh described the subject in the photograph: A young man about nineteen or twenty-one years old is about to be shot; his hands are tied and his head hangs down. But his face is greening at the camera as if he holds the readers in contempt. Lots of dead bodies are scattered around him [2002: 20¡].

For Oh, the subject of this photograph sums up all sorts of political conflicts in Korea. He diagnosed ideology as a social disease in this and subsequent plays. In this play, he used “sandae nori” and weaved three di›erent stories


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into one plot.5 In the first story, Mr. Jeung, who takes pictures of mountain flowers on the brink of extinction, meets Gyne, a three-thousand-year-old centipede, and Gyrungyee, a one-thousand-year-old earthworm. Both the centipede and the worm have human forms. In the second story, Mr. Jeung, Gyne, and Gyrungyee watch a band of North Korean soldiers carrying out a suicide pact. When the last surviving soldier is about to kill himself, Mr. Jeung, Gyne, and Gyrungyee, intervene and rescue him from himself. Then, they escape a reconnaissance patrol. In the third story, Mr. Jeung, Gyne, Gyrungyee, and the guerrilla fighter end up in an underground casino. The year is 20¡0 and Korea is su›ering from continuing political strife, environmental contamination and poverty under Japanese rule. In this dystopia, many Koreans are fleeing to other countries. Many others sell their body organs to the Japanese — like the Korean woman who needs to send money to her son abroad, and the Korean man who is forced to pay back his creditors. The three story lines frame Korea’s worsening problems: ecological disaster, ideological struggle, and impoverishment under Japanese economic imperialism. Oh uses exaggeration in all three stories and mixes seriousness with playfulness. Gyne and Gyrungyee are borrowed from well-known Korean children’s stories. The suicide pact of the band of the North Korean soldiers is a staple of gag comedies on Korean television. Oh makes it clear that “these are not real stories, but plays” (Kim 2002:¡0). However, audiences get confused because Oh casts one actor to play the roles of both Mr. Jeung and Hirata. These two characters hold opposite values. Mr Jeung is a Korean who tries to save his country from an ecological disaster. Mr. Hirata is a naturalized Japanese Korean who tries to adapt to Japanese rule and values. This play can be understood as Mr. Jeung’s nightmare. In this nightmare, Mr. Jeung is also Hirata, the playwright’s alter ego. In this sense, the portrayal of Mr. Jeung and Hirata by Jeun Jingyi, the Mokhwa actor who was cast by Oh to play these two roles was a strategic decision. In the first story, Mr. Jeung, the photographer of endangered species, is a witness. The scenes unfold through his eyes. In the second story, Mr. Jeung, the photographer, is both an eye-witness and a rescuer (Figure ¡). He tries hard to dissuade the North Korean soldier from taking his own life. Jeungsoon Sim astutely notes that “Mr. Jeung represents a point of view which is reinterpreting banal Korean societal and historical givens in accordance with the playwright’s stance” (2002: 2¡). In the third story, Hirata is the ruler of an eerie underworld where he forces his Korean prisoners to learn the Japanese anthem and exhorts them to “prepare for unification” (Oh 200¡: 58). He praises as patriots well-known intellectuals like Namseun Choi, Gwangsu Lee, and Jeungjoo Suh, who were Japanese sympathizers.

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Hirata’s praises stir up the embers in relatively recent public debates about the controversial role that these intellectuals played in Korea’s historical past and future. Hirata’s direct gaze tears down the fourth wall, inviting the audience to rethink and revise o‡cial historical interpretations. However, his temerity makes audiences feel uncomfortable because this topic is still a sensitive issue in Korean society. The audience is pushed into a “neurotic space” of playful seriousness. The Mokhwa performers present a grave social experience in a funny way on a stage that looks like the Japanese Noh stage. The stage actually resembles the Korean traditional corridor (daechung) which is similar to the Japanese Noh stage — three sides of which are surrounded by audience. In the first story, Mr. Jeung meets Gyne and Gyreungyee on the “daechung.” Vividly colored human flowers talk with each other and dance to “cartoonish” music at the center of the stage. This staging stresses the artificiality of the story, foregrounds its theatricality, dilutes the gravity of the situation and distances it from reality. In short, it enables Oh to push beyond the banality of a story with which the audience is already familiar. This choice becomes strategic and political in the second story. One of the North Korean guerilla fighters says: “If we were birds we would have to flutter 378 times in a minute” (Oh 200¡:8) and “If we were bats, we would have to suck the blood of about seven hundred mosquitoes to survive here” (Oh 200¡:9–¡0). This strong allusion to modern South Korean society is shocking. However, its grotesque humor is transformed into a playful game thanks to the speed and energy of the Mokhwa performers. The frivolity of their theatrics and the seriousness of history coexist in the strain of Korean humor called “Haehak.” In the third story, Oh launches a mischievous, venomous satire on current social issues. In the underground dystopia, people are kept alive thanks to artificial implants since their real organs have been removed from their bodies. The images of red and yellow artificial organs are shocking, and become appealing only due to Oh’s grotesque sense of humor and the playfulness of the Mokhwa performers. According to Oh, the third story was intended “to familiarize the audience with relevant social problems (2002:33). Generally speaking, the narratives of Oh’s texts are complemented by the Mokhwa performer’s actions that make the playwright’s intentions clearer. However, in this play, the character’s talkativeness detracts audience attention and blurs any thematic focus. The flood of words washes out and away most of the poignant messages. These messages are further trivialized by the Mokhwa performers’ acting which is influenced by “Nondurung Yeungg y,” a typical Korean conversational attitude during which Koreans avoid looking at each other and pretend not to pay attention to the words. During such


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Mr. Jeung is a photographer, an eye-witness and a rescuer. A North Korean soldier, right before he commits suicide, is posing for Mr. Jeung.

conversations, the interlocutors introduce di›erent topics with no apparent logical order, responding to unspoken associations in their own minds rather than to the spoken words they hear. These conversations during the performance of the play are at times incoherent, unless the audience finds meaning by making the appropriate connections in a timely manner.

Apsana Dang yugra Ogeuma Miryora Apsana Dang yugra Ogeuma Miryora concerns the “Jeju 4/3 Hang-Jaeng.” Geographically and historically, the island of Jeju has been isolated from mainland Korea. Its islanders speak a dialect so di›erent from standard Korean that, up until recently, it has been di‡cult to make themselves understood by the Koreans on the mainland. The islanders take pride in their unyielding spirit which has resisted the corruption and violence that plague Korean history. The island itself has been used as a prison island for traitors and political dissidents. The islanders’ protest against those who perpetuate this unfavorable image about them and their island brought about Jeju 4/3 Hangjaeng (Kim 2003:¡0¡). Oh’s play tries to change this prejudicial view against the islanders of Jeju. In ¡948, the United States and the Soviet Union controlled South and

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North Korea. When the South Koreans tried to establish a separate government without seeking the participation of the North Koreans, the islanders of Jeju — approximately 300,000 residents — strongly opposed this e›ort. As a result, the majority of the islanders were accused of being communists, and government troops slaughtered about 80,000 of them. In his play, Oh revisits this tragic event with the intent “to find where we made mistakes and what we missed, (2002: 233). Oh revises history by focusing on the imaginary stories of two common islanders, Seung Chunbae and Maeng Guja. In earlier plays, Oh favored abrupt transitions from episode to episode. In this play, however, he developed a much more logical and coherent narrative by focusing on the two main characters in their historical context. Using the traditional theater form of “sandae nori,” Oh imaginatively reconfigured history as a spiral procession in seventeen scenes. The plot can be divided into four main episodes. In the first episode, a man and a woman stand accused of having burned down a village. The authorities want a corroborating witness, and pressure Chunbae to provide false testimony. Chunbae does not comply and he is unjustly sentenced to spend twenty years in a prison on the mainland. In the prison, Gang Woojae, a Jeju guerrilla commander, who has been mercilessly tortured, is killed; and Chunbae is forced to have plastic surgery that makes him look like the dead commander. In the second episode, Chunbae has a visitor, Guja, his wife. She exchanges clothes with him, and Chunbae escapes to the island of Jeju. There he becomes the leader of a group of female divers who are planning to build an entertainment park that will modernize the island of Jeju. In the third episode, Guja persuades the authorities of the prison to transfer 2,350 prisoners to the island of Jeju where they can be guarded more securely but with lesser restrictions. However, her plan conflicts with Chunbae’s plan and they become aware of their di›erences when Guja, the leader of the prisoners, meets Chunbae, the leader of the divers. In this episode, Oh juxtaposes two sets of values — those of Guja, the champion for historical truth to those of Chunbae, the champion of modern materialist development. In the last episode, the two arsonists who burned down the village, reappear, and get arrested. Guja is set free, and she is reunited with her husband. This happy ending betrays Oh’s intention to reconcile di›erences and to heal traumas. The play creates an alternative history to the formal version of the 4/3 Hangjaeng historical incident. As the lawyer explains to Guja in the first episode, “it is not easy for the government to admit they locked an innocent person in prison for many years” (200¡: 3¡). Guja’s response to the lawyer was direct and determined: “They should admit what they did. If they don’t, I will make them do it” (200¡: 3¡). From that point on, Guja


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controlled the plot and fulfilled her promise: Jeju Hangjaeng did not happen on account of the communists’ rebellion against the government. Using “sandae nori,” the play dramatized a tragic event. Its theatricality resided in the stage props and role-playing of Chunbae and Guja. The stage of the Arungujee Theater captured the local scenery of the island of Jeju — a sprinkling of some rocks and bamboo trees. The three-tiered stage area enabled the twenty performers to come and go freely and to make heavier use of the middle tier. The sets and props were abstract and simplified. When Chunbae was arrested, she was sent to prison by boat — signified by two planks and a performer “rowing” up the river. The two gulls circling above were manipulated like puppets by another performer who was visible to the audience. Later, the two planks were cleverly disassembled and reassembled to signify successively a court of law, a guard post, an operating room, an interview room in the prison, and a desk. When Guja visited Chunbae in prison, the planks became “booths” that were set apart. When she bribed the guard with tangerines, he let them bring the “booths” closer together. Next, they stood the two planks upright and hid behind them. “Hurry up!” Guja whispers to Chunbae, “We only have five minutes” (200¡: 33). Right away, the following words written on large flash-cards appear over the planks revealing the verbal intercourse between Guja and Chunbae who are hidden from view: “Take o› your pants.” “Here?” “Hurry up!” (200¡:33); and a few moments later: “Put on mine. When you go out, run away as fast as you can” (2002:33). The plot depends on the story of the two main characters, Guja and Chunbae, and their role switching. The play within the play becomes an amusing fantasy that turns a historical tragedy into a playful comedy. Roleplaying is e›ectively rewriting history. Three kinds of role-playing are acted out. In the beginning Byungsun Lee, who plays the role of Chunbae, sarcastically imitates a silly speech given by Seungman Lee — the first South Korean president — wearing a funny mask: “We should eat bread. Over the course of history the people who eat bread have been victorious over the people who ate rice” (200¡:4). This politician’s absurd speech is the reason why the islanders of Jeju in the play decided to oppose the political move of the government of South Korea. However, this significant historical moment is rendered by Oh in such a farcical manner that the seriousness of their tragic decision is overwhelmed, trivialized, and becomes a parody. Likewise, the painful ordeal of Chunbae who was made to look like Gang Woojae is deflated. Chunbae’s plastic surgery gives him a stutter, and he wears a funnylooking mask with Gang Woojae’s features. What was a tragic accident for Chunbae is presented as a farcical comedy to the audience. Chunbae in his role as Gang Woojae looks like a clown who stutters.

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Chunbae and Guja are strikingly dissimilar in height and appearance. When Oh makes them switch roles in prison, he introduces another kind of role playing, but also erases the seriousness of their tragic history. Chunbae disguised as Guja remains a comic figure — a man in a woman’s dress. But Guja disguised as Chunbae is developed into a figure that can control and rewrite history. As in many other plays by Oh, the female character is stronger than the male character and actually changes the world. Hwang Jeungmin who played Guja suggested the possibility of altering history. Nonetheless, the excessive playfulness and theatricality of the performance diluted the seriousness necessary for the development of an alternative view of history. When the performers acted out the 4/3 Hangjaeng history dramatized in this play, their performance and gaze touched the audience. According to Boksoon Gwon the e›ectives of their performance and gaze came from “the performers’ relaxation, concentration, imagination, vocalization and delivery” (200¡:82). It also stemmed out of their decision to communicate with the audience in the traditional theatrical mode of “sandae nori” when it satirizes higher-class depravity for the pleasure of lower-class spectators. On the one hand the audience was encouraged to “participate,” but on the other, this mode created “a distance from the story and revealed its theatricality” (¡00). Oh, as playwright and director, has set goals about the content of his plays and the manner of their presentation which go against the grain of postmodern agendas. His main concern since the mid–¡990s has been history and contemporary social reality. Memories from Japanese colonial rule of Korea, the Korean War, Gwangjoo Hangjang, and other serious events and social problems have preoccupied him and fertilized his theatrical imagination. Gynewah Gyrung yee and Apsana Dang yugra Ogeuma Miryora are examples of the latest phase of his career. Despite the censorship, the Korean avant-garde theatre of the ¡980s debated issues about national politics and cultural identity in a rapidly changing society. It was not until the ¡990s that Korean theatre turned its attention to self-reflexive theatricality centered on directorial choreography. Gynewah Gyrung yee and Apsana Dang yugra Ogeuma Miryora straddle the sociopolitical awareness of the ¡980s and the directorial blossoming of the late ¡990s. There is a striking di›erence between the way Oh’s plays from the ¡980s and the late ¡990s view history. The former plays focus exclusively on the role that individuals play in shaping history. Oh’s theatrical style aroused profound emotions in Korea around the time Derrida was discussing Artaudian spectacles in Europe (¡978:234). The latter plays see the individual as only a small part of the historical landscape. Oh, on the one hand, sharp-


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ens our vision of historical reality through his concave lens, but on the other, he uses a style that confuses our perception of history because it presents it as a zone of theatricality. Nonetheless, consciousness raising and the revision of Korean historical accounts remain his ultimate goals. Oh has often been compared to Brecht. However, he is di›erent from Brecht because he privatizes historical space and time, while Brecht, as Walter Benjamin put it, built his “theater on a daisy” (2003:307). Each of Oh’s plays develops in three concentric circles: history and contemporary reality as narrative content; theatricality as expressionist style; and audience as the final target for the construction of meaning. But these circles are not always successfully aligned or harmonized. Oh’s intention to create alternative versions of history is clear, but it gets muddled during performance by the use of excessive theatricality and showmanship. The performances of the Mokwha actors are steeped in theatricality and playfulness, catering to audience entertainment and diverting them from the serious intentions embedded in the narrative. DONGGUK UNIVERSITY OF SEOUL

Notes 1. The Oh Taesok Theater Festival in ¡994 recognized Oh’s landmark contributions and influence. Since the festival, numerous papers have been published about his work, as well as his Complete Plays in five volumes, and Oh Taesok’s Theater World. 2. The Mokhwa performers are part of Oh’s writing process. The Mokhwa theatre company is a commune whose members share the entire process and experience that leads to the opening night. As a writer, director, and acting teacher, Oh works with the performers until, after many substantial changes, “his play develops from a 70 page text into 700 pages of director notes” (Myung ¡995: 85). The Mokwha performers flesh out Oh’s text, enhancing it sometimes beyond recognition. 3. There are four kinds of Korean traditional theatre: a) “sandae nori” is a theatre form combined with mask play; b) “Pansori” is an opera sung by one performer, sometimes for more than ten hours; c) “Talchum” is a mask dance theatre; d) “Kokdugakshi nori” is a puppet play. However, modern Korean theatre had a di›erent development from traditional Korean theatre. Modern Korean theatre began under the mixed influence of Japanese cultural colonization and Westernization. When Korean national consciousness began to develop in the late ¡960s, the value of traditional theatrical forms and cultures was restored and was mixed with Western theatrical forms. Oh developed “sandae nori” for his productions. 4. Yeosoon Hangjaeng was a rebellion by liberal and leftist civilians who

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attempted the overthrow of the authoritarian government in ¡948 but failed. So was “Jeju 4/3 HangJaeng.” 5. “Sanda nori,” is a Korean traditional mask performance that is composed of eight episodes that are unrelated to each other — expect for their recurring themes that deal with gender struggle, class struggle, lower class poverty, and rebellion. “Sandae nori” was performed during festivities celebrating Budda’s Birthday and the day of Korean Thanksgiving in the public space of a village.

References Cited Benjamin, Walter. Selected Writings Vol 4. Edited by Marcus Bullock, Howard Eiland, and Gary Smith. Cambridge: Belknap of Havard University Press, 2003. Derrida, Jaques. Writing and Di›erence. London: Routledge, ¡978. Gwon, Boksoon. A Study on Performer’s gaze in Mok-hwa’s Acting Style. Seoul: Dongguk Univ. 200¡. Han, Sangchul. “An Exploration of Korean identity.” Oh Taesok Complete Plays ¡, edited by Suh Yeunho, 284–296. Seoul: Pyungminsa, ¡994. Kim, Bangok. Aesthetics of Oh Taesok’s Opened theater. Seoul: Moonye Madang, ¡997. Kim, Gwanmyung. “The Korean Theater Review.” Hangook Ilbo 2/6 (2002). Kim, Mido. “Apsana Dang yugra Ogeuma Miryora.” Korean Theater Criticism 28. (Spring 2003): ¡00–¡05. Kim, Moonwhan. “The Realistic Sense in Unrealistic Play.” Oh Taesok Complete Plays 2, edited by Suh Yeunho, 336–378. Seoul: Pyungmin Sa, ¡994. Kim, Yooncheul. “A Shocking Accusation Against the Dehumanization of Korean Society.” Oh Taesok Complete Plays 2, edited by Suh Yeunho, 264–266. Seoul: Pyungmin Sa, ¡994. Myung, Insuh. “A Study on Oh Taesok’s Consciousness of the Space.” Oh Taesok’s Theater World, edited by Choi Junho and Myung Insuh, 85–¡04. Seoul: Hyundae Aesthetics, ¡995. Oh, Taesok. Oh Taesok Play: The Forty Years for Experiments and Confrontations (interview), edited by Suh Yeunho. Seoul: Theater and Human, 2002. _____. Gyne Wha Gyreung-Yee. Seoul: Theater Arunggu-jee, 200¡. _____. Apsana Dang yugra Ogeuma Miryora. Seoul: Theater Arunggu-jee, 200¡ Sim, Jeungsoon. “A Geography of ‘Koreanism’ Portrayed by Postmodern Metaphor of Body.” The Korean Theater Review (2002): 20–2¡. Yoon, Jiyoung. “Theater Essay.” Gaek-sok (December 2002): 200–20¡.

¡6 “Metaphors Made Flesh” Embodying Allegory in Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses Miriam Chirico Abstract Mary Zimmerman’s ¡998 production of Metamorphoses is a contemporary revision of nine classical myths, chiefly from Ovid. The revising of a myth for the stage involves more than replicating characters, plot lines, or themes; often the playwright must transform a literary element into a dramatic idiom. Zimmerman’s adaptation emphasizes Ovid’s well-known use of allegory to depict emotions and ideas. Her actors, through their gestures and choreography, embody such abstractions as grief, sleep, and desire, and literally “flesh out” the allegorical images of the epic poem. This article takes a close look at three myths from Ovid’s Metamorphoses and notes the transformation of the personified emotions from page to stage. By focusing on the physical rendering of such abstractions as death, grief, hunger, and sexual desire, I demonstrate that Zimmerman replicates Ovid’s highly visual literary style and even develops our understanding of his text. This attention to the transformation of literary devices into performance techniques provides new ways of analyzing dramatic revisions of myth.

Ovid begins his epic poem Metamorphoses with a phrase reminiscent of the theater: “My mind is bent to tell of bodies changed into new forms.” The transformation of actors’ bodies into their characters’ roles comprises the very art of the theatrical world. The corporeal presence of human forms in front of an audience, their walks, postures, and attitudes, and the physical weight of their arms and legs in movement are the means by which the actor fills the volume of the performance space. Therefore when a director adapts a literary work for the stage that celebrates the transformation of bodies, such as Mary Zimmerman’s production of Metamorphoses, which premiered in Chicago in ¡998, special attention needs to be paid to the process of embodiment, or how the actors physically render particular tropes or 195

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images from Ovid. Zimmerman’s stage version opens with an actor announcing “Bodies I have in mind, and how they change to assume/ new shapes” (5), thus underscoring the very process of dramatic adaptation, the shift from mental imaging of bodies to their actual flesh and blood presence in performance. Her production stages nine of Ovid’s stories around a large 27-foot pool within which the characters wade, splash, and occasionally drown. Water ideally symbolizes the play’s theme of transformation, since its forms of liquid, solid, and vaporized steam are easily recognizable. But Zimmerman does more than replicate Ovid’s themes; she incorporates his literary pattern of allegorical representation into her drama, most specifically his use of personification. Ovid is considered one of the most visual of classical poets. A chief topos of his work is allegory, the process of describing abstract qualities in terms of concrete, often personified terms. Personification, the attribution of human-like qualities to an object or an idea, is a particular kind of allegory. Ovid scholar Joseph Solodow traces the use of allegory through several classical writers such as Virgil or Homer, and argues that Ovid’s distinctive literary creations are superior. He refers to Ovid’s personification of Invidia, or Envy, as one example of the poet’s keen ability to animate emotion. As support for his claim, Solodow points out three features that contribute to the image of Envy: the vivid setting, such as the gloomy house she inhabits at the bottom of a valley; the macabre sensory details associated with Envy, such as darkness and cold; and finally, the physical description of the woman, Envy: “her teeth black with mold, her breast is green with spite” (¡988:20¡). Lastly, Ovid provides a didactic justification of this description, explaining that the character’s su›erings are the result of her own ill nature: “At the same time Envy gnaws and is gnawed; she is her own torment” (¡988: 20¡). The choice to personify Envy or any other concept or emotion is deliberate because the personification allows for a comparative examination between an idea and an identifiable form — in this case, the human being. The use of allegory vividly warns the reader of the potential repercussions in store for any individual who willingly harbors Envy in his breast. Zimmerman’s actors, through their physical gestures and choreography, come close to the literary practice of allegorical representation, or “metaphors made flesh.”1 My intent in this paper is to explore three scenes where the actors bring Ovid’s personifications to life, demonstrating how a stage adaptation of a literary work can “flesh out” the allegorical language of an epic poem. It is important to note that Zimmerman draws her works primarily from literary texts, working within a theatrical genre known as “Readers Theatre.” The practitioners of Readers Theatre take well-known texts and analyze them for their dramatic potential, with the ultimate aim

¡6. “Metaphors Made Flesh” (Miriam Chirico)

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of translating them from a narrative idiom into a dramatic one. However, the objective is not merely to bring a good story to the stage, but rather to explore qualities of a literary text that may have heretofore gone unnoticed. In other words, dramatizing a story can also serve as an act of literary criticism. As Joanna Hawkins Maclay has explained in her book on the subject, “Readers Theater can dramatize the special conditions of a spoken literary text in many ways” (¡97¡:58). Zimmerman’s production of Metamorphoses, for example, often illustrates how stories unfold out of other stories as the characters of one scene begin to narrate a scenario that, in turn, becomes the next episode. In this way, Zimmerman highlights Ovid’s narrative technique of stories nested inside one another like Russian dolls, and she helps us to conceptualize more vividly the nature of interlocking narratives, their thematic overlays and correspondences. Theater critics are quick to point out how this narrative device carried over to the performance; after all, it is easy to write about a narrative technique. However, they are less apt to note literary devices that Zimmerman has transformed into performative attributes. One of these devices is allegory — specifically the allegorical rendering of emotions in performance. In addition to the responses found in journalistic criticism, I am also concerned with academic critical responses to Metamorphoses, particularly in what is a growing field of assessing modern versions of ancient myth. Mythic revision, the re-writing or revising of a classical myth for a contemporary audience, involves certain choices on the part of the writer, and there is not, as of yet, any consensus on how such choices should be evaluated. The typical pattern has been to compliment or critique a particular production because it either matches or falls short of the reviewer’s own subjective vision of the ancient myth or because it corresponds to the canonical interpretation. Two recent responses to Zimmerman’s play, one by Joseph Farrell and one by David H. Porter, both in the American Journal of Philolog y, illustrate the dual approach to mythic revision. Joseph Farrell’s review of the play, “Metamorphoses: A Play by Mary Zimmerman,” demonstrates his overall enthusiasm for the piece as well as some reservations. He details how the play imitates many of Ovid’s own narrative qualities by the simplicity of the script, the serio-comic tone of the play, and its performance of interlocking stories. Thus Farrell identifies specific literary elements and demonstrates how they are adapted for the stage. His one reproach concerns Zimmerman’s decision to excise certain scenes of Ovid’s Metamorphoses from the play, particularly stories that prove the capricious nature of the gods or stories about extreme violence and rape. In so doing, Zimmerman’s production “suppresses or excludes major thematic elements of the poem” (2002:626), a concern that other classical schol-

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ars have mentioned. Overall, his evaluative approach to the play is a categorical division of the particular literary elements (dialogue, tone, omission of scenes) that comprise the transformation from page to stage. David H. Porter, writing in response to Farrell’s argument, finds no novelty to Zimmerman’s revision of Ovid and faults the play because of it. Porter o›ers a di›erent critical approach to mythic revision — an approach that prevents a systematic analysis. He considers Zimmerman’s production disappointing because it replicated Ovid’s characters too precisely and o›ered no innovative interpretation in performance. Porter’s criterion for assessing mythic revision is that the revision should “strike us as works [done by] artists who have so inhabited a myth, so made it part of themselves — and themselves part of it — that what emerges is totally their own, totally transformed: a re-creation” (2003: 474). The works that serve as his examples, such as Joyce’s Ulysses or Yeats’s “Leda and the Swan,” are certainly exemplary models that send the reader back to the original myth with renewed wonder and delight. But this criterion is not useful for establishing a framework by which we might discuss aspects or conditions of mythic revision. His subjective language does not allow for the systematic discussion that Farrell introduced, but returns us to a personal aesthetic response to the myth. He acknowledges as much: “the criterion I am suggesting is instinctive and highly individual [but] does not, I think, negate its usefulness” (2003:475). I disagree with Porter’s approach and would like to argue for a means of analyzing mythic revision that studies how specific literary devices are transposed to the stage. Zimmerman’s production successfully emphasizes Ovid’s allegorical representations and further develops this literary device to her own dramatic ends. This article examines how Zimmerman incorporates Ovid’s literary method of personification and dramatizes three abstract emotions — Grief, Hunger, and Desire — amplifying our understanding of these qualities in Ovid’s stories. Farrell, in his essay, draws attention to this attribute in Zimmerman’s production; he compliments her ability to present before us “not one but two of Ovid’s most ambitious ecphrases (Fames from book 8 and Somnus from ¡¡) ... with superb theatrical results” (2002:625). He refers to the highly visual depiction of Hunger and Sleep as ecphrases, similar to Virgil’s detailed descriptions of Achilles’s shield. For the purposes of this paper, I will call them personifications. The di›erence is insignificant; what matters is Zimmerman’s attention to a literary device that serves as an extended visual description within Ovid’s poetry and how she incorporates it within the performance. Moreover, my noting how Zimmerman adopts Ovid’s highly visual nature into her own piece corresponds to the popular reception of her work; she is often compared to Robert Wilson whose works are


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categorized as “theater of images.” Peter Marks, writing for the New York Times, referred to her productions as “painterly adaptations.” Finally, I am paying attention to the physicality of the actors, their choreographed movements and gestures, an aspect often overlooked in theater reviews. In examining how she has re-created the literary trope of personification for the stage, I will use two di›erent translations of Metamorphoses in this argument: the translations are from Frank Justus Miller’s Loeb Classical Library edition (¡9¡6), unless I indicate that they are from David Slavitt’s (¡997) more poetic and freer translation, upon which Zimmerman based the dialogue for the play. I use Miller’s version to determine as accurately as possible which lines constitute actual personifications and Slavitt’s version to illustrate the imaginative impetus behind Zimmerman’s production.

Death and Grief: The Tale of Ceyx and Alcyone One of the persistent themes within Metamorphoses is departure and loss, found in tales such as that of Ceyx and Alcyone. As the story goes, Ceyx, a King, tells his wife, Alcyone, that he must leave on a sea-voyage to visit a far-o› oracle. His ship ends up destroyed by the storm, and he and all his crew perish. In a dream, Alcyone discovers that he has died, and when she goes down to the beach to mourn his death, his body appears in the waves. As she goes over to kiss it, she discovers that she has turned into a bird, and subsequently, he does, too. Thus the two lovers are reunited by the gods, albeit in a non-human form. Zimmerman’s dramatization of this particular myth closely interprets Ovid’s depiction of death as a battle, and amplifies his illustration of grief. Ovid’s disproportionately large description of the storm and subsequent shipwreck indicates that the central motif of the story is the destruction of human life and its ensuing grief. He provides a detailed examination of how the waves look, how the sea heaves over the boat, and how each sailor contemplates his impending death. Ovid relies upon personification to create an impression of death and dying not as a natural process but as a targeted assault upon human beings. The captain of the ship is no longer able to give orders to his crew, having been bested by the ocean as if in competition: “so great is the impending weight of destruction, so much more mighty than his skill” (¡¡: 494). Slavitt’s translation further develops the use of personification: “One would think that the heavens were crazed with lust/ to join the turbulent sea/ which returned their bizarre passion/ and tried to rise up and embrace the air” (¡¡:5¡8–520).2 The sea in Ovid’s hands becomes a living entity with desire and volition; sea and sky reach out to one another

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and are ready to squelch the small boat in their mad embrace. Ovid builds upon this image of the storm-tossed sea as a living creature, comparing it to an army besieging a castle or lions attacking their prey: Often with mighty thuds the vessel’s sides resound, beaten by crashing waves as heavily as when sometimes an iron ram or ballista smites a battered fortress. And as savage lions, gaining new strength as they come rushing to the attack, are wont to breast the hunters’ arms and ready spears; so, when the waves had been lashed to fury by the opposing winds, they rushed against the bulwarks of the barque and towered high over it [¡¡: 507–5¡3].3

The sea is no longer an impartial force of nature, but in Ovid’s hands is likened to an army or a blood-thirsty animal. By thus depicting lifethreatening sea through militaristic and hunting imagery, Ovid instills in his reader an image of death — death at sea, in particular — as a malevolent force that is unrelenting, willful, and predatory. The reality of course is that one does not calmly die at sea, but fights to survive, and Ovid’s allegorical rendering of the sea emphasizes this violent struggle. Zimmerman responds to Ovid’s descriptive language by having her actors perform as the storm; just as Ovid personifies the storm linguistically, her actors do it physically. Zimmerman does this by adding the character of Poseidon, the god of the ocean, to this scene; an on-stage narrator observes, “Poseidon and his Henchman had arrived” (2002:23). The god Poseidon and his attendants viciously toss buckets of water at Ceyx and the sailors; they physically wrestle Ceyx to the ground, pummel him, and dunk him repeatedly underwater in a maddening gang attack on the helpless man. We viscerally feel the danger of the sea as the water overleaps the boundaries of the stage; often the first row of the audience gets splashed during the performance. Ceyx does not just drown at sea; he is bombarded. By having two aggressive characters represent the sea, Zimmerman translates Ovid’s illustration of death at sea as a losing battle against a monstrous destructive nature. Having depicted death by drowning as a man besieged, Zimmerman now turns her hand to Grief. Alcyone, back on land, awaits her husband’s return, growing in apprehension as she sees no sign of him. The gods, feeling some sympathy, ask Sleep to send Alcyone a dream wherein is revealed the truth about her husband’s loss. Sleep directs his son Morpheus to take on the shape of Ceyx and appear to Alcyone in the dream, which he does. “Look on me!” Morpheus says to her, disguised as Ceyx. “You will know me then and find in place of husband your husband’s shade” (¡¡: 659–660). At this moment Alcyone’s apprehension turns to painful grief. Ovid describes her grief in several ways: he describes how in her sleep she “groaned, shed


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tears, and in sleep seeking his arms and to clasp his body, held only air in her embrace” (¡¡: 674–675), finding he was but a dream. Upon her waking, she “smote her cheeks, tore o› her garments from her breast and beat her breasts themselves” (¡¡: 680–682). Finally, she speaks to him as if he were still present, reminding him of her precise warning against this dire event, against his death which, since the two of them are one in matrimony, has ultimately killed her: “But now far from myself I have perished; far from myself also I am tossed about upon the waves, and without me the sea holds me” (¡¡: 699–672). Ovid o›ers two images of the emotion of grief: the traditional gesture of self-inflicted harm, where the person actually beats her body and rends her clothes as a movement that corresponds to her internal pain. Secondly, Ovid presents Alcyone’s practice of talking to the dead one as if he were still alive. Zimmerman takes Ovid’s image and dramatizes the process of grief through a struggle between the loved one and the one bereaved. While this scene does not provide a personification of Grief (that is to say, there is no character who acts the role, as Poseidon and his cohorts represented the Sea and Death), the use of a second person to represent the grieving process is significant. It deepens our understanding of Grief as a complex relationship between the person su›ering the loss and the mourned beloved. Grief can be understood as two separate processes, according to John Archer. In his book tracing the psychology of grieving, he determines two reactions in adult grieving, an active response to the specific loss and a passive depressive response: the active response “involves features such as distress, searching, preoccupation and aggression” (¡999:58). These actions are visibly demonstrated in Zimmerman’s production. When Ceyx appears to his wife in the dream to announce his death, Alcyone recognizes him but refuses to believe his message, and turns away from him in denial. Ceyx grabs her roughly in an embrace that is both consoling and imprisoning, forcing her to accept the truth. She tosses him o›, pushing away the actuality she must accept. Thus, this process of the denial and acceptance of the loss of a loved one is performed as a wrestling match. She tries to crawl away from him, but he pursues and catches her, and they tumble in the pool in a loving embrace, only to have her strike at him and slide away. When he rises to return to the underworld — stately and unperturbed by her wild grief— she stumbles after him on all fours, beseeching him to stay. The water about her legs creates an obstacle and she blunders blindly, unable to pursue him. Thus the fight and her anger, her striking Ceyx and embracing him, and her final ine›ectual pursuit of him, all speak to the emotion of grief posited by Ovid, but are enacted upon the stage by Zimmerman’s actors. Instead of one character acting bereavement — i.e., by

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crying or shrieking — two characters embody the process of abuse, desperation, and final separation, ultimately providing a representational study in the various stages of grief. Ben Brantley, writing for the New York Times, notes how the physical depictions of sorrow and loss held particular resonance for New Yorkers struggling over the aftermath of September ¡¡: “In portraying Ovid’s tales of transformation, themselves the product of an era of uncertainty and a shaken empire, Ms. Zimmerman gives physical life to the forms that grief assumes” (200¡:¡).

Hunger: The Story of Erysichthon I consider the previous scene an allegorical portrayal of death and grief because it reveals more than simply a man dying or a woman manifesting sadness in performance. The use of several actors to mime death at sea as a mob attack or to depict grief as a wrestling match shifts these abstract concepts to a representational mode and a more visceral realm. This next example follows a clear model of personification: an actor endows human-like qualities to the abstraction known as Hunger. Joseph Farrell, in the abovementioned article, indicates the depiction of Hunger and Sleep as being two of the more powerful examples of Zimmerman’s stage craft, but the character of Sleep does not fit the purposes of this article because its representation is merely iconographic. In other words, Sleep’s portrayal depends upon the symbolic signification of a blanket, a pillow, and a crown of letter Z’s attached to his head. Zimmerman’s dramatization of Hunger, on the other hand, as a small creature who clings to another actor’s back, penetrates the nature of consuming desire and its ramifications. The tale regards Erysichthon, an impious man who angers the Goddess Ceres by cutting down her trees. One of the few morality tales in Ovid, the story reveals how Erysichthon’s lack of interest for nature, for sacred lands, and for the gods ultimately causes a sickening sense of emptiness within him. Ceres devises a heinous punishment for him: she grants to Hunger the use of Erysichthon as an object for her to torture. Ovid’s version of the myth personifies Hunger through two literary techniques: through an animated picture of Hunger as a personified character, and through Hunger’s dire influence upon Erysichthon. Hunger is a depraved, skeletal creature. She lives in the dry, cold region of the Caucasus, and is found digging through the ground in search of food and gnawing on dry moss. Ovid’s character painting is quite vivid: Her hair hung down in matted locks, her eyes were sunken, her face ghastly pale; her lips were wan and foul, her throat rough with scurf; her skin was


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Erysichthon (Chris Kipiniak) with Hunger (Sun Mee Chomet) attached to his back, Hartford Stage, 2004.

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Text & Presentation, 2005 hard and dry so that the entrails could be seen though it; her skinny hipbones bulged out beneath her hollow loins, and her belly was but a belly’s place; her breast seemed to be hanging free and just to be held by the framework of the spine [8: 80¡–805].

Even the messenger, after issuing Ceres’s command to Hunger, leaves quickly, seeming “to feel the famine” (8: 8¡2). The personification of Hunger is comprised of several narrative descriptors: the barren setting, her primitive actions, the physical description, and the reactions of other characters. Zimmerman’s description of Hunger uses language similar to Homer’s, but, in addition, she invents physical movements to signify “Hunger” in the abstract. Hunger enters from underneath the stage, grips the edge of the platform and pulls herself up and over, Gollem-like. She writhes on her belly across the ground, dragging her legs as if paralyzed from the waist down. Her arms and feet are flexed at odd angles, and her jerky movements depict a grotesque character, deformed by lack of nourishment. Her clothing is a coarse, purple rag and her head is covered by a dark nylon mask which further deforms her features. As soon as the messenger addresses her and feels Hunger’s e›ect upon her, she visibly weakens and falls to the ground. What Ovid o›ers as a pictorial depiction, Zimmerman accomplishes physiognomically. Secondly, Ovid describes the impact Hunger has upon a human being — namely, Erysichthon. In the tale, Erysichthon grows ravenously hungry, devouring piles of food, but finds that no amount of nourishment will sate his appetite: Straightway he calls for all that sea and land and air can furnish; with loaded tables before him, he complains still of hunger; in the midst of feasts seeks other feasts. What would be enough for whole cities, enough for a whole nation, is not enough for one. The more he sends down into his maw the more he wants. And as the ocean receives the streams from a whole land and is not filled with his waters, but swallows up the streams that come to it from afar; ... so do the lips of impious Erysichthon receive all those banquets, and ask for more. All food in him is but the cause of food, and ever does he become empty by eating [8: 830–842].

In these lines, Ovid relies upon a rhetoric of vastness and hyperbole to convey the sensation of an all-encompassing desire. He details how the “sea and land and air” and the “city and nation” cannot satisfy the character, he describes in animal terms (“maw”) Erysichthon’s ravenous eating, and he equates his hunger to the limitless depths of the ocean. He also implies that desire feeds on itself and is never satisfied. Zimmerman departs from the translation of Ovid at this moment, and simply describes the immensity of


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Erysichthons’s appetite by itemizing the range of his consumption in contemporary terms: “Baked shrimp and marshmallows, salami and ice cream, liver and doughnuts, everything in every possible combination” (2002:37). But she develops Ovid’s portrayal of Hunger by a specific directorial choice: Hunger is attached to the actor’s back. Personifying Hunger as a creature literally strapped to Erysichthon’s body reveals it to be a physical presence from which he is unable to escape — like the proverbial “monkey on your back.” For this character is more than mere appetite; this kind of Hunger is the empty sensation experienced by nihilistic individuals who find value in nothing. Initially taking her stage directions from Ovid’s text, Zimmerman shows Hunger going through the motions of entering Erysichthon’s body. While the King is asleep, Hunger “wrapped her skinny arms about him and filled him with herself, breathing upon his throat and breast and lips; and in his hollow veins she planted hunger” (8: 8¡9–820) and then flees back to her barren country. Slavitt’s translation further underscores the sexuality of this scene: “She breathed her spirit into his spirit. His veins/ were burning, on fire with longings that seethed in his blood” (8: 8¡5–¡6) and the two actors pick up where Ovid leaves o›: Hunger appears to make love to Erysichthon. He is asleep on the ground when she approaches and straddles him; he rises onto all fours and begins a heaving motion as he feels her presence on him. His breathing is labored. He begins to push himself up and down and the two of them ride together rhythmically, like a rider on a slow-moving bronco. Visually, it is implied that they have become one; she has inhabited his form and possesses him. The actor’s seeming to penetrate Erysichthon physically o›ers an allegorical interpretation of Hunger as an addictive, seductive force, that drives passion into his being — a succubus. For the remainder of the scene, Hunger clings piggy-back to Erysichthon; he is unable to shake her o› him. The sheer physical challenge and cirque-du-soleil quality of their acrobatics is stunning. Driven wild by hunger, he thrashes about in the water, making sweeping gestures that cast huge sheets of water towards the circumference of the pool. He pantomimes eating great quantities of food, but the audience only sees the ine›ectual displacement of water. As he rocks forward and back and pounds the water’s surface, one wonders how the actress playing Hunger can cling to his back. “I want more” he thunders and shakes, and she seems to cling all the harder. Finally, the weight of her presence leads him to eat the only thing left: himself. The scene ends with his foot upon his dinner plate, and with him poised over it with knife and fork, Hunger still clinging to his back. While very few of Ovid’s myths moralize, this myth, about an individual who holds nothing sacred, reveals the consequential bareness that ultimately devours

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him. The character of Hunger clinging to his back reinforces the dire impossibility of escaping the force of consumption because it, in turn, has consumed his whole being.

Sexual Desire: The Story of Cinyras and Myrrha The third and last myth, the tale of King Cinyras and his daughter, Myrrha, introduces the taboo of incestuous love. Three characters comprise the original tale in Ovid: Myrrha, the daughter who discovers herself sexually attracted to her father, the old nurse who arranges the sexual interlude for Myrrha, and Cinyras, her father. Ovid o›ers no reason for Myrrha’s sudden attraction, nor does he provide any personified characters in this story. Ovid’s tale simply states that Myrrha was tortured by the Furies who inflicted the dark passion upon her.4 Rather, Zimmerman adds another character to this tale, Aphrodite, as the goddess who incites this taboo passion in Myrrha’s breast. The dramatic addition of this character enables the two actresses to depict sexual desire as a struggle between one’s libidinal and rational self. Ovid devotes a lengthy forty lines to exploring Myrrha’s internal division and turmoil, the length of the passage indicating his interest with this dialogue of the self. Ovid’s depiction of Myrrha’s mental division is incisive; her mind darts back and forth between acknowledging her desires as reprehensible and rationalizing how societal law constricts natural feelings. Ovid writes: “She, indeed, is fully aware of her vile passion and fights against it and says within herself: ‘To what is my purpose tending?’” (¡0: 3¡9–320). The tale is an examination of sexual desire: we see her amorous longings on the one hand, and the logical analysis of them on the other. She pleads to the gods, “keep this sin from me and fight o› my crime,” but in the same breath she questions, “if indeed it is a crime” (l0: 322–23). She lists a variety of animals — cows, horses, goats, birds — who all mate with their progenitors as defense for her desires and contemplates living in other countries that would permit sexual relations with one’s progenitor. Zimmerman focuses on this aspect of internal struggle in the stage production. By adding the character of Aphrodite to the scene, we see Myrrha struggling against another physical presence and her self-division becomes more apparent. Sigmund Freud considered the existence of the conscience as a direct result of taboos; he argues that the conscience was developed from a heightened awareness of wrong-doings. “For what is ‘conscience’?” he writes:


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On the evidence of language it is related to that of which one is “most certainly conscious.” Indeed, in some languages the words for “conscience” and “conscious” can scarcely be distinguished. Conscience is the internal perception of the rejection of a particular wish operating within us. The stress, however, is upon the fact that this rejection has no need to appeal to anything else for support, that it is quite “certain of itself.” This is even clearer in the case of consciousness of guilt — the perception of the internal condemnation of an act by which we have carried out a particular wish [¡950: 67–68].

The on-stage presence of Aphrodite alongside Myrrha allows Zimmerman to cast sexual desire as a dialogic model whereby the two parts of the individual, say the id and the super-ego, clash with one another. Certainly dramatic monologues have the capacity to dramatize the divided self; Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” speech provides a model of the individual at odds with himself. But the nature of incestuous desire presupposes a self-divided between correct behavior and guilty indulgence, and this is the model that Zimmerman shows through the use of an additional actress. In the performance, it is Aphrodite who represents Myrrha’s sexual longings, who embraces her from behind and caresses her hair, her shoulders, and her arms during her speech. Even as Myrrha recites the following passage aloud, condemning her lust, her body bends compliantly to Aphrodite’s touch: Oh gods, I pray you, keep o› this wickedness, ... Yet there are countries, I have heard, With no such laws, where in the dark, The bonds of love, already strong, might be made perfect. Why do I keep thinking of such things? Leave me alone! He is the best of men– the best of fathers. If I were not his daughter then I might lie with Cinyras — but I am his daughter. You have been virtuous in body, Myrrha; now be so in mind. [She struggles free of Aphrodite and crouches in a corner of the pool] [Zimmerman 2002: 53–54]

During this speech, which clearly shows Myrrha divided between her sexual longing and her awareness of its moral shame, the goddess Aphrodite has been holding her in a wrestler’s loving embrace. The line “Leave me alone!” which in Ovid is directed at her own “lawless desires,”5 on-stage is spoken to the woman holding and caressing her. The physical representation of the

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conscience is complete: Myrrha rebukes her desire, an emotion that is personified by the form of a woman’s erotic embrace and from which she must struggle to free herself. Ultimately, however, she succumbs. Zimmerman’s production enacts Myrrha’s guilty contemplation of her sexual desire another way: through a dream sequence where she envisions herself and her father making love. Ovid describes how in the dark recesses of the night, Myrrha is unable to sleep, tormented by her passion, fear, and shame. The overall motif of her night-time fantasies is still one of the divided self: the daughter of Cinyras, sleepless through the night, is consumed by ungoverned passion, renews her mad desires, is filled now with despair, now with desire to try, feels now shame and now desire, and finds no plan of action; and, just as a great tree, smitten by the axe, when all but the last blow has been struck, wavers which way to fall and threatens every side, so her mind, weakened by many blows, leans unsteadily now this way and now that, and falteringly turns in both directions; and no end nor rest for her passions can she find save death [¡0: 375–380].

Zimmerman goes one step further than Ovid and chooses to dramatize Myrrha’s nighttime fantasies. The fact that the desire for her father disturbs her more than the act itself corresponds to Freud’s hypothesis about neurotics who dwell more on their “impulses and emotions” than on any event that actually occurred. “What lies behind the sense of guilt of neurotics are always psychical realities and never factual ones,” he explains towards the end of Totem and Taboo. “What characterizes neurotics is the fact that they prefer psychical reality and react just as seriously to thought as normal persons do to realities” (¡950: ¡59). While I am far from designating Myrrha a neurotic, Ovid’s depiction of her implies that her psychical fantasy caused her more inner turmoil than the actual act itself and drove her to contemplate suicide. Zimmerman responds to this psychical preoccupation by having the actors enact her fantasy. She choreographs their sexual union in the form of a dance, first as the fantasy, then again as the reality, using the exact same choreography for both. Though Ovid gives scant attention to the love-making between Myrrha and her father, Zimmerman draws out this moment in performance and makes their sexual engagement the central image of the myth. Ovid seems reticent at the moment of their love-making, preferring to focus on the di›erences in their age and experience, and noting the irony in their names for one another: The father receives his own flesh in his incestuous bed, strives to calm her girlish fears, and speaks encouragingly to the shrinking girl. It chanced, by


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a name appropriate to her age, he called her “daughter,” and she called him “father,” that names might not be lacking to their guilt [¡0: 465–468].

Myrrha sneaks into her father’s room and makes love with her father on three subsequent nights. Zimmerman draws out these moments of sexual interplay and has the fantasy scene, plus the three nights of love-making, performed as four separate pas de deux between the father and daughter. The pas de deux, or “step of two,” as a classical ballet form carries romantic meaning. It is a partnered movement of lovers, a dance idiom for emotional or sexual unity, and she uses this language to represent the love a›air between Myrrha and her father. We see her come into his arms again and again and each time he lifts her above him; each night their sexual meeting is represented by a di›erent mount. He scoops her up like a newborn child, then lowers her erotically like a woman. He moves her into a dip or a lunge, and then he rolls her o› his body. Each pas de deux ends with his lowering her into the water and moving her into a position where he is on top; they turn in the water until she resurfaces, and then she departs. Four times they tie themselves into erotic knots, heightened by the slipperiness of their wet bodies. The reliance on another person for support, the intertwining of limbs, and the friction of bodies pressed against one another all depict the sexual fulfillment that Ovid only hints at in the text. The gracefulness of their postures belies the incestuous nature of their relationship and we — like the characters themselves — are caught o›-guard when Cinyras discovers his partner. By using the romantic idiom of the pas de deux, Zimmerman can represent the intense and deceiving nature of Myrrha’s sexual desire upon the stage.

Conclusion An adaptation of classical myths for the stage should provide access into a text at a new level, without losing the original’s essence. Zimmerman’s adaptation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses both illuminates his ideas about human longings and desires and o›ers new ones. While her plots and characters are consistent with the myths, the theatrical emphasis on the human body and voice means that the tales are necessarily “re-visioned” to explore the human form. Her portrayal of specific abstractions such as grief, hunger, and sexual desire indicates how much our feelings are localized in the body. The images of people locked in embraces, struggling to be free of another body, or driven to torture themselves reminds us of our animal or primitive selves. Personification has proven to be as useful a device in the theater as it is in literature.

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The practice of personification requires the audience to use their imagination; they are asked to “see” an emotion that is not literally there, but that is represented nonetheless. In the cinema, with its reliance upon special e›ects, we are not asked to suspend our disbelief; the cinematography provides all the necessary images for us and all we need do is passively recognize a live monster or a levitating space ship. Not so in the theater; we are required to be more active. Zimmerman discusses this practice of audience participation in the illusion; she refers to it as “collusion.” In an interview with Matthew Gurewitsch, she explains: “What attracts me to theater is the collusion between the audience and what is happening onstage, believing what they know not to be true” and she defends this idea by quoting Shakespeare from the prologue of Henry V: “Can this cockpit hold/ The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram/ Within this wooden O the very casques/ That did a›right the air at Agincourt?” (200¡:2). The audience’s willingness to collude with the actors means that we are mentally occupied with filling in the details. The ability to see the characters as personifications of human emotions requires a certain playfulness, a willingness to integrate the actor with the quality being represented. And in this expenditure of energy on the part of the audience comes our delight and engagement with the theater. EASTERN CONNECTICUT STATE UNIVERSITY

Notes 1. I take this phrase from page 2 of Sarah Annes Brown’s book The Metamorphosis of Ovid: From Chaucer to Ted Hughes (New York: St. Martin’s Press, ¡999). 2. Ovid writes, “and you would think that the whole heavens were falling down into the sea and that the swollen sea was leaping up into the regions of the sky.” 3. In fact, Slavitt’s lines, which Zimmerman has the character of Ceyx speak in performance, heightens the anthropomorphic quality of the ocean by using metaphors rather than Ovid’s similes: “He thinks in an oddly abstracted way that the waves are lions,/ crazed with hunters’ wounds, or that the ship/ is a besieged town attacked by a horde of madmen.” 4. Cupid claims that he never touched her with his arrows, but rather, “One of the three sisters with firebrand from the Styx and with swollen vipers blasted you” (¡0: 3¡3–¡4). 5. “Spes interdictae, discedite!” which Miller translates as “Avaunt, lawless desires.” (¡0: 336)

References Cited Archer, John. The Nature of Grief: The Evolution and Psycholog y of Reactions to Loss. London: Routledge, ¡999.


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Brantley, Ben. “Theater Review: How Ovid Helps Deal with Loss and Su›ering.” The New York Times (Oct. ¡0, 200¡), E:¡. Brown, Sarah Annes. The Metamorphosis of Ovid: from Chaucer to Ted Hughes. New York: St. Martin’s Press, ¡999. Farrell, Joseph. “Metamorphoses: A Play by Mary Zimmerman.” American Journal of Philolog y ¡23 (2002): 623-627. Freud, Sigmund. Totem and Taboo: Some Points of Agreement between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics. Trans. James Strachey. New York: W. W. Norton & Co, ¡950. Gurewitsch, Matthew. “Theater: Theater’s Quicksilver Truth: All Is Change.” The New York Times (2 Dec. 200¡), sec. 2: ¡. Maclay, Joanna Hawkins. Readers Theatre: Toward a Grammar of Practice. Random House: New York: ¡97¡. Marks, Peter. “Building Her Plays Image by Image.” New York Times. (March 9, 2002). Page B7. Ovid. Metamorphoses. Trans. Frank Justus Miller. London: William Heinemann, ¡9¡6. _____. The Metamorphoses of Ovid: Translated Freely into Verse. Trans. David R. Slavitt. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, ¡994. Porter, David H. “Metamorphoses and Metamorphosis: A Brief Response.” American Journal of Philolog y ¡24 (2003): 473–475. Solodow, Joseph B. The World of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, ¡988. Zimmerman, Mary. Metamorphoses: A Play. Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 2002.

¡7 Frank Castorf ’s Vision of America The Pathology of Cultural Roles in a Mediatized Society Klaus van den Berg Abstract The Volksbühne Berlin and its artistic director Frank Castorf have developed a performance concept that treats the play text as a cultural medium — a repository of cultural texts, images, and roles — and performance as an opportunity to critique characters living in a culturally mediatized reality. Castorf has claimed that the conventional experience of theatrical reality mediated in signs, images, and simulations acts as a barrier to understanding the characters’— and by extension his audiences’— political realities and, in e›ect, that this experience represents symptoms of a patholog y in postmodern society. I examine Castorf ’s performance of Final Destination America, a work based on Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire. In Castorf ’s version the characters are East Berliners living in cheap prefab housing in Berlin under the spell of media images. Castorf emphasizes the negative force of cultural roles by integrating technolog y such as video cameras, television, and super-titles into the performance. He tells Williams’s story as a media event, in which the characters fail to escape the patholog y of their mediated roles.

In the past fifteen years the Volksbühne Berlin and its artistic director Frank Castorf have developed a performance concept that treats the play script as a cultural medium — a repository of cultural texts, images, and roles — and treats performance as an opportunity to critique culturallymediatized realities. Castorf has claimed that the conventional experience of theatrical reality mediated through signs, images, and simulations acts as a barrier to understanding the political realities with which each character must live. In Castorf ’s view, it is the task of performance to reveal the patho212

¡7. Frank Castorf ’s Vision of America (Klaus van den Berg)

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logical, social and political consequences of experiencing reality only through mediatized representations (2003:¡8). Castorf has recently directed plays by the American playwrights Eugene O’Neill and Tennessee Williams. America as an exporter not only of products through its multinational corporations but also of cultural images through the film and entertainment industries holds an important place in Castorf ’s view of a mediatized society. In his adaptations of American plays, Castorf has presented a vision of America that addresses the very specific historical situation of his East Berlin audience in the aftermath of German reunification. He has appealed to disenchanted young and middle-aged former East Germans who have an extremely critical view of how the West “annexed” their culture and country, imposing what they perceive as an overbearingly Americanized popular culture, an aggressive form of capitalism, and a deprivation of political rights. The discussion that follows centers on Castorf ’s production of Final Destination America. Based on Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire, Final Destination America tells Williams’s story as a media event in which Williams’s characters are East Berliners living in cheap prefab housing under the spell of media images. Instead of treating the play as aesthetic object, semiotic text, or object of deconstruction, Castorf draws on the repository of cultural topics and scenarios generated by American media such as reality soaps, cultural icons, film scripts, and Rock and Roll soundtracks, to peel away the play’s aesthetic boundaries and to re-vision it through the watchful eye of video cameras and television monitors. I argue that Castorf ’s reading of Williams’s text resembles an approach to reading cultural objects developed half a century earlier by cultural theorist Walter Benjamin. Benjamin’s favorite method was to treat a vast range of cultural objects as texts and to excavate the cultural consciousness inscribed into those objects. Similarly, Castorf approaches Williams’s play as what he calls an “entertainment machinery,” a font of true and false images of America concealing strategies to dominate culture and politics (9). Much like the critic Benjamin, the director Castorf and his actors turn the play into a site for exploring — and highlighting — their dependency on American cultural icons and scenarios.

Benjaminian Strategies Without explicitly crediting Benjamin, Castorf has adopted three of Benjamin’s strategies for looking at images in his dramaturgical work. First, as Fritz Breithaupt has noted, one of the strengths of Benjamin’s cultural the-

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ory is that “it does not need to separate the spheres of aesthetics, culture, and politics” (¡97). Benjamin considered any object or memory he found as a special medium of perception. For instance, his famous example of turning a sock inside out became — instead of being a preliminary step in doing one’s laundry — a philosophical exercise that explained the dialectic of vision (3: 374). Along the same lines and more profoundly, for Benjamin, a photograph represented not so much an index to reality as a repository of past moments of contingency.1 Likewise, in his reading, the urban maps of Paris became — instead of a guide to moving around a city — a key to unlock the consciousness of the nineteenth century.2 Castorf ’s approach to a play script is not unlike Benjamin’s approach to maps, photography and socks: he turns them inside out to mine them for their contingencies and to investigate their layers of meaning. Like Benjamin, Castorf thinks of images as indices of textual narratives. In Benjamin’s philosophy, an image is a site in which the past — as instantiated in the existing object or text — is brought up for re-vision by present experiences. According to Benjamin, each event, object, or text contains a rich archive of experiences, what Benjamin calls “historical index.” However, the appearance or recognition of these experiences is often delayed. Benjamin used the Trojan horse that concealed the Greek army unseen in its enemy’s stronghold as an analogy to illustrate the potential force hidden within the visual surface — the Greek army and its future destructive force is initially hidden from view before it bursts onto the scene after the Trojans opened the horse (¡999a: 392). It is the critic’s and the director’s task to render this force visible and to turn the hidden or delayed experience into a moment of recognizability in performance. In Benjamin’s theory of images, the archive of experience can be condensed into a single moment of recognition created by a charged image. Castorf ’s performances are built around such charged images. Just as Benjamin envisioned photography and film as powerful media to create dialectical images, Castorf has extensively drawn on technology for his performances. He has employed technology as a theatrical and practical tool for what W.J.T. Mitchell and Jonathan Crary have referred to as “the construction of vision” on stage.3 Specifically, Castorf has used stage cameras to film events invisible to the audience and to focus on visible but unnoticeable details of actors’ faces or set features — a technique Benjamin admired in the French photographer Atget. In Castorf ’s theatre, visual technology has become the tool to activate the appearance of the dialectical image that Benjamin sought to achieve in his criticism.


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Castorf ’s America Castorf ’s concept of America has been largely shaped by his own experience of American influences on culture and politics in West Germany following the Second World War and on former East Germany following reunification. Castorf ’s productions at the Volksbühne Berlin have set in relief the multiple resentments that have derived from this historical situation. First, he has captured the resentments of many intellectuals and middleaged East Germans who think of themselves as displaced by the unification process. This large segment of Castorf ’s audience generally considers the unification process a sell-out to West Germany — and by extension the United States — since East Germans had little choice but uniformly to accept West German laws, technology, and capitalist practices. In the rapidly shifting social space of the newly unified Germany, a significant number of East Germans have remained disoriented or even hostile as they adapted to an American-informed Western culture that they largely experienced only indirectly.4 Castorf ’s dramaturg Carl Hegemann has gone so far as to claim that their audiences live a deep state of cultural depression, and has labeled their performance” a demonstration by ill people for ill people” (6–7). Second, Castorf has amplified sentiments often expressed in a larger argument regularly articulated by European intellectuals: that America’s pervasive political, cultural, and economic influence is a result of a duplicitous political morality. Castorf sees evidence of this duplicity, for example, in America’s attempt to justify its rise to power by claiming to be an exporter of human rights, even though America has achieved its power in part through the suppression of others’ rights. Third, Castorf contends that the omnipresence of America images in German culture, transmitted not only through films and TV series, but also through the economic practices of multi-national corporations, is likewise responsible for what he sees as the repressive power of the United States in contemporary society. In his theatre aesthetic, Castorf has linked the concept of identity — both cultural and political identity — to the use and misuse of what can be called “citations”: the transmission and recycling of popular images through technology. Castorf has observed that in technologically-developed societies, people may live their whole lives under the spell of media images and are often inclined to substitute those images for real political discourse. Castorf sees ambivalence in pop icons such as national flags and cultural models: they may have elements of aesthetic beauty but are also signs of the destruction of identity and individuality (¡8). The indiscriminate, wholesale use of citations ranging from reiterated newspaper phrases or political “talking points,” to the wearing of corporate or sports

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logos, to the staging and constant replaying of media events like George Bush’s 2003 landing on an aircraft carrier, may lead to a diminishment of individuality and a surrender of agency.

Castorf ’s Version of Streetcar Castorf ’s production of Final Destination America in 2000 was part of a cycle of performances intended to explore the influence of foreign images and ideologies. With his productions of Final Destination America (2000) and Forever Young (2003) Castorf continued a broader project of excavating Western and Eastern European myths that lie, in his view, at the roots of his German audience’s political and psychological condition. Besides the two Williams plays, which are representative of Castorf ’s search for American myths, Castorf has produced other myth-probing plays such as Sartre’s Dirty Hands, Hauptmann’s The Devil’s General, and adaptations of the Dostoevsky novels The Possessed and The Idiot. In all these productions, the watchful eyes of television monitors and video cameras have been a constant presence on the stage, part of Castorf ’s ongoing exploration of the possibilities of a submedial scenography. In his dramaturgy for A Streetcar Named Desire, Castorf employs an exemplary Benjaminian strategy of reading the play as a repository of cultural texts. Instead of treating the text as a coherent aesthetic whole, Castorf follows Benjamin’s practice of excavating the socio-economic relationships in the play and placing them in a constellation of contemporary images. With this procedure, Castorf pursues what Benjamin refers to in his critical work as “now-time”: he creates a sequence of snapshots that reveal the contingency of each moment and relationship in the play. This strategy tends to tear the audience out of the comfort of the narrative flow, forcing them to confront the relevance of the performance to their own conditions. In rereading Williams’s Streetcar as a repository of cultural texts, Castorf, first, dismantles the play’s realistic New Orleans setting, isolating, instead, the Polish context. In the play, Stanley Kowalski is a Polish immigrant living in New Orleans, an industrial worker who uses his physical and psychological strength to manipulate the female descendants of a southern plantation, Blanche and Stella. To link the play to his contemporary German audience, Castorf turns Stanley, Stella, and Blanche into Polish immigrants who settled in Berlin beginning in the late ¡980s. Thus, in e›ect, Castorf treats the details of the Polish background in Williams’s play as a Benjaminian object of cultural investigation: he mines it for socio-economic details and then releases these from their original aesthetic context to unleash their force onto the audience.


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Second, Castorf emphasizes the larger economic issue looming over Williams’s characters. Like Stanley, Castorf ’s Blanche is also from Poland, where she was a teacher of Polish literature. By turning Blanche into a Polish descendant, Castorf adds a political and economic twist into his rereading of the script: Stanley’s clever scheme of appropriating Blanche’s estate, albeit legally according to the rights granted to him by the Napoleonic Code in Louisiana, becomes just another incident of capitalist usurpation. Consequently, Castorf pivots the play’s action around what he considers the loss of socialist Eastern Europe to the legal and economic power of the West, a situation of cultural and economic transition similar to the one faced by Castorf and his audience. Castorf emphasizes this point repeatedly in the performance: in between scene changes he has Blanche march on the stage back and forth to a Polish march reminding the audience not only of her personal mourning for her dead husband but also her mourning for the loss of her native culture. Instead of setting the play in a two story house in New Orleans’s Elysian Fields, set designer Bert Neumann created a typical East Berlin apartment for the action, cheaply built, with a kitchen, living area, and bedroom, strung across one long, shallow space. The apartment sat on a hydraulic floor that could lift it into an almost vertical position. Above the apartment, Neumann placed an electronic board for super titles, on which Castorf, in a bow to the billboard culture, regularly flashed stage directions from the script — in English — to complement the action. At the junction between the kitchen and bedroom spaces, Neumann placed a television set. On the one hand, the television served as a realistic set piece, in an — albeit ironic — nod to the play’s realistic style and the contemporary abundance of media images in our homes. A video camera located inside an o›-stage bathroom transferred images recorded in the bathroom (actors taking showers, using the toilet, conducting private conversations) to the television screen, where they could be viewed by other actors and the audience alike. On the other hand, the inclusion of the television set became also a critical tool similar in its significance to the photographs Benjamin was interested in as means for transforming perception. By projecting live video images, the video camera/television combo not only made the point that, in our mediatized society, even private spaces such as bathrooms o›er no escape from the media presence, but also provided Castorf with a tool to create a complex visual field, where on stage and o› stage areas could be juxtaposed. And, perhaps more pointedly, it allowed the characters to interact with the camera, as well as with the audience and each other. In the performance Castorf makes ample use of citations for recovering and revisioning cultural texts. Similar to the camera that transforms per-

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ception, citations of cultural objects and cultural icons break down distinctions between the aesthetic frame and the actual socio-economic context for the performance. Like Benjamin, whose Magnus opus, the Arcades Project, was essentially a constellation of citations, thoughtfully arranged and juxtaposed to convey a critical message, Castorf ’s performance sparks with tensions created by the imaginative juxtaposition of citations from popular culture. The characters themselves seem to be media images built up and hyped by American pop culture — images that Castorf ’s East Berlin characters wallow in and shape them to themselves like second skins. Stanley becomes a middle-aged worker, whose claim to fame is to have played ping-pong with Lech Walesa, the media savvy leader of the Polish union Solidarity. But while the historical Walesa became a media star and president of Poland, Stanley lives disillusioned in his cheap Berlin apartment. Played by actor Sir Henry Hübchen, this Stanley is not the brutish and sexually charged alpha male that Marlon Brando popularized. Generally, Hübchen played a rather domesticated figure, dressed in jeans and Elvis haircut, playing rock ’n’ roll — except when he donned his working uniform, the outfit of a mascot, a gorilla selling Wrigley chewing gum. Taking the role of Stella, the southern woman who succumbs to Stanley’s sexual and financial dominance, was an East German woman, played by Kathrin Angerer, who dressed like an Americanized Barbie doll with blonde wig and who was, during the all-male poker games, the object of multiple rock ’n’ roll love songs. Silvia Rieger played the role of Blanche, a shy and clumsy woman, posing in a Madonna wig (Honegger 39) and using the pop star’s coy seductiveness as a cover for her own sexual insecurity. Even Mitch and Blanche, the only characters in Williams’s text who o›er a brief glimpse of hope for change, act out references to films. The segments of film reference played by these two characters are Castorf ’s most powerful critique of the disastrous consequences of subjugating one’s identity to a mediatized culture. In the performance, Blanche’s suitor Mitch appears late in the play as Norman Bates from Alfred Hitchcock’s film Psycho. Castorf creates a clever citation by having Mitch/Norman drag his o›stage mother puppet in a wheel chair onto the stage while Blanche, following the Psycho script, takes a shower under the eye of the camera (2003: 40). Finally, Mitch releases his frustration about his relationship with Blanche by launching into a rendition of Don McLean’s “Bye, bye, Miss American Pie”— while the entire stage tilted upward simulating a rock concert. By imposing these fluctuations in identity on the characters Castorf is able to set in relief his interpretation that Mitch and Blanche are not psychologically-determined failures but victims of their pathological appropriation of cultural scripts and mediated identities. In a Benjaminian sense, the cultural archive becomes the audience’s medium of perception.


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Castorf delivers his main critique of his characters’ behavior through the use of media on stage. Adapting the medium of video exactly in a way Benjamin hoped his generation would use film Castorf integrates technology into the stage performance to shape the audience’s recognition of cultural behavior.5 He uses the television set on the stage to illuminate the failures of communication caused by the characters’ inability to see beyond their media-generated images of one other. For example, during the exposition Castorf stages the uneasy opening conversation between the Dubois sisters Blanche and Stella by placing Stella in the kitchen and Blanche in the bathroom, with Blanche visible only as an image on the screen, a sign of her separation from Stella in the past. Likewise, Mitch first encounters Blanche as a TV image, and thus is first attracted to her idealized media persona and Marilyn-Monroe–Madonna-like looks. However, when they finally interact directly — Castorf a›ords both Blanche and Mitch the opportunity to inspect each other’s more or less naked bodies — they fail to connect. Castorf ’s use of the camera prompts the audience to perceive the impossible distance between these two characters and the delusional nature of their love. Of course, Castorf ’s larger argument is that his Berlin actors — and by extension his audience — live in vain through images or image devices. Castorf reserves the most complex staging of cultural roles for the climax of the performance. At the conclusion, he alters Williams’s dramaturgy of psychological realism — Stanley’s rape of Blanche, Stella’s delivery of their baby, and Blanche’s confinement to an asylum — into a tableau of victims of cultural roles who are deprived of authenticity and identity. Here Castorf becomes a true heir to Benjamin’s critical theory of constructing vision. On the one hand, Benjamin was very skeptical that an image could actually function as a true representation of self. Instead, he claimed that the photographed individual, in e›ect, might prevent the real individual from coming into his/her own. On the other hand, Benjamin had discovered the critical function of technological devices by studying the photographs of the French photograph Atget. In his analysis of Atget, Benjamin developed a method of reading photographs that rested on the notion of discovering an “excess of meaning that cannot be arrested” (Richter 223). Essentially, Benjamin showed that Atget’s photographs presented a bifurcated vision: the realism of the photos always turned against its surface, revealing the hidden structure of the picture when the viewer searched the image for a spark of contingency that released its excess meaning. In his final tableau Castorf o›ered such a dialectic of vision with the help of new media, giving his actors a tool for searching the visual field on stage and presenting the audience with a similar opportunity of searching among visual possibilities. In the performance, Stanley, instead of raping Blanche, frantically works the video cam-

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era, trying to capture both Stella going into labor and Blanche standing dejectedly in the bathroom door holding the return bus ticket that Stanley has o›ered her as a birthday present. Through the eye of the camera operated by Stanley, the audience gets close-up views, in quick alternations, of Stella’s painful grimaces and then Blanche’s shy, rejected gaze. In a moment of the most complex visuality, Stanley becomes a kind of schizophrenic author of competing media images of the same events: simultaneously constructing both Stella’s labor and Blanche’s reaction to it. When the camera caresses Blanche’s face, the audience sees both her face as Stanley films it — with all the authenticity a›orded by the technology of the close-up — and her more distant but full-size live image, the cultural image that Castorf has cultivated throughout the performance. In e›ect, Castorf fragments the audience’s gaze into a kind of kaleidoscope of impressions: the distanced view of Blanche as a culturally-molded type, the anguished intimate view of her pain and emotion, seemingly authentic in close-up, and the subjective, perhaps delusional view delivered by Stanley’s control of the searching camera. At the same time, in his struggles with the camera, Stanley seems less like a sexual predator than a hapless, harried victim of events, almost torn asunder by his competing impulses to act, watch, record, and be recorded.

Conclusion Castorf ’s production of Final Destination America closes with yet another image of American popular culture : Stella without her baby is increasingly insane, and Stanley, sexually unsatisfied and psychologically dejected, sits with Blanche, Mitch, Steve, and Eunice forlorn on the bed. To the music of a Polish march, the entire stage tilts upward so that the actors have to hang to the stage as the stage furniture crashes down around them. As critic Ulrich Weinzierl observed, this image, reminiscent of the sinking ship from the movie Titanic, sets in relief Castorf ’s view of the current East German situation (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 27 Jul 2000). In his discussion of the structure and function of images, Benjamin was well aware that images may be a highly-contested area, politically volatile. While they may be employed for progressive artistic expression they may also be misused. Not surprisingly, critics of Castorf ’s use of technology and mediated images in his productions have been divided in their assessment of his performances. While Castorf ’s production of Streetcar has won almost unanimous praise, Castorf ’s critics have, in general, swayed between two views of his approach to performance: some have dismissed his exploitation of the American storehouse of cultural images as sophisticated boulevard theatre,


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while others have applauded his ability to use media strategies to level a critique on how realities are constructed for and by the media. In his theatre of media, Castorf has turned away from the issue of whether the flood of images is true or false, authentic or simulated. He is much more interested what e›ect they exercise on our identities and consciousness. As a true heir to Brecht’s dialectical theatre, Castorf has shrewdly recognized that the very image-making technology that contributes to his characters’ pathology might be the key to two things all theatre makers desire: a hip and well-received performance mode and a tool for opening up new spaces of perception. In this way Castorf has actually turned the problem of images — the fabricated, false reality, as Baudrillard has argued — into a solution, as Benjamin has suggested. While acknowledging the negative power of images for his disa›ected East German audiences, he has used clever strategies to construct an image sphere in which technology assists in opening a critical space on our mediatized society. UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE

Notes Acknowledgments. I would like to thank Laurie B. Knox and Les Essif for their helpful suggestions and critical reading of the manuscript. 1. Walter Benjamin, “A Little History of Photography,” Michael Jennings et al., eds. Trans. Rodney Livingstone et al., Walter Benjamin. Selected Writings, Vol. 2 ¡927–¡934 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, ¡999): 507–530. 2. Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, ¡999). See also Susan BuckMorss’ attempt to complete Benjamin’s notes with the aim of articulating the archeology of nineteenth-century consciousness. Susan Buck-Morss, The Dialectics of Seeing. Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, ¡99¡). 3. WJT Mitchell, Picture Theory. Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, ¡994) and Jonathan Crary, The Techniques of the Observer (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, ¡990), 3. 4. Mark Siemons, “Verwahrlosung,” Carl Hegemann, ed. Endstation. Sehnsucht. Kapitalismus und Depression I (Berlin: Alexander Verlag, 2000): 9–36. 5. Benjamin was very well aware of the ambivalent power of the new electronic media. Particularly, he recognized that images delivered by media were a contested area that could be misused — for example, by the Nazi propaganda machine — or used progressively.

References Cited Benjamin, Walter. The Arcades Project. Trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, ¡999a.

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_____. “A Little History of Photography,” Ed. Michael Jennings et al. Trans. Rodney Livingstone et al. Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, vol. 2, ¡927–¡934, 507–530. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, ¡999b. _____. “Berlin Childhood around ¡900,” Ed. Michael Jennings, Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, vol. 3, ¡935–¡938, 344–3¡4. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002. Breithaupt, Fritz. “History as the Delayed Disintegration of Phenomena.” Ed. Gerhard Richter. Benjamin’s Ghosts. ¡9¡–203. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002. Carlson, Marvin. “Frank Castorf ’s Streetcar.” Western European Stages ¡5/2 (2003): 39–42. Castorf, Frank. “Vorwort-Forever Young.” Ed. Carl Hegemann. Forever Young, 7–¡8. Berlin: Alexander Verlag, 2003. Crary, Jonathan. The Techniques of the Observer. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, ¡990. Honegger, Gitta. “Theater in Berlin. Last Stop Amerika [sic] and the Volksbühne Experience.” Theater 32/3 (2002): 3¡–53. Mitchell, W. J. T. Picture Theory. Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, ¡994. Richter, Gerhard. Walter Benjamin and the Corpus of Autobiography. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2002. Siemons, Mark. “Verwahrlosung.” Ed. Carl Hegemann, Endstation. Sehnsucht. Kapitalismus und Depression I, 9–36. Berlin: Alexander Verlag, 2000. Weinzierl, Ulrich. “Die neuen Südstaaten des alten Ostens.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 27 Jul 2000.

¡8 Samuel Beckett A Review Essay Anne Marie Drew Ackerley, C. J., and S.E. Gontarski. The Grove Companion to Samuel Beckett. New York: Grove Press, 2004. Pp. xxvii + 686. Paperback. $25.00. Cohn, Ruby. A Beckett Canon. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 200¡. Pp. 4¡6. Hardcover. $75.00. Paperback. $26.00. Hutchings, William. Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot: A Reference Guide. Westport: Praeger. 2005. Pp. xvi. +¡67. Hardcover. $ 99.95. Oppenheim, Lois. Ed. Palgrave Advances in Samuel Beckett Studies. London: Palgrave Macmillan. 2004. Pp. xii + 262. Hardcover. $75.00. Paperback. $ 22.95.

“Oh! Is that book any good?” my colleague asked, as she saw William Hutchings’s reference guide to Waiting for Godot sitting on my desk: “I love teaching that play, and I already have lots of notes on it but am always glad to have any help I can find.” I assured her that the Hutchings’s volume, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot: A Reference Guide, is spot-on. The volume is loaded with useful information. In his usual, a›ably intellectual manner, Hutchings imparts his knowledge about Beckett in ways that will appeal to both aficionado and scholar. In suggesting that his book is a “guide for the perplexed” (ix), Hutchings acknowledges the enduring dilemma of cracking the Godot code. He makes clear his own ongoing challenges with the play and o›ers several ways of looking at the text/script. He speaks to actors, directors, undergraduates, fellow scholars. The book is a decidedly useful one. With no apology, Hutchings titles Chapter ¡, “Summary,” and he promptly provides a detailed and thorough rendering of the “plot” of Waiting for Godot. More than one scholar or instructor, truth be told, will benefit from such a tool. Hutchings makes no futile and facile attempt to explain the play, nor does he suggest that Beckett’s work is ultimately knowable. However, in six chapters and a bibliographic essay, he sets forth some basic parameters that yield fruitful discussion and examination of the play. When another colleague saw Ruby Cohn’s A Beckett Canon mixed into 223

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the clutter on my desk, she picked up the volume and said, “I love Ruby Cohn. She’s a lifesaver.” The colleague went on to explain that once, as a teaching assistant, she’d been called upon to teach some esoteric, absurdist play, whose name and author she could no longer remember: “In desperation, I went to the library and accidentally stumbled onto an article by Ruby Cohn. The article helped me understand what was going on in the play, so I didn’t look like a complete idiot in front of my class.” Undoubtedly, Cohn’s A Beckett Canon will serve the same purpose for many, as yet, unidentified teachers. In her straightforward, matter-of-fact style, Cohn wends her way, as she says, “chronologically through Beckett’s works, gliding as he did from one genre to another, from one theme to another, from one wordscape to another. Whatever the limits of a chronological survey, it does bear testimony to Beckett’s writerly energy over a period of sixty years, even though he was paradoxically attracted to Dante’s slothful Belacqua” (¡). Cohn acknowledges that she is unaware of another volume of Beckett criticism that follows her chronological approach. Like Hutchings, she unashamedly admits that she writes for the uninitiated, as well as the scholar. While she does keep the reader ever mindful that she knew Beckett personally, she also opens the book with the acknowledgment that she had read nothing by Beckett when she stumbled upon the ¡953 production of En attendant Godot at the Théâtre de Babylone. Cohn’s chronological development is hindered by Beckett’s own disregard for exact record-keeping. As she explains, “Beckett is sometimes meticulous about dating his manuscripts, but at other times he neglects to do this, and at still other times he misremembers dates. Occasionally Beckett began one work while another was still incomplete, and he sometimes revised his plays when he directed them” (2). Still, for all the potential confusion such misremembering might generate, Cohn’s approach proves useful. In writing about a given text, she briefly places the work in context, explaining its place in the canon. She then articulates its central thematic and dramatic concerns, as well as the most relevant scholarly criticism. Perhaps most helpful is Cohn’s insistence that the whole canon be addressed. She does not limit herself to the plays or the novels. She references every known Beckettian work. Thus, those who are called upon to teach Beckett to undergraduates, as well as those who are working on their own Beckett scholarship will benefit from Cohn’s no-nonsense, down-to-earth thoroughness. The Ackerley and Gontarski volume, The Grove Companion to Samuel Beckett: A Reader’s Guide to His Works, Life, and Thought, claims a more ambitious goal than either the Hutchings or the Cohn volume. Ackerley and Gontarski assert, “our aim is to alter the way Beckett is read, or reread, and to suggest that Beckett’s work is not the exclusive domain of students and

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scholars as we comment on, even as we cannot completely resolve, some of the central cruxes, correspondences, and allusions that dominate his thought and art.” The authors seek to situate Beckett “within a tradition that spans classical to modernist ages” (xvi). They want readers to learn to read Beckett “again.” The authors’ approach reminds me of a day early on in my graduate studies when my dissertation advisor took me in hand and said, “You need to come and see me so I can teach you how to read Beckett.” I had just written a paper, as I recall, that answered all of the, to me, obvious questions raised in Endgame. My advisor jumbled up my certainty and made me understand that sometimes knowledge comes in the unknowing. Ackerley and Gontarski take “serious readers” in hand and attempt to train our minds to see Beckett as part of the larger tradition that he himself recognized. They argue that the ...humanist idea of authorship that Beckett both epitomized and felt imprisoned by was central to his creative makeup. He was among the last of the twentieth century major authors thoroughly immersed in canonical European literature, and his memory was nearly eidetic. His was an elite, Ascendancy, Anglo-Irish education that even Joyce envied, and one that he continued as an autodidact [xii].

In many ways, then, they argue that to see Beckett as sui generis is to do him a disservice. Their book begins with a very brief chronology, which serves as an interesting counterpoint incidentally to Cohn’s approach. The text itself then seeks to identify fully the major elements of a study of Beckett: his works; his influences; his allusions; his performance spaces; his characters; his habitats. A reader, for example, might look up the word “London” and discover, “SB lived in London for six weeks ( July-August ¡932) at 4 Ampton Street, o› Gray’s Inn Road, renting a room for ¡7/6 per week from Mrs. Southon (reassured, he commented to be so close to Free Hospital), then from Christmas ¡933 to late ¡935, scraping a living by occasional reviews and half heartedly looking for work” (322). Pretty nuts and bolts stu›, that. Further, one might look up “opopanax and assafoetida,” and learn they are “bad smelling gum resins used in the perfume industry. From Burton’s Anatomy ... and applied to Una bboggs in What a Misfortune” (423). The book’s great utility, it would seem, in addition to placing Beckett fully within a tradition, is its ability to identify and define a wide range of Beckettian terms and references. The authors suggest that the book’s “range of entries is designed to allow a reader to check on a word, allusion, or idea in the midst of reading, or to pause and contemplate in the longer, essay-length entries more complicated philosophical cruxes and historical oddities that Beckett cites and explores, or to wonder at the extent of his references to the

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Bible or Dante, to music and the visual arts” (xvi). The authors have succeeded in that goal and the text, while decidedly thorough and exact, is also invitingly user-friendly. One might easily spend a fruitful hour or two, spotreading the text, even without one of Beckett’s works nearby. The book is a handy reference tool. The Palgrave text provides the best type of challenge, positioning as it does Beckett’s works in a range of critical constructs. Even a cursory glance at the contents suggests the provocative ways in which Beckett is approached: “Feminist Readings of Beckett,” “Poststructuralist Readings of Beckett,” “Beckett and Homoeroticism,” “Beckett and Psychoanalysis.” However, there are the more traditional approaches as well: Gontarski’s essay on “Beckett and Performance”; Katharine Worth’s “Sources of Attraction to Beckett’s Theater.” Editor Lois Oppenheim does acknowledge, “the field of Beckett studies (still finding new directions today) can be overwhelming. This volume aims to assess its evolution and define the impact of the critical writings on our reading and viewing of Beckett’s work” (3). Further, she argues that the ...objectives of this guide ... di›er from previously published collections, however, in two significant ways: First, the over-riding e›ort is to demonstrate the usage of the various critical orientations.... And second, not only does it seek to reveal both the evolution of Beckett criticism and the most recent developments in Beckett studies, but the chapters ... are interrelational [3].

In his essay, “Beckett and Homoeroticism,” Peter Boxall asserts that the “consensus which dictated that masculinity in Beckett’s drama should be read merely as shorthand for our general condition has been challenged by those critics who prefer to think of him as o›ering a critique of the cultural and textual mechanics by which gender is produced....” He goes on to point out, nonetheless, that “Despite this increasing flexibility in approaches to ‘Beckettian man,’ however, he remains more or less as straight as ever” (¡¡¡). The essay forces readers to rethink some basic assumptions about Beckett’s work. The Palgrave volume has the decided advantage of o›ering an inviting range of critical approaches. Katharine Worth’s illuminating and straightforward discussion of the appeal of Beckettian theater stands next to Leslie Hill’s insightful discussion of poststructuralism. One need not read the volume essay by essay in order to benefit from its contents. Taken together these four books of Beckett scholarship provide a comfortably challenging starting point for an understanding and discussion of Beckett’s works. Someone struggling to pull together a course on Beckett for undergraduates will find great help in these works, for they are filled

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with the basic necessities to build such a course. Further, someone teaching a graduate seminar on Beckett will find ample points of departure. But, perhaps, the books’ greatest value comes in their simple ability to allow us to look at the works of Samuel Beckett in familiar yet provocative ways. Each book, in its own way, announces that any path to knowing Beckett has limitations. Yet each book also revels in the great wealth to be found along the paths. So, when my colleague caught a glimpse of the Hutchings’s volume and asked, “Oh! Is that any good?”— my answer to her will serve for all four of the books. “It’s very good indeed.” UNITED STATES NAVAL ACADEMY


Review of Literature: Selected Books say, literary criticism can also be performative in Austin’s sense. Worthen certainly concurs, since his book is so astute in its own readings of texts, but his announced thesis is that “the play’s the thing.” I do heartily agree with Worthen’s lament that literature departments today, even when they purport to be committed to “performance,” are too often oblivious to what Worthen calls the “banality” of practical theatre. Disciplinary boundaries do not encourage the yielding of turf, even in our postmodern era that touts the glories of interdisciplinarity. Beyond question, some literature departments downplay the importance of dramatic texts, let alone the pragmatics of theatre production. With the exception of Shakespeare, who transcends all boundaries, plays are substantially less a part of the curriculum in my own departments (English and Comparative Literature) than are fiction, poetry, discursive prose, and of course criticism. One is reminded of the mockery directed at Ben Jonson when he published his dramatic writings as Works in ¡6¡6. They are not works, his enemies mirthfully pointed out; they are plays. The bias goes back a long way — to Plato, for example. It is what Jonas Barish has christened the anti-theatrical prejudice. Worthen does not define theatrical

W. B. Worthen. Shakespeare and the Force of Modern Performance. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. 282. Hardcover $45, Paperback $¡6.99. W. B. Worthen is one of those admirable scholars and critics who comfortably span the worlds of theatre and literary studies. He is Chair of the Department of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also thoroughly versed in modern critical theory, and he knows how to talk about plays as texts. His main point, in fact, is that dramatic texts acquire meaning in performance, in the ever-changing world of theatre. Texts cannot generate meaning by themselves; they need the “force” of performance to find their potential. To this end, Worthen enlists the theoretical dimensions of performativity as delineated by J. L. Austin, Judith Butler, Jacques Derrida, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Andrew Parker, Elin Diamond, Sue-Ellen Case, Richard Schechner, and others, and then applies theory to the practical world of production today, not only on stage but also in film, video, and internet. To Worthen’s persuasive thesis I would add only that literary criticism and the exercise of critical reading can also vitalize the text and enable it to grow in an expanding vision of multiple meanings. That is to 229

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performance narrowly. It encompasses what happens in the theatre, but it also is part of what Stephen Greenblatt calls a circulation of energy, here involving the whole range of social and cultural forces to which theatre responds and, in turn, helps to shape. Technology has a massive impact on theatre; so too with publishing, sales, theatre reviews. Textbooks, even those that present more than one version of a given work like Hamlet, do not reproduce the firm identity of writing so much as they attest to the constantly changing shape of that writing. These are some of the reasons that Worthen undertakes to redefine performativity in such a way as to embrace not only the forms of writing to which performativity has paid such close attention but also the practices of performance. He invites and indeed urges us to see a stage performance as determined not by the text’s internal “meanings” but by the site of production and its surrounding culture. He chooses Shakespeare’s plays as ones for which modern attitudes about performativity have an unusually significant impact. He studies ways in which dramatic performativity can reorient our understanding of drama as a performance of history, as we move forward in the chronicles of theatre from Charles Kean to William Poel, Laurence Olivier, Kenneth Branagh, and Julie Taymor’s Titus. Worthen sees globalized Shakespeare today as the site of a continually evolving discourse about colonialism and race; more than any other dramatist, Shakespeare becomes “intercultural” in live performance. And, since Shakespeare is now distributed with everincreasing frequency on the internet and with capabilities for hypertext and hypermedia, Worthen invites us to consider how this technology a›ects the ways in which Shakespeare’s texts are

continually being reshaped and redefined. How is “Shakespeare” situated on the screen? As this last question suggests, “theatre” for Worthen means much more than stage performance; he tends to use “stage performance” as shorthand for the whole world of production in stage, screen, video, and internet. A striking choice in this lively book is Worthen’s decision to devote an entire chapter, one out of four after the Introduction, to performances and performativity at the new Globe in London. That theatre has been the subject of much controversy ever since Sam Wannamaker began drumming up support, many years ago, for as exact a replica of the old Globe as could be managed, and nearly on the original location. Several other Globe-like theatres have materialized in the past decades, of course, in Stratford, Canada, in Ashland, Oregon, in San Diego, in Stratford, Connecticut, and so on, but all of them are flexible renditions of an idea of the original theatre rather than historical replicas. They enjoy material advantages in being able to alter their stage structures while retaining such essential features as a thrust presentational stage, an acting area “above,” and the like. The new Globe, conversely, seems designed for historically reconstructed theatre; so much so that when the acting company has occasionally chosen instead to stage The Two Gentlemen of Verona, for example, in an Edwardian ambience of tea cups and croquet, the fit has seemed highly problematic. Yet would one wish to consign the space and its acting troupe to museum pieces? Clearly not! It is for reasons such as these, and not simply because of the very unfamiliarity of such a large platform stage nearly surrounded by spectators, that many distinguished actors of the RSC have been wary of performing there. The

Review of Literature (Bevington) place looks rather like a Disney theme park, and indeed attendance records indicate that today it is patronized in large part by tourists who pay a single visit to the Globe, as they might to the Tower of London, and then never return, having done that part of their visit to London. What a challenging site in which to explore the dimensions of performativity! What interests Worthen, and certainly fascinates me as he discusses the issue, is the gap between what purports to be the reconstruction of some original performance from 400 years ago (to the point of providing historically authentic underwear for the Globe’s opening production in ¡997 of Henry V) and the undeniable fact that a Globe production today is “a contemporary undertaking, one that evinces an understanding of the working of history that is fully our own, that shares our ways of understanding and performing the past” (8¡). We see at once why this paradox is central to Worthen’s design. He aligns himself with Richard Schechner’s valuable perception that what performance reproduces “is not an origin, but the illusion of originary behavior” (82). Performance, no matter how archival, is not simply a process of selecting and interpreting data to be memorialized; it is itself a behavior with its own dimensions of originality. Worthen sees Globe performances in precisely these terms. The place is, as Andrew Gurr has said, a “factory” for exploring the performances that are implicit in any given Shakespeare text (in Shakespeare’s Globe Rebuilt, ed. Ronnie Mulryne and Margaret Shewring, 34). Worthen’s delight in the crazy openness of the new Globe is infectious. He words it so well: the place “is a theme park, it is living history; it is a heritage site, it is urban redevelopment, it is participatory expe-

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rience” (84). As such, it is, above all else, theatre in the richest sense of that term. Of course, so then is Plimouth Plantation in Massachusetts with its Mayflower II, or Williamsburg, or Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum. All the world’s a stage, as somebody once said. But never mind. Worthen brilliantly makes his point that the new Globe, whether intentionally or not, interrogates what we mean by performativity. Michael Holden has shown an intense awareness of the potential benefits and risks of this self-reflexivity by threatening, when he was executive director of the new Globe, to evict any patron showing up in costume. One of the many strengths of Worthen’s book is its remarkable breadth. While the announced topic is Shakespeare in performance, the book ranges all over the world of theatre, as does Worthen’s successful The Wadsworth Antholog y of Drama (which I use in my teaching). Worthen is at home with Suzan-Lori Parks’s The America Play, George C. Wolfe’s The Colored Museum, Adrienne Kennedy’s Funnyhouse of a Negro, Joe Orton’s What the Butler Saw, The Performance Group’s Dionysus in 69, Ibsen’s When We Dead Awaken, Anne Bogart’s Going, Going, Gone, Top Hat, West Side Story, Moulin Rouge, Ariane Mnouchkine, Yukio Ninagawa, Tadashi Suzuki, and much more. The range of reference in performance theory is no less impressive. All this makes for a very readable book, thoughtful, challenging, entertaining. This book is itself quite a performance. DAVID BEVINGTON University of Chicago

Terry Eagleton. Sweet Violence: The Idea of the Tragic. Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003.

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Pp. xvii+328. Hardcover $62.95, Paperback $24.95. In Sweet Violence Terry Eagleton lives up to his university title of Professor of Cultural Theory. This long, complex, and politically engaged book is both a history of tragic theory and a meditation on what tragedy can mean in the modern world after the “megadeaths” of the twentieth century. Eagleton argues against conservative views of tragedy as “ascetic, elitist, sacrificial, hierarchical, anti-rationalist, spiritually absolutist, hostile to modernity” (272). In his first chapter, “A Theory in Ruins,” he methodically attacks such views, using Dorothea Krook’s Elements of Tragedy (¡969) as representative, but his object is more generally the (re)reading of Aristotle which views tragedy as uplifting, admires its heroes, and ignores the havoc and su›ering they cause and undergo. Eagleton, in contrast, is eager to identify himself as a radical and his project as an attempt to “save tragedy for the left.” He is especially suspicious of those who see tragedy as ennobling and don’t notice that much su›ering is not redemptive. Those certain of “The Value of Agony” (the title of the second chapter) he indicts as guilty of a “high flown sadism.” For Eagleton, tragedy requires a metaphysical, even theological investigation, raising questions of evil, of the presence or absence of cosmic order, of justice and freedom and the demonic. An important strand in the book is the parallel it claims for Christianity and Marxism, both of which “take the common life seriously, yet trust to its potential transformation.... It is the tragic which both Marxism and Christianity seek to redeem ... by installing themselves at the heart of it” (39–40). The book is not for beginners: Eagleton has apparently absorbed the en-

tire western philosophical tradition as well as tragedies from Aeschylus to John Arden, and tosses o› comments like “it is tragic theory which has struck heroic postures, not tragic practice. It is Hegel and Holderlin, not Ben Jonson and Edward Bond, who are entranced by an ideal of purity” (73). This quote exemplifies one of Eagleton’s main objections to his predecessors, namely that “many general theories of tragedy have been spun out of a mere two or three texts” (43). He traces the history of these theories from Hegel to Beckett, and then in chapters entitled “Heroes,” “Freedom, Fate and Justice,” and “Pity, Fear and Pleasure” deconstructs the major elements of the traditional definitions strand by strand. For readers of this journal it is important to note that Sweet Violence is not primarily a study of dramatic form; indeed, a major chapter of the book is “Tragedy and the Novel,” and Eagleton’s greatest admiration seems reserved for Thomas Mann, whose Magic Mountain, Dr Faustus, and The Holy Sinner are discussed extensively. Nevertheless there are fascinating excurses into Strindberg, Chekhov, and Ibsen; sudden illuminations of revenge drama; and important paragraphs on King Lear. Anyone who has ever taught tragedy has found herself explaining the di›erence between the literary and the everyday definitions: for most theorists of the form it is not “tragic” that the elderly lady passes away, despite ordinary language and student usage. Eagleton, in a typically radical countermove, takes seriously the everyday meaning, going so far as to claim that no definition of the term tragic more elaborate than “very sad” has ever worked. This is partly a consequence of political leveling : under democracy, which at least theoretically treats each individual as

Review of Literature (Gossett) “incommensurably treasured,” what can be viewed as tragic, the number of heroes and consequently of their potential tragedies, has multiplied: “It is easier to get rid of princes than to eradicate lethal accidents, flawed relationships, routine human breakdown and betrayal” (94– 96). It is harder to identify Eagleton’s own definition and description of the form than to admire his deconstruction of those given by others. Early in the book he points out a fundamental linguistic elision of ideas, whereby the term tragedy refers “at once to works of art, real-life events and world-views or structures of feeling” (9), and throughout he moves back and forth between these three concerns. Having repeatedly demonstrated ways in which literary tragedies violate one or another of the dicta of tragic theory (e.g. anagnorisis may hold for Oedipus, but “only doubtfully for Othello and hardly at all for ... Willy Loman” [5]), he invokes Wittgenstein’s concept of definition by “family resemblances,” that is, by overlapping features rather than by an unvarying identity, as the best way to avoid setting up unsustainably rigid criteria. In this regard it is odd that he never mentions Alastair Fowler’s Kinds of Literature, a more general study of genre similarly indebted to Wittgenstein. According to the “death of tragedy folk,” for whom Eagleton has illconcealed contempt, tragedy has vanished along with certain kinds of sacred and heroic values no longer in vogue. Eagleton himself believes that tragedy arises at times of “crucial sociopolitical formation” (for example, of the Renaissance nation state) and is an essentially transitional form, embodying a “skeptical faith” that reflects the crisis of order and the contradictions inherent in it. Yet in other periods, such as the present,

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tragedy’s concern with sacrifice and death, with evil and injustice, is not abandoned but merely transformed: “If tragedy matters to modernity, it is as much as a theodicy, a metaphysical humanism, a critique of Enlightenment, a displaced form of religion or a political nostalgia as it is a question of the slaying at the crossroads” (2¡). Moving easily between theoretical methods, Eagleton eventually o›ers a Lacanian definition: “tragedy portrays conflicts in the symbolic order — political strife, sexual betrayal and the like — with which we are invited, not least through pity, to make an imaginary identification; but this imaginary relation is disrupted by fear, which is to say by the intrusion of the Real. Only relationships based on a mutual recognition of the Real — of the terrif yingly inhuman installed at the core of the other and oneself, for which one name is the death drive — will be able to prosper” (¡64–¡65). Eagleton’s purposes in redefining and reevaluating tragedy are openly political; to trace “an improbable itinerary from the fertility cult to political revolution” (275). In the final chapter of the book, entitled “Thomas Mann’s Hedgehog,” he invites those “on the left” to find a radical use for the concepts of su›ering and self-abandonment developed in the tragedies of myth and religion. Examining at length the meaning and the many manifestations of the pharmakos or scapegoat (Oedipus, Christ, Lear; Mann’s Gregorius, Hester Prynne, Bartleby the Scrivener), he argues that post-modern theory needs to look beyond its obsession with the abject and excluded to the constructive role of building a new social order. Like tragedy, it must accept dismemberment for renewal: “The structure of a world increasingly governed by the greed of transnational corporations is one which

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has to be broken in order to be repaired. If this is the lesson of the pharmakos, it is also the faith of political revolution” (296). Tragedy is anything but dead in our world; Eagleton gives us new ways to think about it. SUZANNE GOSSETT Loyola University Chicago

Stephen Greenblatt. Will in the World. How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare. New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2004. Pp. 430. Hardcover $26.95. In the January 2005 issue of the Attaché, the US Airways in-flight magazine (for business travelers, mostly), I was surprised to find a review of Stephen Greenblatt’s new biography of Shakespeare, Will in the World. How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare. In it, Daniel Gross explains that Shakespeare has “plenty to tell us about management” and that Greenblatt’s book “shows that Shakespeare’s conduct of his personal business and his financial a›airs holds lessons for contemporary readers — whether we are aspiring playwrights or seasoned accountants.” Indeed, Greenblatt’s new book was on the New York Times best-seller list for nine weeks; given its popularity, it was widely reviewed, and controversy ensued over its methodology and purpose. Will in the World was declared, also by The New York Times, one of the ten best books of 2004, and, only a few months after its publication, acquired the status of a classic, appropriate to its subject, Shakespeare, and inclusive of di›erent critics’ interpretations and disagreements that are part of a classic’s fabric. Adam Gopnik, for example, writes in the New Yorker that “the life and works of a man whose life is so plain and whose works are so fancy produces

the kind of book that belongs less to a scholarly genre than to a performing genre, a hoop for a scholar to jump through when he no longer has anything to prove....” And Colm Toibin in The New York Times contends that “it is very di‡cult to connect any of the events in Shakespeare’s personal life with his works.” Will in the World is divided into twelve chapters of almost straight chronology, interspersed with descriptions of and commentary on Elizabethan culture, with analyses of several plays, and with cultural connections to the characters in the plays. It begins with the school Shakespeare attends, the school plays done there, and his learning Latin, followed by a description of what Shakespeare might have seen out in the town, including mystery and morality plays, folk performances, and the spectacles surrounding the queen’s visit to the area. At the end of the first chapter, Greenblatt introduces part of his methodology: in his work, Shakespeare draws deeply upon his everyday life experiences, which he includes in his plays. “He loved,” Greenblatt suggests, “to reveal the presence of ordinariness in the midst of the extraordinary” (388). The narrative continues with how Shakespeare helps his father in the glovemaking business and becomes aware of his father’s (a Catholic) problems with the Protestant church. Without “psychologizing” his subject, Greenblatt explains that the father’s drinking influences the creation of such characters as Falsta› and that, after Shakespeare’s wedding at a young age to a woman older than himself, and after having his first child, Shakespeare tries to restore his identity in accordance with the family motto on the coat of arms that he himself purchases: “not without right.” In chapter three, Greenblatt pro-

Review of Literature (Gounaridou) ceeds with a fascinating description of Elizabethan culture, with its cruelty, theatricality, and danger, as well as vivid explanations of how this culture finds its way into some of the tragedies, such as Romeo and Juliet. Greenblatt continues with Shakespeare’s move from Stratford, where he leaves his family, to London, where his new experiences include meeting playwrights, like Marlowe, and actors, watching public executions, and observing the beautiful architecture of London. He has two more children with his wife, Anne Hathaway, but his relationship with her deteriorates to the point that, Greenblatt believes, Lady Macbeth is in part modeled on this experience. On the other hand, when his son, Hamnet, dies, he leaves a very deep wound in Shakespeare’s spirit, with which Shakespeare deals years later, when he writes Hamlet, nevertheless preceded by many of the comedies. Chapter nine is Greenblatt’s analysis of The Merchant of Venice and of Shylock’s character. In many ways, this chapter is a fine example of Greenblatt’s methodology, of how he uses the biographical information in the understanding and analysis of a play. Greenblatt’s insight into Shylock’s life reveals Shylock’s earthiness and humanity, his “imaginative generosity,” as distinct from a character who is larger than life and invested with “Marlovian irony” (287). By ¡597, Shakespeare is a successful playwright in London, and with the money he earns he buys his family a new house in Stratford and more real estate in London. His father dies in ¡60¡ and Queen Elizabeth in ¡603. Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth belong to this period, which Greenblatt calls Shakespeare’s breakthrough period, a period of “intense representation of inwardness,” “inner structure,” and “opacity” (323, 354). As an example, Green-

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blatt explains that in Macbeth there are no answers, only the power of the implication that the audience can never be quite done with the witches, who embody the principle of “opacity.” The last chapter discusses Shakespeare’s experiential sources for King Lear, who, Greenblatt observes, is self-made like Shakespeare himself. Greenblatt also describes Shakespeare’s last years, during which he moves back to Stratford, where he maintains his relationship with one of his daughters, Susanna, and her doctor husband, and where he dies in ¡6¡6. Will in the World, as Greenblatt said, is indeed a “sly work of New Historicism.” One of the most important figures in New Historicism, Greenblatt uses a methodology with contemporary literary biography that seeks to place and interpret works of literature in their social, political, religious, and cultural contexts, in order to illuminate the works. But it also seeks, as Rachel Donadio’s telephone conversation with Greenblatt in The New York Times shows, “[to] come out of the other side of what new historicists and postmodernists understood, which is that lives aren’t simply given, that they are fashioned — fashioned by people as they live them and fashioned by us.... The life of the author isn’t an inert background to the works. The life is part of what the author is transforming into his or her own achievement.” Greenblatt does in the book exactly what he says: he gives a fascinating account of how Elizabethan culture, theatre, and history, as well as the events of Shakespeare’s life influenced him into writing what he wrote, and made Shakespeare Shakespeare. The only thing I will add to this is that the afterlives of Shakespeare’s works, as Peter Holland also notices in The New York Review, that is, all the ways in which Shakespeare was inter-

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preted and performed in di›erent historical periods and di›erent cultures, are also part of our experience of how we understand Shakespeare’s plays, of how Shakespeare became Shakespeare to us. Greenblatt has written a book of superb scholarship and subtle method combined with popular appeal. His method is well-matched to his subject matter in many ways, in fact entwined with it, as is not uncommon in new historical writing ; and as he relates the broader culture of Shakespeare’s time to his works, so does he relate the broader culture of our own time back to Shakespeare. By virtue of its popularity, the book itself is enacting, in what one might well call a performative manner, one of the most remarkable aspects of its subject: it appeals and has gained access to a wide and diverse audience. KIKI GOUNARIDOU Smith College

Errol G. Hill and James V. Hatch, eds. A History of African American Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. 608, Ill. Hardcover $¡0¡.00, Paperback $36.00. My first recollection of the meaning of “gospel” comes from listening to one of my father’s sermons. According to him, the gospel was the “good news” according to the New Testament of the Christian Bible. While the word has been used in many other contexts to connote the same authority derived from the Bible, I prefer my father’s definition. For me, it seems as if a whole bunch of people are standing around waiting for something — anything positive, in an otherwise gloomy existence. Upon hearing the good news, the longsu›ering people can get on with their lives in the knowledge that something good was going to happen to them.

Within the world of African American drama, I feel like one of the people awaiting the second coming. Amongst many “American black folk” (my students and other members of my southern community), drama is either what “white people do” or anything produced by Tyler Perry, the African American entrepreneur of the Madea franchise. After watching the Antoinette Perry Awards or analyzing Perry’s box o‡ce, I am hard pressed to disagree. Amongst “drama folk” (my academic colleagues across the nation), African American drama has been an educated shorthand to discuss Eugene O’Neill or Harriet Beecher Stowe. My more progressive colleagues might include Lorraine Hansberry, then make a giant leap to August Wilson, Anna Deveare Smith, and Suzan-Lori Parks. Depending on the conversation, I might as well be speaking Ubbi Dubbi, like the precocious children on Public Television’s Zoom. If I sound like an angry black man in the 2¡st century, perhaps I am. As an African American male in the current century, I had made a broad assumption that I no longer had to justify my humanity or existence before I spoke. Indeed, the mystical memo from the Head Negro in Charge (HNIC), which instructs me on how to be a black scholar, clearly states that justification, articulate speech, and a hint of violence are prerequisites for discussing African American artistic expression. No excuses, here. To be black in the United States, there is always a little anger to spread around for all my fellow Americans. A History of African American Theatre, edited by Errol G. Hill and James V. Hatch, has been like an apocryphal gospel sent from above to quell the anger in my heart. I do not doubt the authorship or authenticity of the docu-

Review of Literature (Harris) ment. I use “apocryphal” in the sense that this history is “non-canonical” and thereby must exist outside the scope of American theatre history. How can this be? How can a work so catholic (little c, little c!) in its scope be one of the first to capture so much of what is missing in American theatre research and pedagogy? Here it is: American theatre writ large — and black! In reading it, I fought feelings of holiness joy and Vesuvian anger. Here was the volume that records theatre history by people who looked like me. The anger stems from not having this volume sooner. For anyone wondering why educated black folks still get angry in the 2¡st century, the process of reading this book provides evidence. The beginning chapters feel like reading Genesis: In the beginning there was black drama and it was good. The stories concerning William Brown and Ira Aldridge are comfort food that settles my stomach before reading about Harriet Beecher Stowe and Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In this early phase of American drama, pioneer stories of early black dramatists overcoming incredible obstacles to express their artistic humanity make sense. Unfortunately, the struggle of this new frontier became the rule. Professor Hill has covered this ground before in other works, but here in one volume he reiterates the “always already” notion that black people were witness to the creation of American identity. When the authors engage and review how Tom Shows and American minstrelsy forever changed American popular entertainment and damned black representations with the uneasy alliance with uncritical consumption of black representation, the indictment is based in the possibilities of dreams later deferred. Between the Civil War and the

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First World War, black artists were at a crucial stage of evolution. Poised to seize control of their collective image, many black artists and managers began the di‡cult cultural work of defining group identities and depictions. However, the process of working in an existing system proved a double-edged sword. To excel in the popular cultural marketplace of their day, this generation of entertainment industry blacks lifted minstrelsy to a high art and yet were tethered by the e›ort. Despite o›ering the American public a “fresh and alternative entertainment,” black artists interacted with an audience who did not wish to see the realities of black life: “Blacks had abandoned the pejorative label, but the public had grown up with ‘minstrel’” (¡34). In the process of making limited business successes, they succeeded in solidifying the form. In painstaking detail, Professors Hill and Hatch retrace this history, chronicling the rough and low along with the high and mighty. In the chapter on Educational Theatre, the authors reveal the workings of drama departments in HBCUs (historically black colleges and universities). The black faculty of institutions such as Atlanta University, Howard University, North Carolina A&T, and Fayetteville State Universities created organizations such as the Negro Intercollegiate Association (NIDA) and the Southern Association of Dramatic and Speech Arts (SADSA). NIDA emphasized the folk traditions in facilitating interest in drama among its member institutions. On a slightly di›erent track, SADSA focused on both black middle-class and folk drama, playwriting on both black and non-black topics, and promoting “a desirable attitude ... among Negroes towards plays of Negro life” (263). For blacks who went to college and participated in college dramatics, the early ed-

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ucators fostered the love of craft (acting, directing, playwriting, and stagecraft) in addition to building a firm foundation for racial identity formation. From their point of view, non-blacks did not own the value of live performance. They taught their students that live performance (from a variety of methodologies such as church theatre, reader’s theatre, and pageantry) was essential to culture formation amongst African Americans. Any historical analysis loses meaning if not tied to a specific future. A History recognizes the entirety of black literary traditions by examining how black performers contribute to and change the American theatrical landscape. The final essays begin exploration of Hip Hop’s influence on current black experience and how black theatre will evolve with the changing complexities of black life. This volume responds to societal need by recognizing the scope of black contributions to American performance. In fifteen chapters, the book covers the scope of performance tradition from the African Theatre in ¡822 to the economic health of African American theatre companies in the 2¡st century. Although each author has a personal writing style, each chapter reflects painstaking research and reflection. The subsequent chapters capture the mirrors surrounding an Ellisonian Invisible Man. Whether in the blossoming film industry, in the universities, or in other countries, black men and women created, performed, and gave their fellow citizens the best of what a black artist could imagine. In almost all cases, such artistry was consumed without so much as a “thank you” or footnote in recorded historical memory. While leading artists receive national accolades for contributions to contemporary life, the United States performance and literary landscape is

still in a state of firsts. Suzan-Lori Parks is the first African American woman dramatist to win a Pulitzer. On becoming the first African American to win a best actress Tony Award, Phylicia Rashad commented on the “tremendous self-e›ort and amazing grace,” which marked her path to national recognition by the American theatre community. The successes of both women are tempered by the knowledge of the many who toiled in the fields of the Lord without appropriate recognition from either commercial enterprises, the academy or the society at large. The Hill and Hatch volume is a prolific, significant, and nourishing meal. However, African American dramatic history is not a feast on a cultural tour. The information recorded here comprises the essential vitamins and minerals of American cultural life. African American cultural history is intrinsic to American cultural identity. With this volume, Professors Hill and Hatch have truly written the book of Genesis of American Theatre History. JOHN ROGERS HARRIS The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Penny Farfan. Women, Modernism, & Performance. Cambridge and New York : Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. xi + ¡7¡. Hardcover. $75.00. Seeking to remedy both “the common neglect of drama in accounts of modernism” (¡¡6) as well as the “the omission of women from accounts of modern theatre history” (¡¡7), Farfan has produced a text that, while alive to the “diverse and sometimes conflicting voices” of “feminist-modernist discourse through and about performance” (4), nonetheless establishes recognizable leitmotifs that serve to orchestrate these

Review of Literature (Meszaros) voices. The overall e›ect for this reader is pleasingly polyphonic and contrapuntal. Farfan claims that each chapter can “stand on [its] own as [an] independent essay” but that the chapters are “also related to each other in a kind of relay structure” (6). This claim is accurate in the main, though it should be noted that the reader who is content to sample a single chapter will lose a great deal. Indeed, one of the strengths of this concise study is its adroit manipulation of several intertwined skeins of thought, mirroring the intertwined lives of the women who are its subject — Elizabeth Robins, Ellen Terry, Virginia Woolf, Djuna Barnes, Isadora Duncan, to name a few. Readers willing to embrace a multidisciplinary, “maximalist” approach to the study of modern drama will be intrigued and challenged by this wellresearched book (¡¡7). Chapter one, devoted to the career and writings of actress, writer, and su›ragist Elizabeth Robins, traces Robins’s conflicted relationship with the work of Henrik Ibsen. On the one hand, as an actress, Robins relished the opportunity to play Hedda Gabler and to escape the uninspiring hack work to which most actresses of the day were consigned. In fact, Farfan believes that Robins regarded Hedda as the role of her life, the “defining moment of her long and varied career” (¡2). As Robins turned increasingly to writing, however, disenchantment with “the Master” began to manifest itself. Farfan argues that Robins eventually undertook a “feminist critique of Ibsen,” and came to espouse the position that Ibsen was not able to articulate an active feminist consciousness — in other words, his female characters can do nothing but su›er dumb rage (¡2). These afterthoughts, combined with a deepening involve-

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ment with the su›rage cause, led Robins to write and produce Votes for Women as a “revision” of Ibsen’s drama (23). Farfan readily discerns the value of Votes for Women as e›ective su›ragist propaganda, but she also acknowledges the play’s cloying sentimentality. Ultimately, Robins’s heroine is a fluent mouthpiece for the cause, but as a theatrical character, she is conventional and dull, no match for the brilliantly “corrosive” Hedda (33). Thus, while Robins recognized the limitations of “even the most sophisticated of male-authored characterizations of women,” she was unable to craft a theatrically compelling alternative (33). The figure of Ibsen remains a presence in chapter two, which focuses on Ellen Terry’s contributions to “emergent feminine discourse through and about theatre” (46). Unlike Robins, Terry thoroughly disliked Ibsen’s work — to her mind, Hedda Gabler was merely “silly” (34). According to Farfan, Terry regarded Shakespeare’s comic heroines as “more appropriate to a feminist vision than Ibsen’s tragic realism” (36). For Terry, Shakespeare’s comic heroines demonstrate what Farfan calls the “protofeminis[m]” of their creator whereas creatures such as Hedda Gabler are merely grimy and uninspiring (7). Farfan is attentive not only to Terry as performer (she discusses at some length Terry’s “revisionist” [39] interpretation of Lady Macbeth) but also as writer: Terry’s lectures on Shakespeare’s women coincided with the su›rage campaign and were attended by a predominantly female audience, thus enabling Farfan to claim that they “had something of the quality of feminist events” (45). Even as Terry remained very much at the mercy of the actor-manager system of commercial theatre, the system that Robins deplored, she came to signify for many

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feminists both of her day and later the liberating potential of “a more perfect future” (48). Two chapters, surprisingly, are devoted to Virginia Woolf— certainly, one rarely associates Woolf with theatre and performance. In fact, Farfan characterizes Woolf as “a gauche though happy intruder” in the “unfamiliar realm” of performance discourse and playwriting (62). Significant attention is paid to Woolf ’s sole play, Freshwater (in which Ellen Terry figures as the central character), her final novel, Between the Acts, her reviews of productions of The Cherry Orchard and Twelfth Night, as well as reviews of biographies and memoirs of famous women of the stage. Close analysis of these various works leads Farfan to conclude that Woolf on the one hand “idealized the stage” (50), but on the other, like Robins, believed that actresses could not fully come into their own due to “the omissions of the maledominated literary canon that are the e›ects of its traditional exclusion of women writers”(59). (The stranglehold of melodrama, albeit weakening, and the actor-manager system were likewise contributing factors.) Farfan portrays Woolf as a novelist who came to perceive the stage as more powerful than any fiction in its corporeal immediacy, its ability to revise audience perceptions. An actor, writes Woolf, “cuts deeper to the bone” than any character in a novel (98). As Farfan notes, Judith Shakespeare (A Room of One’s Own) wants to be an actress, not a writer. Taking her cue from the famous obscenity trials of such modernist novels as Ulysses, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and The Well of Loneliness, Farfan turns to Djuna Barnes’s The Dove and the representation of an “autonomous female sexuality” (72). Farfan reads Barnes’s play as a parody of Hedda Gabler as well as a

feminist critique of “a male-dominated representational system” and “conventional gender politics” (72). The argument here is interesting in its own right, but less lucid and penetrating than other portions of the book. This chapter concludes with a discussion of Edith Craig (Ellen Terry’s daughter) and the su›rage drama A Pageant of Great Women (inspired in part by Robins’s Votes for Women). Farfan believes that even as mainstream su›ragists took care to disassociate political emancipation from sexual emancipation, the entanglement was inevitable. Ostensibly a su›ragist drama, A Pageant of Great Women used performance “to make visible a newly emerging lesbian identity” (82). Farfan’s final chapter takes up the career, performance theories, and untimely death of Isadora Duncan (killed in a freak automobile accident). Farfan is at her best in her skilled analysis of the cultural reworking of Duncan’s accidental death as an object lesson for the female artist. Farfan points out what should be obvious but unfortunately isn’t — that Duncan’s death was purely “accidental and intentionally expressive of nothing, despite its seeming ‘tragic rightness’” (¡09). The chapter concludes by urging us to read Duncan as a success story and to focus on her real accomplishments rather than on the posthumous popular image. (In many ways, this chapter is the most satisfying in its deconstruction of the biopic Isadora by Karel Reisz.) By presenting female performance artists (and even a novelist) as thoughtful theorists of the modern stage, Farfan has provided a much-needed addendum to Eric Bentley’s classic (but malevoiced) collection The Theory of the Modern Stage. As Farfan herself admits, no progressively developed, univocal, linear thesis is possible, given the diver-

Review of Literature (Nesmith) sity of the voices to which she patiently and attentively listens. Even so, the book makes a strong case that, collectively considered, these modern female artists were consciously preparing that “more perfect future” (48 ), a performance arena in which today’s feminist performers and writers are much freer to interrogate and revise “the hegemonic cultural script that denies women status as authoritative subjects” (9–¡0). Today, “Shakespeare’s Sister” might — just might — have a fighting chance. M. BETH MESZAROS Drexel University

Harry J. Elam, Jr. The Past as Present in the Drama of August Wilson. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004. Hardcover $60. Despite the prolific output of American dramatists over the past twenty-five years, only a few have created substantial works worthy of comprehensive critical appraisal. No one deserves scholarly attention more than two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner August Wilson — particularly in light of his recent death. There is no better scholar to tackle Wilson’s oeuvre and murky politics than Harry J. Elam, Jr., who has acted in, directed, written about, and taught Wilson’s plays for nearly two decades. In The Past as Present in The Drama of August Wilson, Elam contextualizes Wilson’s hermeneutics while keeping the focus on how Wilson’s dramaturgy historicizes the African American experience. Before Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom opened on Broadway in ¡984 and catapulted Wilson to preeminence, Frank Rich declared that “Mr. Wilson is a major find for the American theater” (¡984: C¡9). It was not long before Wilson’s self-imposed enterprise to write a

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play for each decade of the twentieth century, documenting the experiences of African Americans, garnered attention. His ten-play cycle is now complete, and Wilson has accomplished perhaps the most impressive conquest in the American theatre over the latter half of the twentieth century. Elam, relying on nine of the plays, states, “I intend this analysis not only to provide insight into the individual plays but, more significantly, to explore how the cycle as a whole makes meaning and to theorize how Wilson (w)rights history” (xv). (Radio Golf, the tenth play, premiered in April 2005 after the book’s publication.) At the start of the book (The Overture: “To Disembark”), Elam presents divergent images from Glen Ligon, Suzan-Lori Parks, Robert O’Hara, and Toni Morrison not only to reveal “the interconnections between the African American past and the present” (ix) in their works, but also to reveal a connectedness to Wilson. This sets up his argument that “the creation of his [Wilson’s] twentieth-century cycle of plays does not happen in a vacuum, but within a confluence of artistic creation that includes visual, literary, and dramatic texts” (ix). Elam’s ability to select sagaciously from across disciplines is one of the book’s central strengths. Robert O’Meally, Pierre Nora, Margaret Wilkerson, Hortense Spillers, and Wole Soyinka are only several writers whom Elam invokes to advance his arguments. The crux of Elam’s argument rests on the foundation that Wilson’s plays in the (w)righting-history cycle (his term “(w)righting” serves as a ri› on writing, righting, right, and rites) “embrace the legacy of slavery, celebrate the African retentions that remain within African American cultural practices, and acknowledge the psychological scars that still endure” while simultaneously re-

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vealing an “African American continuum that is always in process, stretching back into Africa and reaching into the future” (xix). Elam continues, postulating that “Wilson seeks to ‘right’ and remake American history by recuperating African American narratives that have been erased, avoided, or ignored” (4). It is clear early in the text that history serves as a conduit in Wilson’s dramaturgy. In the Introduction, “(W)righting History: A Meditation in Four Beats,” Elam reveals how the “past and present, history and meaning, and ritual and reality all collide” (¡) in Wilson’s dramas. Wilson admits that his plays are not “necessarily historically accurate” (¡), yet he claims to o›er historical depictions of African Americans by embodying their ideas, attitudes, belief systems, and cultural values. It matters not if the focus is on the Juba dancing in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, or why the ham is stolen from Lutz’s Butcher Shop in Two Trains Running, or the symbolic meaning of the piano in The Piano Lesson, history is the force via which meanings are negotiated. Elam augments his argument here with heavy artillery, using everyone from Walter Benjamin to Alan Nadel. Suzan-Lori Parks o›ers support : “I don’t see any history out there, so I’ve made up some” (9). Obviously Elam, countering the traditional approach to history, advocates a postmodern approach. However, the distinction between fictional narrative and factual narrative certainly extends back to Aristotle, who argued that fiction deals with general truth and history with specific events. Thus, Wilson’s plays do not guarantee veracity; Wilson himself claims that his works lend themselves more to fiction than historicity. Furthermore, if Wilson’s dramatic cycle is to fall under history, what

is to be made of Charles Fuller’s We cycle (a series of five plays that o›ers a traditional approach to history in its dramatization of facts about African Americans from the Civil War to the turn of the century)? What happens in those instances when Wilson’s history contradicts historical truth? My principal reservation about this section is that Elam allows Wilson to dictate his terms and establish his boundaries. Fictional narrative and factual narrative behave di›erently towards the material, and this deserves consideration in Elam’s argument. Early on Elam states that the book’s organization centers “around key questions and critical thematic issues that evolve through his [Wilson’s] dramaturgy” (xv). In Chapter ¡ (“The Music Is the Message”), Elam explores how music as a carrier of cultural literacy, particularly the blues, informs the socio-historical matrices in Wilson’s texts while maintaining the cathartic power to transcend brutal and painful experiences. This section does not stop with an examination of how the music contextualizes the various texts; it also explores the musicality of Wilson’s dialogue. Elam argues that “a Wilson play requires actors who have the acumen for Wilson-speak and his specific formalism” (36). (There are stories of actors failing to hurdle what Elam refers to as Wilson-speak.) This brings up another strength of the book: Elam provides invaluable insights for actors preparing for Wilson’s plays, and the discussion of the relationship between text and performance is dispersed throughout the book. Elam uses the premise of music as a transformer to bridge into Chapter 2 (“Fools and Babes”). Gabriel (Fences), Hedley (Seven Guitars), Hambone (Two Trains Running), and Stool Pigeon (King

Review of Literature (Nesmith) Hedley II) are several of the characters used to support the argument that madness in the plays “results from symbolic confrontations with white power structures” (64). While this racial madness (which is tied to the Du Boisian double consciousness) has left psychological scars, Elam concludes that Wilson attempts to heal his characters. Raynell (Fences) and Zonia (Joe Turner’s Come and Gone) exemplify how children serve as catalysts for major lifechanging decisions while reflecting on their own growth. Finally, Elam concludes this chapter with “The Sacrificial King,” arguing that a man-child king (specifically King in King Hedley II) “represents a generation of black children unable to thrive in their kingdoms in the self-destructive ¡980s” (82). “The Woman Question” (Chapter 3) is where Elam takes up the role of gender, rightfully acknowledging that the “Woman question in Wilson is much more complicated” (88) than most of Wilson’s critics will concede. Still, Elam admits that “their contradictory positions in relationship to men, their lack of voice and their insu‡cient character development, can also undermine his women’s potential to articulate agency or female empowerment” (9¡). Situating Wilson’s women in the blues paradigm, Elam uses various feminist critics (Angela Davis, Hazel Carby, among others) to show how Wilson’s women found ways to express female empowerment within the confines of male dominance. Chapter 4 (“Men of August”) is an extension of the previous chapter, exploring the empowerment of the black male. Whereas Wilson is castigated for insu‡ciently developing black women characters, Elam declares that part of Wilson’s malecentric dramaturgy is “to re-present black masculinity so that it becomes a site of self-

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determination, pride, self-respect, and historical consciousness” (¡28). In Chapter 5 (“Ogun in Pittsburgh: Resurrecting the Spirit”), Elam explores the role of spirituality, religiosity, rituals, blood memory, and the supernatural. When Loomis slashes his chest with a knife (Joe Turner’s Come and Gone), or Levee demands the presence of God (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom), or Avery exorcises the spirits (The Piano Lesson), Elam argues, “...Wilson unearths African retentions that dwell beneath black American experiences. He refigures African American spirituality, fusing the African with the American in a distinct form that celebrates a sense of spiritual self-definition and inner selfdetermination, a secular, sacred, and visual expression of ‘song’” (¡7¡). Elam continues in this vein by revealing how Wilson connects Yoruba cosmology to Christianity, which binds Africa to America. Most of Chapter 6 (“The Rhetoric of Resistance by Way of Conclusion”) considers Wilson’s historical ¡996 keynote address to theatre professionals at the Theatre Communications Group Conference. Elam examines Wilson’s speech, “The Ground on which I Stand,” in the context of the politics of the Black Arts Movement of the ¡960s. Wilson’s politics and cultural aesthetic expressed in “The Ground on which I Stand” did not sit well with critic Robert Brustein, who challenged Wilson on many of his positions. The clash between the two led to the notable Wilson/Brustein debate at the Town Hall in New York City (¡997), where the two argued over a variety of issues, ranging from the employment of African Americans in the theatre to color-blind casting. Elam dissects the debate, teasing through the strengths and weaknesses of both Wilson and Brustein. He then

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fleshes out the argument, particularly with comments from Michael Awkward and Manning Marable, before concluding that “The cross-cultural popularity of all of his plays to date challenges his own premise” (2¡9). Wilson’s cycle relies on history and is itself history-making. Elam convincingly shows how Wilson uses history to (w)right history, and thereby o›ers an important and timely contribution to our understanding of Wilson and his place in American dramatic literature.

Reference Rich, Frank. “Theater: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” The New York Times (¡¡ April ¡984): C¡9.

N. GRAHAM NESMITH Columbia University

Edith Hall, Fiona Macintosh, and Amanda Wrigley, eds. Dionysus Since 69: Greek Tragedy at the Dawn of the Third Millennium. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Pp. xix + 480. Paperback $35:00. This tetrapartite volume contains fourteen thought-provoking essays by leading scholars on various intersections between ancient Greek tragedy and modern film, stage plays, and operas since ¡969. This date was chosen because of “the reawakening of interest in Greek tragedy” (¡) that Hall claims took place following the production of Richard Schechner’s Dionysus in 69 in New York City. This volume, whose primary audience will be other scholars interested in classical drama, will encourage its readers to learn more about modern productions that remain virtually unknown to all but the most avid theatre patrons of London, Munich, and New York.

The book’s first section, “Dionysus and the Sex War,” begins with Froma Zeitlin’s “Dionysus in 69.” Zeitlin, who attended Schechner’s play, discusses how Euripides’ Bacchae fit in with the social and political context of the time. Zeitlin reports on the staging of Schechner’s work (in which the performers and sometimes even audience members were nude), the views of Schechner and some of the actors about Dionysus in 69, and the play’s “various techniques and choices, and their implications” (64). Helene Foley’s article, “Bad Women: Gender Politics in Late Twentieth-Century Performance and Revision of Greek Tragedy,” takes part of its title from a 2002 production, Bad Women, in which six performers played Agave, Cassandra, Clytemnestra, Deianeira, Medea, and Phaedra. Most of the essay discusses modern revisions of the myths of Oedipus and Jocasta, performances of Greek tragedies in which the cast was “all-male, variously cross-dressed, or more rarely, all-female” (89), and “[o]ther contemporary productions or revisions of the originals [that] have used Greek tragedy to explore and question di›erent gender issues” (¡03). The title of Kathleen Riley’s “Heracles as Dr. Strangelove and GI Joe” is a bit misleading as the essay touches but briefly on Dr. Strangelove. Riley compares and contrasts Euripides’s Heracles with Archibald MacLeish’s Herakles (¡965) and Simon Armitage’s Mister Herakles (200¡). Whereas MacLeish’s Herakles did not receive critical approval, Armitage’s play, in which Heracles appears as an AWOL astronaut, succeeded and Mister Herakles exhibits the sort of trauma highlighted in Jonathan Shay’s Achilles in Vietnam. The work’s second section, entitled

Review of Literature (Thorburn) “Dionysus in Politics,” opens with Oliver Taplin’s “Sophocles’ Philoctetes, Seamus Heaney’s, and Some Other Recent Half-Rhymes.” Taplin discusses various modern productions and adaptations of Sophocles’ Philoctetes. In addition to Heaney’s The Cure at Troy, Taplin gives significant attention to Heiner Müller’s Philoktet (¡968), Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Three Birds Alighting on a Field (¡99¡)— a play with Sophoclean resonances and which “exposes and satirizes the commercialization and conceptualization of the art market”—, and Derek Walcott’s epic poem Omeros (¡990), in which the figure of Philoctetes plays a role. In “Aeschylus, Race, Class, and War in the ¡990s,” Edith Hall, writing before the attacks of ¡¡ September 200¡, considers modern adaptations of Greek tragedy (particularly Aeschylean and Sophoclean tragedy) against the global political backdrop of the previous forty years. Hall concentrates on Peter Sellars’s The Persians (¡993), which “fundamentally challenged the American image of the ordinary people on the enemy side in the Gulf War” (¡77). Although the modern play showed the barbarity of Saddam Hussein, the play also confronted Americans with “how much their nation was hated” (¡8¡). Additionally, Hall discusses Tony Harrison’s film Prometheus (¡998), which treats the conflict between the British government and striking miners in the ¡970s and ¡980s. In Pantelis Michelakis’s “Greek Tragedy in Cinema: Theatre, Politics, History,” the author studies how “the landscape of film adaptations of Greek tragedy has changed” and “propose[s] some ways in which the shifts in focus and direction manifested in these films can be related to the distinctive and always interrelated aesthetic and political

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contexts of the ¡980s and ¡990s” (200). Michelakis’s study draws upon numerous productions such as Brian De Palma’s Dionysus in 69, Catherine Vilpoux’s The Perjured City, or the Awakening of the Furies (¡999), Mario Martone’s Rehearsals for War (¡998), and Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet’s film version of Antigone (¡992). In “Greek Drama and AntiColonialism: Decolonizing Classics,” Lorna Hardwick examines “recent drama which has grown from or been performed in Caribbean and African contexts” (2¡9). Receiving most of Hardwick’s attention is the following: an adaptation of Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes, originally translated into Spanish by Cuban playwright Anton Arrufat in ¡968, but republished in 200¡ and produced in Glasgow in 200¡, and several works by Derek Walcott, especially The Odyssey: A Stage Version (¡992). Regarding the interaction between Greek drama and Africa, significant attention is given to the work of Wole Soyinka, who directed J. P. Clark’s reworking of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon (¡962), staged The Bacchae of Euripides: A Communion Rite (¡973), and wrote Myth, Literature, and the African World (¡976). The book’s penultimate section deals with “Dionysus and the Aesthetics of Performance.” David Wiles studies “The Use of Masks in Modern Performances.” Beginning with the medieval period and moving to the ¡920s, Wiles sketches the “route by which masks entered the modern theatre” (247). Wiles then considers the use of masks in Schechner’s Dionysus in 69. Here, Wiles focuses on the respective works of Peter Hall, Ariane Mnouchkine, Michael Stroud, and Thanos Vovolis. In “Greek Notes in Samuel Beck-

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ett’s Theatre Art,” Katharine Worth examines “what kind of interest Beckett had in classical drama and ... examine[s] the theatrical styles he developed which have helped to create a climate favourable to the great revival of interest in ancient theatre during the last thirty years or so” (265). The author considers several elements from the Beckettian corpus: Beckett’s number of speaking actors; his use of “severe physical restraints” (270–27¡), “mask-like effects” (273–276), and music and dance; and his adaptation of messenger speeches and the chorus. Peter Brown, in “Greek Tragedy in the Opera House and Concert Hall of the Late Twentieth Century,” studies Greek tragedy’s influence upon modern opera. In particular, Brown considers operatic productions and adaptations of Euripides’s Medea and Bacchae, compositions on the houses of Atreus and Oedipus, the Trojan War, and Prometheus. Brown also includes two appendices listing operas composed between ¡965 and 2002 that deal with the houses of Atreus and Oedipus, respectively. The book’s final section, “Dionysus and the Life of the Mind,” begins with Fiona Macintosh’s “Oedipus in the East End: from Freud to Berko›.” Macintosh explains the “dethroning” (3¡4) of Oedipus from a dominant position in theatre since the ¡960s. Macintosh describes the influence on Freud of Jean Mounet-Sully’s playing of Oedipus in Paris in ¡855, the rise of Kleinian psychoanalytical theory, the decline of the “star-system in the theatre” (3¡8), and Steven Berko› ’s updating of the Sophoclean Oedipus in a play entitled Greek. In “Thinking about the Origins of Theatre in the ¡970s,” Erika FischerLichte ponders “the academic and the theatrical manifestations of interest in

ancient Greece and asks why this interest sprang up in the [¡970s]” (329). Most of the article describes the Berlin Schaubühne’s Antiquity Project (¡973), influenced by Walter Burkert’s Homo Necans, ¡972), and Peter Stein’s Oresteia (¡980), which reacted to Antiquity Project and also considered “the question of theatre’s origin” (344). The chapter concludes with a consideration of Klaus Michael Grüber’s staging of Prometheus Bound (¡986) and Einar Schleef ’s The Mothers (a ¡986 adaptation of Euripides’ Suppliant Women). Finally, in “The Voices We Hear,” playwright, translator, and author Timberlake Wertenbaker briefly explores Greek tragedy from the perspective of the maxim “know thyself.” Wertenbaker, however, reads against that maxim and concludes that the Greek tragedies show us that there is much about human behavior that is “unknowable and ultimately irrational” (366). The book concludes with Amanda Wrigley’s almost fifty page catalogue of the various productions discussed in the book. The catalogue, arranged in ascending chronological order by the date of a work’s premiere, lists the title of the production, adaptors, directors, composers, and location of the performance. Dionysus Since 69 also contains twentyfive pages of bibliography and a thirtyfive page index. JOHN THORBURN Baylor University

John Conteh-Morgan and Tejumola Olaniyan, eds. African Drama and Performance. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2004. Pp. ix + 274. Hardcover $49.95, Paperback $2¡.95. Although a significant amount of

Review of Literature (Wetmore) material has been published on African drama and performance in the past decade, demonstrating what the editors call an “expanding academic interest” in the field (¡), the subject remains underrepresented and underexplored in comparison to other world theatres. Compounding this problem is the often prohibitively expensive price of the books that are released to the market, making classroom use a challenge if not an impossibility. All of which is why African Drama and Performance is a very welcome and worthy addition to the field: it is reasonably priced and, even more important, contains eighteen essays in five sections (based on “thematic a‡nities” [2]) on a wide variety of topics that run the gamut from analysis of a specific play to television and video in Africa to the theatricality of social drama. Originating as a special issue of Research in African Literature in ¡999, this volume expands the contents of that issue and moves beyond a focus on literature to focus on, as the title suggests, both drama and performance. The five thematic sections are “General Contexts,” “Intercultural Negotiations,” “Radical Politics and Aesthetics,” “Popular Expressive Genres and the Performance of Culture,” and “The Social as Drama.” “General Contexts,” containing four essays, is actually the weakest section of the anthology. Wole Soyinka’s essay, “King Baabu and the Renaissance Vision,” originally a lecture given in South Africa for the opening of his play King Baabu, is a “self interrogation” of leaders on the continent that form the “King Baabu archetype,” such as Idi Amin, Robert Mugabe, and Mobutu Sese Seko. Although interesting (and useful if one is familiar with Soyinka’s play), the ultimate relevance to this vol-

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ume is tenuous at best. While Soyinka’s essays are always interesting, engaging, and thought-provoking, this one has little to do with drama or performance and much more to do with Soyinka’s recent non-theatrical critical writing, such as The Open Sore of a Continent, and one wonders if it was necessary to include it. Joachim Friebach’s “Dimensions of Theatricality in Africa” is obviously much more relevant, but rather Eurocentric in its argument that “African cultures do bear out what Western anthropologists, sociologists, and artists have advanced about theatricality and performance” (25). Joahannes Fabien’s essay is a bit brief, although illuminating. The strength of the section, however, is Ato Quayson’s excellent essay that asks the question, “how do we attempt to place theatre within a total interpretation of aesthetic and pragmatic expression on the continent while at the same time attempting to generate tools of analysis that are specific to it?” (46). He explores the commodification of indigenous culture and the theatre as “intermedium” within African cultures, and concludes by calling for “a rigorous critical idiom by which to analyze these dimensions of African theatre” in order to understand its relation to African history” (52). This essay marks the true beginning of this volume. The second section contains four essays dealing with specific plays/productions. Isidore Okpewho contributes one of the best and clearest analyses of Soyinka’s adaptation of Euripides’s The Bacchae that this reviewer has encountered, calling it “a translation of culture, not of text” (55). Likewise, John Conteh-Morgan’s interrogation of Sylvain Bemba’s adaptation of Antigone not only marks an engagement with Francophone theatre (for which ContehMorgan is already the go-to scholar in

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English), but is also a thorough and valuable engagement of an African playwright’s use of classical Athenian cultural material and a model for adaptation studies. Marie-José Hourantier continues the discussion of Francophone theatre in her essay, detailing the use of African ritual elements in the adaptation of Macbeth by the Bin Kadi-So company. Lastly, Sandra L. Richards expands the sphere of African performance to include the African diaspora by analyzing Yoruban echoes in August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. Altogether these essays, although dealing with African theatre’s encounters with Euroculture, too often a focus in the study of African theatre by Western scholars, are an excellent addition to the field. The three essays in the third section all explore the radical and engaged dramaturgy and theatre practice of three theatre artists known for their use of theatre to critique their respective societies. Tejumola Olaniyan o›ers an analysis of Nigerian Femi Osofisan’s “uncommon sense.” Nicholas Brown engages Ngugi wa Thiongo’s problematizing of Kenyan history in his plays. Dominic Thomas continues the study of Francophone theatre by exploring the plays of Congolese playwright Sony Labou Tansi. All three essays are thorough and informative, although Thomas’s essay is especially welcome as Tansi is underrepresented in Englishlanguage studies of African playwrights. The fourth section o›ers an expansive definition of performance by including both electronic media and popular improvisation in Africa under that rubric. Loren Kruger’s essay on educational soap opera in South Africa is a fascinating consideration of popular television as a variation on theatre for development, using the popular medium as a means to educate viewers

about health and social issues by incorporating them into the storylines. Karin Barber expands her body of work on Yoruba theatre with an essay on improvisation and the relationship between the written script and the performed text in popular theatre in Nigeria. Linking this essay to the previous one is her analysis of the shaping influence of television on live theatre beginning in the ¡980s, which then flows into Akin Adesokan’s unraveling of the socio-economic context of the emergence of Nigerian video films and their linking of the local and the global. Lastly, Bob W. White delves into the details of techniques in popular Congolese music and dance. Although this essay feels the least related to the overall theme of the volume, its inclusion demonstrates the commitment of the editors to not circumscribing or limiting the definition of performance. The fifth and final section contains three essays on “the social as drama.” Catherine M. Cole’s suberb essay on the televising of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee’s (TRC) hearings is a “textbook example of social drama” (226). “Precisely what kind of show was it?” she asks, and explores not only the hearings as theatre, but also the role of translation as performance and the representation of victims and atrocity. Cole’s essay is one of the highlights of the volume. It is followed by the two theoretical works that close the volume: Daniel Avorgbedor’s discussion of the usefulness of the Turner-Schechner model of social drama in the study of indigenous Ghanaian performance events and Pius Ngandu Nkashama’s consideration of theatricality and mimodrama. In addition to the groupings of the essays by theme, other issues link the volume into a more cohesive whole. A major theme in the volume, echoing throughout several essays, from Soy-

Review of Literature (Wetmore) inka’s opening salvo to Okepewho’s analysis of “the anxiety of Empire” in Euripides to Thomas’s explication of the political theatre of Sony Labou Tansi to Cole’s exploration of the theatricality of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee in South Africa, is an exploration of the dictatorial and oppressive instinct within the African body politic, as well as the theatrical representation of tyrannical rule. It is a significant thread running through the volume. Another linking theme is the notion of new technologies such as television and video/ DVD technology as transforming media that can unify nations even as they also link widely disparate geographic regions of the continent. Lastly, the reader is left with the sense of the unimaginable magnitude and scope of performance on

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the continent, and the sense that this book is not a comprehensive survey but an admirable and excellent beginning. This reviewer joins Ato Quayson in calling for more rigorous critical engagement with all dimensions of African performance such as this one. It can be used in the graduate or advanced undergraduate classrooms, will be of value to the African theatre historian, and can also be used as an excellent introduction to African theatre for the Western theatre historian or artist who wants to know and understand African performance on its own terms. Consistent quality, solid scholarship, and a›ordable pricing make this anthology a model for the study of African performance. KEVIN J. WETMORE, JR. Loyola Marymount University


Index “A Phaidí a Ghrá” (song) ¡2¡, ¡27 Abbey Theatre 97, ¡00, ¡04, ¡46, ¡54, ¡55 Abbott and Costello 4 Abuladze, Tengiz 86 Acharnians 6, ¡3 Achilles in Vietnam 244 Achurch, Janet ¡50 Ackerley, C. J. 223–225 Ackerman, Marianne 70 Acting Like a Woman in Modern Japan ¡¡6 Acts of Intervention ¡63 Aeschylus 245 Agamemnon 245 Agave 244 Ah, Wilderness! ¡70 Albee, Edward 75 Alberti, Leon-Battista ¡8 Alcyone ¡99–202 Aldridge, Ira 237 Ali Baba 36 Alienation e›ect 87, 94–96, ¡04 All about Phaedra 82, 90 Allmers, Eyolf ¡5¡ American Orientalism ¡36 American Theatre Arts Conservatory ¡73 Ampo ( Japan/U.S. Security Treaty) 3¡ Anarchism ¡0¡ The Ancient Mariner ¡80–¡8¡ Angerer, Kathrin 2¡8 Angura (“underground theatre”) 28–32, 34, 36, 38 Anima/animus 44, 48, 52, 53 Antigone 3, 6, 7, 245 Antiquity Project 246 Antoinette Perry Awards 236 Aphrodite 206 Apollonius Rhodius 8, 82, 92 Apsana Dang yugra Ogeuma Miryora ¡83, ¡85–¡86, ¡89, ¡92 Arcades Project 2¡8 Archer, John 20¡, 2¡¡ Archer, William ¡50 Archetype 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 5¡, 52 Argonautica 9¡ Arishima, Takeo ¡09, ¡¡¡

Aristophanes 3–6, ¡¡–¡2, ¡4 Armitage, Simon 244 Aronson, Arnold ¡63 Arrufat, Anton 245 Art Theatre (Geijitsu-za) ¡08, ¡¡5 Artaud, Antonin ¡93 Arungujee Theater ¡9¡ As Is ¡63, ¡67 Asakusa ¡07 Ascherson, Neal 92 Ashleigh, Charles ¡77 Asian American Theatre Company (AATC) ¡32 Asta ¡50 At My Heart’s Core 77 Atget, Eugene 2¡4, 2¡9 Atreus 246 Auden, W. H. ¡8¡ Avenue Theatre ¡50 Babbitt, Irving ¡¡3 The Bacchae 244, 246 The Bacchae of Euripides: A Communion Rite 245 Bacon, Francis ¡8 Bad Women 244 Baekma Gang Dalbamae ¡84 Bailey, Benjamin ¡78 Baker, Jean Miller 48 Bakhtin, Mikhail ¡25 Balconville 70, 7¡, 78 Ballymenone ¡25 Barnes, Djuna 239–240 Barnet, David 76, 79 Barthes, Roland ¡24 Bassnett, Susan 66 The Bathhouse 3 Baudelaire, Charles ¡07, ¡74 Baudrillard, Jean 22¡ Bayreuth ¡50 Les Beaux Dimanches 75 Beckett, Samuel 223–227, 246 The Bedbug 3 Before Breakfast ¡69–¡70, ¡72, ¡74–¡75, ¡78–¡79, ¡8¡

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Index

The Beggar of Love (Ai no kojiki, Kara) 36 Beijing opera (jingju) ¡¡2 Being at Home with Claude 75 Les Belles sœurs 70 Beltaine ¡49, ¡53 Benjamin, Walter 92, 98, ¡05, ¡93, 2¡2–22¡, 242 Bentley, Eric 240 Benveniste, Emile 60 Berko›, Steven 246 Berlin ¡50 Berlin, Normand ¡80 Betsuyaku Minoru 3¡ Between the Acts 240 Bharucha, Rustom ¡06, ¡¡6 Bilingual Canadian drama 70 Binary studies 66, 67, 69, 70, 72, 73, 76, 78 Birds 5–6, ¡3, “The Birds” of Aristophanes 3, 5–8, ¡0–¡4 Bissoondath, Neil 68, 79 Blanchard, E. L. 6 Blood Relations 76 Bloom, Harold 56, 56–57, 64 The Blue Bird ¡06, ¡08, ¡¡0 Bluebeard ¡60, ¡65 Boal, Augusto ¡30 Bogard, Travis 64, ¡73, ¡80–¡8¡ Bogart, Anne 35 Bolt, Carol 74 Booth, Wayne 56 Boston ¡74 Bouchard, Michel Marc 75 Boucher, Denise 77, 78 Bourassa, André 73, 79 Bourke, Angela ¡28, ¡29, Bousille 72, 73 Bousille et les justes 72, 73 Bowdlerization 3 Boxall, Peter 226 Boyle, Mary ¡29 Brando, Marlon 2¡8 Brantley, Ben 202, 2¡¡ Brawne, Fanny ¡79 Breach (Turner) ¡34 Bread and Butter ¡73 Brecht, Bertolt 83, 92, 93–96, 99, ¡03–¡05, ¡85, ¡93, 22¡ Brecht on Theatre 92 Bredbeck, Gregory W. ¡60 Breithaupt, Fritz 2¡3 Bridget ¡52, ¡53 Bristol County (Pennsylvania) ¡20 Brontë, Emily ¡80 Brook, Peter 78 Brookes, Chris 77, 78 Brough, Robert 5

Brown, Peter 246 Brown, Sarah Annes 2¡0, 2¡¡ Brown, William 237 Bruce, Lenny 4 Bruckner, D.J.R. ¡64 Buenos Aires ¡77 Bujayuchin ¡84 The Burghers of Calais ¡07, ¡08 The Buried Astrolabe 68 Burkert, Walter 246 Burlesque 3–5, ¡2–¡3 Burnell, Henry 5 Burr, Suzanne ¡80–¡8¡ Busch, Charles ¡59, ¡6¡–¡67 Bush, George W. 2¡6 But Still, Like Air, I’ll Rise ¡32 Butler, Judith ¡36–¡38, ¡43 Butô(h) 3¡ Byrne, Nell ¡50 Byron, Lord (George Gordon) ¡76–¡77 The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari ¡07 La Cage aux Folles ¡59, ¡65, ¡67 Camille ¡60 Campbell, Mary ¡64 Campbell, Patrick ¡50 Canadian dramas in French and in English 66, 68–70, 79, 80 Canadian Maple Leaf 7¡ Canadian myth of “two solitudes” 68 Cantor, Arthur ¡64 The Cap and Bells ¡79 Captives of a Faceless Drummer 70, 74 Carlson, Marvin ¡06, ¡¡6 Carmen ¡¡4 Cary, Rev. Henry 5 Cassandra 244 Castiglione, Baldesar ¡8 Castorf, Frank 2¡2–22¡ Catechism ¡5, ¡7, ¡8, 23 Catharsis 86 Cathleen Ni Houlihan ¡45, ¡52–¡53 Cathleen Ni Houlihan ¡52 Catholic Church 72, 73, 78, ¡22, ¡27, ¡28 La Celestina ¡6 Celtic Ireland ¡49 Censorship 77, 79 Centaur Theatre 70, 78 Cérémonial funèbre sur le corps de Jean-Olivier Chénier 77 C’etait avant la guerre à l’Anse-à-Gilles 75 Ceyx ¡99–202 “A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family” ¡75, ¡8¡ Charles O’Malley ¡74 Chaurette, Normand 76

Index Chen, Mingzhong ¡¡2, ¡¡3, ¡¡6 Cheunnyuneui Suin ¡85 Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage ¡76 Chin, Frank ¡42 The Chinatown Trunk Mystery ¡42 Chinese theatre ¡04 Chislett, Anne 77 Choi, Namseun ¡87 Chong Wishin 35, 40 Chothia, Jean 6¡, ¡74, ¡80–¡8¡ Chunpungui Chuh ¡84 Cincinnati ¡40 Cinyras 206–209 Claire, Ina ¡66 Clark, J. P. 245 Cleveland ¡34, ¡40 Cleveland Raining ¡32–¡43 Cliuthcheoiri na hEireann (Theatre of Ireland) ¡46, ¡49 Clouds 5, ¡3 Clytemnestra 244 Cohn, Ruby 223–225 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor ¡74, ¡77, ¡80–¡8¡ Collyer, Martin 4, ¡3 Colum, Padraic ¡56 Communism ¡0¡ Comparative Literature 67, 79 Compulsory heterosexuality (Butler) ¡36 Connell, Kevin ¡27, ¡29, Connolly, Seán, J. ¡27, ¡28 Constantinidis, Stratos E. ¡4 “Contemporary colloquial theatre” (gendai kôgo engeki) 39 Cook, Elizabeth ¡78, ¡8¡ Cork Dramatic Club ¡46 Cork National Theatre ¡46 The Count of Monte Cristo ¡74 County Clare ¡47 Courtney, Sister Marie-Thérèse ¡49, ¡50 Covent Garden 3 Cox, Michael ¡72, ¡8¡ Craig, Edith 240 Crary, Jonathan 2¡4 La Création collective au Québec 76 Creation Society (Chuangzao She) ¡¡¡, ¡¡2 Cree and Ojibwa 70 Crisis (Turner) ¡34–¡35 Cross, Eric 77 Cruising ¡6¡ Cry from the City of Virgins (Shôjô toshi kara no yobigoe, Kara) 35 The Cue for Passion: Grief and Its Political Uses 92 Culler, Jonathan 67 Cumberland, Richard ¡3 The Cure at Troy 245

“Daechung” ¡88 The Dance of Death 64 Dangerous Voices 9¡–92 Daniels, Guy ¡3 Dante 225–226 Davies, Robertson 74, 77 Deane, Seamus 98–99, ¡05 The Death of René Lévesque 70 Deianeira 244 Delia ¡52, ¡53 De Palma, Brian 245 Derrida, Jacques 67, 79, ¡93 Desdemona 43, 44, 46, 47, 49, 50, 52 Desire under the Elms ¡70, ¡76, ¡8¡ Desmond, Brian ¡69–¡82 The Deutsches Theater ¡50 The Devil’s General 2¡6 Le Devoir 70 The Dialogic Imagination 64 Diarmuid and Dervogilla ¡00, ¡02 Dickens, Charles 3¡, ¡74 Diegesis 82, 84–85 Dionysus 246 Dionysus in 69 244, 245 Dirty Hands 2¡6 Discourse in Life and Discourse in Art 6¡ “Discourse in the Novel” 63 Dixon, Patrick ¡20, ¡2¡, ¡22 Dixon family members ¡20–¡23, ¡29 Doctor Faustus ¡5, ¡9, 22–24 Dr. Strangelove 244 Dolidge, Keti 89 Donegal ¡20, ¡29 Donnelly, James S. ¡27, ¡29 Donoghue, Denis ¡00, ¡05 “The Door and the Mirror: The Iceman Cometh” 64 Dorn, Karen ¡00, ¡05 Dostoevsky, Fyodor 57, 64, 2¡6 The Dove 240 “Drag” plays 4 The Drama Review ¡¡7 The Dreaming of the Bones 93, ¡00–¡02 Dreiser, Theodore 57 Drizzle and Other Stories ¡32 Dubé, Marcel 72, 74, 75, 79, 80 Dublin ¡46–¡50, ¡55 Dublin Drama League ¡55 The Dublin Magazine ¡56 Dubois, René-Daniel 75 Duggan, Jimmy ¡26 Dumas, Alexandre ¡74 Duncan, Isadora 239 Dunster, Charles ¡3 Duplessis, Premier Maurice 72, 73

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Index

Duskolos 3 Dvorak, Marta 5¡, 55 Early, Biddy ¡49 Earnshaw, Catherine ¡76 Earnshaw, Heathcli› ¡76 East Germany (GDR) 2¡5 East West Players ¡32–¡33 Easter Rising ¡00 Eaton, Richard ¡73, ¡82 Echegaray, José ¡54 Echo 70, 79 The Ecstacy of Rita Joe 72, 74 Ego 48, 49, 50, 52, 53 Eisen, Kurt 57, 64 Ekklesiazousai 4 Ekland, Britt 4 Elam, Harry J., Jr. 24¡, 243 Elam, Keir 60 Elliott, Alan 92 Ellis-Fermor, Una ¡55 Ellis Island ¡20, ¡29 Elwood, William 93 Emerson, Caryl 57–58 Epic theatre 93–96 Erasmus, Desiderius ¡8, ¡9 Erickson, Jon ¡42 Eros 43, 45, 47, 48, 49, 52 Erysichthon 202–205 Essentialism 67 Études binaires 67 Euripides 3, 7, 9–¡¡, 8¡, 83–86, 9¡–92, 244, 246 Europe ¡45–¡46, ¡53, ¡56, ¡0¡, ¡93 European Irishness ¡55 The Execution of Justice ¡67 “Experimental Theatre” ¡74, ¡80 Expressionism 73, 79, ¡07, ¡08 Farrell, Joseph ¡97–¡98, 202, 2¡¡ The Father Returns (Chichi kaeru) ¡08 Fascism 95, 98–99, ¡0¡, ¡05 Fay, Frank ¡48 Les Fées ont soif 77, 78 Feingold, Michael ¡65 Feldberg, Robert ¡64 Les Feluettes 75 Female Acts in Greek tragedy 9¡ Fences 242 Fennario, David 70, 78 Ferron, Jacques 77 Field Day ¡¡9 Fielding, Henry ¡3 Fierstein, Harvey ¡67 Fifteen Year War 32 Filwod, Alan 78, 79

Findlater, Richard 6 Finola ¡5¡, ¡53 First-Nations characters 70, 72 First-Nations playwrights 70, 76, 80 Fischer-Lichte, Erika 246 Foley, P. Helen 83, 9¡–92, 244 Forever Young 2¡6 Fortune, My Foe 74 Fox, Robin ¡23 France, Anatole ¡08 Fraser, Brad 75 Frazier, Adrian ¡46 Fréchette, Louis-Honoré 77 The Freeman’s Journal ¡54 French, David 75 French and English dramas in Canada 68, 69, 75, 76 French and English literatures of Canada 68 Frere, John Hookham (“W,” “Whistlecraft”) 5–6, ¡2–¡4 Freshwater 240 Freud, Sigmund 208, 2¡¡, 246 Freudianism: A Critical Sketch 64 Friedkin, William 4, ¡6¡ Friel, Brian ¡55 Frogs 6, ¡3 “From the Prehistory of Novelistic Discourse” 64 Frow, John 83 Fuente Ovejuna 24 Fuller, Charles 242 Furlani, Andre 77 Gadamer, Hans-Georg ¡22, ¡23, ¡24, ¡27 Gaelic ¡20, ¡27, ¡28, ¡29 Gaelic League ¡46 Gaiety Theatre ¡47–¡48 Gamble the Night (Yoru o kakete, Kim) 36 Gang, Woojae ¡90–¡92 Gauvreau, Claude 73, 74 The Gazette 75 Gelb, Arthur and Barbara 56, 64, ¡77, ¡8¡ Gélinas, Gratien 72 gender boundaries 75, 76 Gender melancholia (Butler) ¡36 Georgian Film Actor’s Studio 86, 90 Georgian International Festival of Theatre (GIFT) 82 Germany ¡0¡, ¡04, 53 Gestus 84, 87–89 “Ghost Families in Cleveland Raining” ¡33–¡34 The Ghost Sonata ¡74 G.I. Joe 244 Gilbert, Douglas 4, ¡3 Gilbert, Helen ¡06, ¡¡7

Index Gilbert, R. A. ¡72, ¡8¡ Gilbert, William Schwenck 8 Gillane, Michael ¡52 Glasgow 245 Glassie, Henry ¡24, ¡25 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 96, ¡07 The Golden Fleece or Jason in Colchis and Medea in Corinth 3, 5, 7, 9–¡0, ¡4 Golub, Spencer ¡80–¡8¡ Gonne, Maud ¡47 Gontarski, S.E. 223–226 Goodnight Desdemona 75 Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) 43–55 Gordon, Avery ¡34 Gorky, Maxim 28, 29, 39–40 Grace, Sherrill 73, 79 Les Grand Soleils 77 Gravity Falls from Trees ¡32 Great Famine ¡27 Great Kanto Earthquake 36–37 Greek Old Comedy 4 Greenblatt 234–236 Gregory, Lady Augusta 97, ¡45–¡46, ¡49, ¡52–¡55 Gri‡n, Roger 98–99, ¡05 Gri‡th, Arthur ¡47 Group of Seven 73 Grüber, Klaus Michael 246 Gulf War 245 Guo, Moruo ¡09, ¡¡¡, ¡¡2, ¡¡5, ¡¡6, ¡¡7 Gurewitsch, Matthew 2¡0, 2¡¡ Gurik, Robert 73, 79 Gwangjoo hangjang ¡92 Gwon, Boksoon ¡92 Gyne ¡87–¡88 Gynewah Gyrung yee ¡83, ¡85–¡86, ¡92 Gyrungyee ¡87–¡88 “Haehak” ¡88 Haiku ¡¡2, ¡¡3 Hairspray ¡59, ¡67 Half a Century of Japanese Theater 4¡ Hall, Edith 3, 5, ¡4, 92, 245 Hall, Peter 245 Hallam, Arthur Henry ¡77 Hamartía ¡23 Hamelin ¡50 Hamlet ¡9–23, ¡09, ¡¡7 Han, Sangchul ¡84 Hankin, St. J. ¡08 Hansberry, Lorraine 236 Hardwick, Lorna 245 Harrison, Tony 245 The Harvard Birds 5, ¡2 Hatch, James V. 236–238

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Hathorn, Ramon 77–79 Haunted Lives ¡75 Hauptmann, Gerhart ¡53, 2¡6 Hayne, David 67, 79 Healey, Michael 70 Heaney, Seamus ¡55, 245 The Heather Field ¡46–¡47, ¡53 Hedda Gabler 240 Hegemann, Carl 2¡5 Helen 7 Heller, Zelda 75, 79 Hemon, Louis 76 Henderson, Je›rey ¡27 Henry V 2¡0 Heracles 244 Herbert, John 75 Hermaphrodite 53, 54 Hermat (The Home) ¡08 Hey for Honesty, Down with Knavery 5, ¡4 Hijikata, Tatsumi 3¡ Hill, Errol G. 236–238 Hinin (“non-human”) 29 Hippolytus 90 Hirata, Oriza 29, 39 A History of Modern Japanese Literature ¡¡6 Hitchcock, Alfred 2¡8 Hitler, Adolf ¡04 Highway, Tomson 70, 80 Hill, Leslie 226 Hofer, Johnannes ¡2¡ Hoftheater ¡50 Hogan ¡48 Hollingsworth, Michael 77 Holloway, Joseph ¡48 Holst-Warhaft, Gail 86–87, 90–92 Holy theatre 78 Homma, KenshirÉ ¡¡2, ¡¡6 Homo Necans 246 Homosexuality 75 Horton, Miss P. 8 Hossana 75 Hot Peaches ¡63 The House by the Churchyard ¡76, ¡80–¡8¡ Hu, Xingliang ¡¡6 Huaju (spoken drama) ¡06, ¡07, ¡¡6, ¡¡7 Huang, Aihua ¡¡6 Hubchen, Sir Henry 2¡8 Hudson, Rock ¡66 Hugo, Victor ¡74 Huillet, Daniele 245 Huizinga, Johan ¡24 Hummler, Richard ¡67 Hunger (Fames) 202–204 Hunter, Richard L. 92 Hussein, Saddam 245 Hutchings, William 223–224, 227

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Index

Hwang, Jeungmin ¡92 Hyde, Douglas ¡47 “I Speak of the City” ¡80, ¡82 Iba, Takashi ¡08 Ibsen, Henrik ¡07, ¡09, ¡¡5, ¡45–¡46, ¡50, ¡52–¡56, 239 Ice Prince ¡5¡ The Iceman Cometh 56–59, 62, 63, 64, ¡70, ¡80–¡8¡ The Idiot 64, 2¡6 Ignorance and Lust (MumyÉ to Aizen) ¡¡2 Imperial University ¡¡5 Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America ¡42 “Impressions of a Dublin Playgoer” ¡48 In Memoriam ¡77 Independent Theatre Company ¡46 India Abroad ¡43 Individuation 43, 45, 52, 53, 54 Inerny, Peg ¡45, ¡47, ¡49–¡53 Infinitude ¡32 Inghinidhena hEireann (Daughters of Erin) ¡46 Inoue, Hisashi 39 Inquisition ¡5, ¡7, ¡8, 22, 24 Insuh, Myung ¡86 The Intercultural Performance Reader ¡¡6 Interrogative ¡5, ¡8–2¡, 23, 25; see also Question Intertextuality 76, 78 Ireland 96–¡05, ¡¡9, ¡29, ¡45–¡47, ¡49, ¡52–¡56 Irish Blueshirts 98 Irish Catholic ¡75 Irish Civil War ¡0¡ The Irish Drama of Europe from Yeats to Beckett ¡56 Irish Dramatic Movement ¡45, ¡46, ¡53, ¡55 Irish Europeanism ¡56 Irish Folklore Commission ¡50 Irish-Ireland ¡46–¡48 Irish Literary Theatre 97, ¡45–¡46, ¡48–¡49, ¡53–¡55 The Irish Review ¡50 Irish Theatre Company ¡46 The Irish Times ¡48 Isadora 240 Ishihara Shintarô 40 Italian-Canadian playwrights 76 Italy ¡0¡ James, Henry ¡75, ¡8¡ Japan Society of New York 35 Japanese Drama and Culture in the ¡960s 4¡

Japanese Music and Drama in the Meiji Era ¡¡8 Japanese Noh stage ¡88 Jeju ¡89–¡9¡ Jeju Hangjaeng ¡90 Jeun, Jingyi ¡87 Jin, Mingquan ¡¡6 Jin, Mingruo ¡¡6 Joe Turner’s Come and Gone 242–243 John Gabriel Borkman ¡08 Jokanaan ¡¡3 Jones, Robert Edmond ¡80 Joual 70 Journal of South Sea Island P.O.W.s (Nantô furyo ki, Hirata) 39 Joyce, James 225 Jung, Carl Gustav 44, 45, 47, 48, 5¡, 53, 54, 55 Kabuki-za ¡08 Kaiser, Georg ¡07, ¡08 Kamiyama, SÉjin ¡08 Kano, Ayako ¡04, ¡¡6 Kara, Jûrô 29–37 Kean, Edmund ¡78 Keats, John ¡69, ¡77–¡79, ¡8¡ Keene, Donald ¡¡8 Keening ¡22, ¡27 Kikuchi, Kan ¡08 Kilroy, Thomas ¡¡9, ¡48, ¡55 Kim, Bangok ¡85 Kim, Chi-ha 33 Kim, Jimmy ¡34–¡35 Kim, Mari ¡34–¡35 Kim, Mido ¡89 Kim, Sujin 28–30, 34–38, 40 Kim, Yoonchul ¡85 Kimchi ¡37–¡38, ¡4¡, ¡43 King Stephen ¡78 Kipling, Rudyard ¡74 Kishida, Rio 33 Kleeblatt (Sanye Ji) ¡¡5 Knights 6, ¡3 Knowles, Richard 69, 75, 79 Koch, Edward I. ¡6¡ Komatsu, Ikara ¡¡7 Komiya, Toyotaka ¡¡8 Korea ¡34, ¡85–¡93 Korean diasporic theatre 29, 30, 4¡ Kosobo grigo Yurang ¡85 Kotani, IchirIo ¡07, ¡08, ¡¡0, ¡¡¡, ¡¡6, ¡¡7 Kruger, Loren ¡¡7 Kuriyagawa, Hakuson ¡06, ¡09–¡¡¡, ¡¡6 Kurosawa, Akira 39 Kvaskhvadze, Nana 90 Kwon, Kyounghye ¡32–¡44

Index Laberge, Marie 75 Lady Chatterley’s Lover 240 The Lady from the Sea ¡50 Lady Windermere’s Fan ¡08, ¡09 L’A›aire Tartu›e or the Garrison O‡cers Rehearse Molière 70, 76, 80 Lahr, Bert 4 Lake, Stanley ¡76 Langer, Lawrence 56 Larrue, Jean-Marc 76, 79 The Last Feast of the Fianna ¡47 Last of the DeMulling ¡08 Lauter, Estella 45, 48, 55 Lavie, Smadar and Ted Swedenburg ¡38, ¡43 LCC Productions ¡32 Lee, Byungsun ¡9¡ Lee, Gwangsu ¡87 Lee, Robert Charles ¡80–¡8¡ Leeming, Glenda 96, ¡05 Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan ¡69, ¡72, ¡74–¡76, ¡80–¡82 A Legend of Mermaids (Ning yô densetsu, Chong) 40 Lepage, Robert 70, 79 “Letter to Benjamin Bailey” ¡78, ¡8¡ Lever, Charles ¡74 Lévesque, Robert 70 Lévi-Strauss, Claude 67 Liang, Shiqiu ¡¡3, ¡¡7 “The Liar” ¡75, ¡8¡ Ligon, Glen 24¡ Limerick, University of ¡29 Liminal phase (Turner) ¡35–¡44 Liminality (Turner) ¡32–¡44 “Lines Supposed to Have Been Addressed to Fanny Brawne” ¡78 Literary Society (Bungei KyÉkai) ¡08, ¡¡5 Literary Trends (Bungei shichÉron) ¡¡0 Little Eyolf ¡45, ¡5¡–¡53 Little Eyolf ¡46, ¡50–¡52 Liu, Ping ¡¡7 Lo, Jacqueline ¡06, ¡¡7 Logan, Patrick ¡27, ¡29 Logos 43, 45, 48, 49, 50, 52 Loiselle, André 76, 79 London ¡50 Long Day’s Journey into Night ¡70, ¡75, ¡77, ¡82 Loraux, Nicole 9¡ Lemon, Mark 5 The Lisbon Traviata ¡67 Los Angeles ¡73–¡74 Lowenthal, David ¡2¡ Lower Depths Blush of Youth (Kajiwara and Shinofuji) 28–30, 38–40 Loyola Marymount University ¡29

257

Lu, Xun ¡¡0, ¡¡7 Ludlam, Charles ¡59, ¡60, ¡63–¡65 Lui, Mary Ting Yi ¡42 Luther, Martin ¡8, ¡9 Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom 24¡–243 Macbeth 235 MacDonald, Anne-Marie 43–55, 75 Macgowan, Kenneth ¡80 Macintosh, Fiona 3, 5, ¡4, 90, 92, 246 The Mackenzie-Papineau Rebellion 77 Maclay, Joanna Hawkins ¡97, 2¡¡ MacLeish, Archibald 244 Madam Macadam ¡20, ¡24 Madam Macadam Travelling Theatre ¡¡9 Madonna (singer) 2¡8 Maeng, Guja ¡90–¡92 Maeterlink, Maurice ¡08, ¡53, ¡56 Maeve ¡45, ¡47–¡49, ¡5¡–¡53 Maeve ¡46–¡48, ¡5¡–¡53, ¡56 “Maive and Certain Irish Beliefs” ¡49 Manitoba 72 Manpasikjuk ¡85 Mapping Jouissance 69, 80 “March of the Volunteers” (Yiyongjun jinxingqu) ¡09 Marchessault, Jovette 76 Marguerite de Navarre 2¡ Marie Chapdelaine 76 Marks, Peter ¡99, 2¡¡ Marlowe, Christopher ¡5, 22, 235 Martin, Robert K. 66 Martone, Mario 245 Martyn, Edward 97, ¡45–¡53, ¡55–¡56 Marxism 93–94, 98 Matasaburô of the Winds (Kara ban no kaze no Matasaburô, Kara) 36–37 Matsui, Sumako ¡08, ¡¡4, ¡¡5 Matsuo, Basho ¡¡2 Mavromoustakos, Platon 92 Mayakovsky, Vladimir 3, ¡3 Ma-Yi Theatre Company ¡32 McCarthy, Mary 56, 64 McCla›erty, Teresa ¡26 McGuinness, Frank ¡55 McLean, Don 2¡8 Medea 3, 5, 7, 9, ¡4, 8¡–83, 86, 89–90, 92, 246 Medea: A World Apart 8¡–85, 90, 92 Medea in Performance: ¡500–2000 90, 92 Medea, or A Libel on the Lady from Colchis 5 Medea, or The Best of Mothers, with a Brute of a Husband 5 Melada, Ivan ¡75, ¡8¡ Memory 2¡4 Menander 3

258

Index

Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Felix 3, 6 Mercers 75 The Merchant of Venice 2¡, 22, ¡08–¡09, 235 Metamorphoses (Ovid) ¡95–2¡¡ Metamorphoses (Zimmerman production) ¡95–2¡¡ Metatheatricality 84, 87–88 Mexican ¡80 Michelakis, Pantelis 245 Mick ¡34–¡35 Micone, Marco 76 “Military comfort women” (jûgun ianfu) 36 Miller, Frank Justus ¡99 Miller, Kerby A. ¡27, ¡29 Miller, Liam ¡00, ¡05 Milligan, Alice ¡47–¡48 Milton, John ¡07 Mimesis 82 Mister Herakles 244 Mr. Hirata ¡87–¡88 Mr. Jeung ¡87–¡89 Mitchell, Thomas 6, ¡2–¡4 Mitchell, W. J. T. 2¡4 Mnouchkine, Ariane 245 The Modern Theatre Association (Kindaigeki KyÉkai) ¡08 Modernist ¡74, ¡8¡ Mokhwa Theater Company ¡84 Mokhwa performers ¡85–¡88, ¡93 Monroe, Marilyn 2¡9 Montaigne, Michel de ¡8 Montclair State University ¡29 Montreal 70, 76, 78–80 A Moon for the Misbegotten ¡70, ¡78 Moore, George 97, ¡45–¡47, ¡55 Mopsemand ¡50 Mori, ygai ¡09, ¡¡¡, ¡¡4 The Mothers 246 Mounet-Sully, Jean 246 Mourning Becomes Electra ¡70 Müller, Heiner 9¡, 245 Munich ¡50 Myrrha 206–209 The Mystery of Irma Vep ¡65 Myth, Literature, and the African World 245 Nadel, Alan 242 Naesarang DMZ ¡85 Nanabush 72 Nanjing ¡¡3 “Narrative of the Ghost of a Hand” ¡72, ¡76, ¡80–¡8¡ Narváez, Peter ¡24, ¡25 Nathan, George Jean 64

National History in English-Canadian and Quebec Drama 77 National Players Society ¡46 Native [First-nations] drama 70 Native [First-nations] peoples of Canada 66 Natsume, SÉseki ¡¡¡ Nelson, Don ¡65 Neo-romanticism ¡06, ¡07, ¡08–¡¡4 Neumann, Bert 2¡7 “New Dramatists” (homepage) ¡4¡ New National Theatre (Shinkokugeki) ¡08 The New Theatre Company (Shingeki-sha) ¡08 New York before Chinatown ¡42 Newfoundland 75, 77, 78, ¡24 Newfoundland Mummers 77, 78 Ngai, Mae ¡42 Nic Eoin, Máirín ¡26 Nietzsche, Friedrich ¡07 A Night at the Café (Kafeidian zhi yiye) ¡¡2 The Night They Raided Minsky’s 4 Nihonjinron (“discourse on the Japanese”) 29, 3¡, 39 Nobel Prize for Literature ¡45, ¡55 Noh ¡54 Noh theatre 94, 96, ¡00–¡03, ¡05 “Nondurung Yeungg y” ¡88 The Normal Heart ¡63, ¡67 North West Asian American Theatre Company (NWAAT) ¡32 Norway ¡46, ¡53–¡54 Novy, Marianne 55 Ó Colm, Eoghan ¡27 Ó Crualaoich, Gearóid ¡25, ¡28 Ó Giolláin, Diarmuid ¡27 Ó Laoire, Lillis ¡29 Ó Péicín, Diarmuid ¡29 Ó Súilleabháin, Seán ¡22 Ó Tuama, Seán ¡2¡ O’Brien, Conor Cruise ¡05 Obscenity trials 240 The Odyssey: A Stage Version 245 Oedipus 244, 246 Oh, Taesok ¡83–¡93 O’Hara, Robert 24¡ O’Heynes, Colman ¡47, ¡5¡ Ohio ¡34, ¡4¡ O’Meally, Robert 24¡ Omeros 245 “one-and-a-half-plus generation” ¡36, ¡42 One Night Stand 74, 75 O’Neill, Eugene 56–59, 6¡–62, 64, ¡48, ¡69– ¡82, 2¡3, 236 O’Neill, James ¡74 The Open Hand ¡80

Index Oppenheim, Lois 223, 226 Les oranges sont vertes 73 Oresteia 246 Orientalism ¡42 The Origin of German Tragic Drama 9¡ Orwell, George ¡05 Osanai, Kaoru ¡08, ¡¡5, ¡¡7 Osborne, Helen Betty 72 Othello 46, 47, 49, 50, 76 235 Otho the Great ¡78 Out of the Ivory Tower (ZÉge no tÉ o dete) ¡¡0, ¡¡6 Ouyang, Yuqian ¡¡2 Ovid ¡95–2¡¡ Owen, Robert ¡¡, ¡3 Oxford Companion to Canadian Theatre 68, 76, 77, 79 A Pageant of Great Women 240 Pan Jinlian ¡¡2 Papineau 77 Parabasis ¡¡ Paradise by the River 70 Paradzanov, Sergei 86 Paris ¡50, 2¡4 Parritt, Don ¡80 Park, Chan E. ¡42 Park, Robert E. ¡34, ¡4¡, ¡43 Parks, Suzan-Lori 236, 238, 24¡–242 Park’s assimilation cycle ¡34 Pastiche 86 Patience 8 The Patriots 77 Pavis, Patrice 82, 84, 92, ¡06, ¡¡0, ¡¡6, ¡¡7 Paz, Octavio ¡80, ¡82 Peacock Theatre ¡00–¡0¡ Performing Canada: The Nation Enacted in the Imagined Theatre 78, 79 The Perjured City or the Awakening the Furies 245 Perry, Tyler 236 The Persians 245 Personification ¡96, 209 “Petit-nationalism” (puchi nashonarizumu) 38–39 Petticoat O-sen (Koshimaki O-sen, Kara) 32 Phaedra 244 Philoctetes 245 Philoktet 245 The Piano Lesson 242–243 The Pied Piper ¡50 Pindar ¡¡ Plan B 70 Planché, James Robinson 3–8, ¡0–¡4 Plant, Richard 68 Players’ Club ¡46

259

The Playwright as Historiographer: New Views of the Past 77, 80 Plutarch ¡56 Poe, Edgar Allan ¡¡¡, ¡74 Poetical Works of John Keats ¡78 Pollock, Sharon 76 Pontaut, Alain 75 Porter, David H. ¡97–¡98, 2¡¡ The Possessed 2¡6 Presley, Elvis 2¡8 La Presse 75 Prince of Burren ¡47 Le proces de Jean Baptiste M. 73 The Producers ¡59 Prometheus 245 Prometheus 246 Prometheus Bound 246 Protofeminism 239 Provincetown Playhouse 76, ¡80 Psycho 2¡8 The Purcell Papers, Vol. 3 ¡8¡ Québec and Ontario Theatre, ¡960–¡980 76, 80 Quebec’s fleurdelisé 7¡ Query, Patrick 93–¡05 Question ¡5–25 Quiet Revolution (in Quebec) 72 Raidy, William A. ¡65 Ramus, Petrus ¡7 Randolph, Thomas 5, ¡4 Rapti, Vassiliki 8¡ Rashad, Phylicia 238 The Rat-Wife ¡50, ¡5¡, ¡52, ¡53 Readers Theatre ¡96–¡97 Reaney, James 76 Redress (Turner) ¡34 Redressive mechanisms ¡35 Reflexive monologue ¡35, ¡37 “The Reform of the Theatre” 97 Refus Global 73, 74 Rehearsals for War 245 Reid, Gregory, J. 69, 80 Reinelt, Janelle 93–95, ¡05 Reintegration (Turner) ¡34 Reisz, Karel 240 Rémillard, Jean-Robert 77 Rent ¡59 The Rez Sisters 70, 72, 80 Ri, Reisen 3¡–33, 36 Richter, Gerhart 2¡9, 222 Ricoeur, Paul ¡20, ¡24 Ridiculous Theatre ¡59, ¡60, ¡62–¡64, ¡67 Ridiculous Theatrical Company ¡59, ¡60, ¡65

260

Index

Rieger, Silvia 2¡8 Riley, Kathleen 244 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner ¡77, ¡8¡ Rita Joe 72, ¡50 Riverbed beggars (kawara kojiki) 28–30, 33, 40 Rno, Sung J. ¡32–¡44 Robards, Jason, Jr. 4 Robins, Elizabeth ¡50, 239 Robinson, Lennox ¡54, ¡55 Rojas, Fernando de ¡6 Román, David ¡63 Roman Jakobson’s linguistic model 67 Romantic ¡77, ¡8¡ Romeo and Juliet 46, 76, ¡09, 234, 235, 236 A Room of One’s Own 240 Rosmersholm ¡46 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel ¡74 Rossi, Vittorio 70, 76, 80, ¡¡4 Rough theatre 78 Rowland, Alfred ¡69–¡74, ¡79 Rowland, Mrs. ¡70–¡73 Rubess, Banuta 43, 44, 52 Ruddigore 8 Rupprecht, Carol Schreier 45, 48, 55 Russell, George ¡47 Russian Formalism ¡04 Ruthyn, Maud ¡75 Ruthyn, Silas ¡75 Ryga, George 70, 72–74, 79 Sage, Victor ¡80, ¡82 Sakamoto, Edward ¡42 Salammbo ¡65 Salomé ¡09, ¡¡3–¡¡4, ¡¡8 Samia 3 Samuels, Andrew 44, 45, 48, 55 San Diego Asian American Repertory Theatre ¡32 Sanches, Francisco ¡8 “Sandae nori” ¡90–¡92 Sandhya, Shukla ¡43 Sartre, Jean Paul 2¡6 Satô(h), Makoto 30, 3¡ Schaubühne, Berlin 246 Schechner, Richard ¡25, ¡28, 244 Scheper Hughes, Nancy ¡23 Schism (Turner) ¡34, ¡4¡ Schleef, Einar 246 Scholasticism ¡5, ¡7, ¡8, 23 Schwartz, Michael 4, ¡4 “An Seanduine Dóite” (song) ¡26 Seattle Multicultural Playwrights Festival ¡32 Second World War ¡¡9 Seeing Eye Dog (Môdôken, Kara) 34, 35 Segal, George ¡23

Seidensticker, Edward G. ¡¡8 Sekine, Masaru ¡00–¡0¡, ¡04–¡05 Self 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 5¡, 52 Sellars, Peter 245 Selling Illusions: The Cult of Multiculturalism in Canada 68, 79 Seoul International Theatre Festival ¡32 Seung, Chunbae ¡90–¡92 Seven against Thebes 245 Seven Guitars 242 Shadow 43, 44, 45, 46, 49, 50 Shakespeare, William ¡¡, ¡9, 23, 43–45, 49, 55, 76, ¡09, ¡¡3, ¡¡7, ¡75, ¡80, 234, 235, 236 Shakespeare, Brecht, and the Intercultural Sign ¡¡7 Shanghai ¡¡3, ¡¡7 Sharif, Bina ¡6¡, ¡62 Shaw, George Bernard ¡¡5, ¡46 Shay, Jonathan 244 Shiga, Naoya ¡¡2 Shimamura, HÉgetsu ¡08, ¡¡5 Shimakawa, Karen ¡33–¡34, ¡40, ¡42 Shimizu, Kunio 3¡ shingeki (“new theatre”) 29, 30, 38, ¡06, ¡07–¡08, ¡¡5, ¡¡7, ¡¡8 Shinjuku Ryôzanpaku 28–30, 35–40 Sigmund, Freud ¡43 Silvers, Phil 4 Sim, Jeungsoon ¡87 Sinn Féin ¡46 Situation Theatre (Jôkyô gekijô) 3¡, 33, 35, 36 Skelton, Red 4 Skinner, Richard Dana ¡80, ¡82 Slavitt, David ¡99, 2¡0, 2¡¡ Smith, Anna Deveare 236 Smith, Jack ¡60 Smith, Madeline C. ¡73, ¡82 Social drama, Turner’s theory of ¡34, ¡4¡–¡43 “Sociological Poetics” 56 Solidarity (Polish Union) 2¡8 Solodow, Joseph ¡96, 2¡¡ “Some Odd Facts about the Tiled House — Being an Authentic Narrative of the Ghost of a Hand” ¡80 Sophocles 3, 7, 245 Sorgenfrei, Carol Fisher 4¡ Soul Light (Ling guang) ¡¡2 Sound of the Ancient Pond (Gutan de sheng yin) ¡¡2–¡¡3 Southern China Arts College (Nanguo Yishu Xueyuan) ¡¡5 Southern China Society (Nanguo She) ¡¡5, ¡¡7 Soviet Union ¡89

Index Soyinka, Wole 24¡, 245 Spain ¡0¡, ¡53 Spillers, Hortense 24¡ Spring Willow Society (Chunliu She) ¡07, ¡¡2, ¡¡6 Stanley, Thomas 5 Star group (Turner) ¡42 Stasio, Marilyn ¡64 Stein, Murray 45, 5¡, 52, 53, 55 Stein, Peter 246 Steiner, George 69, 80, ¡27 Stockholm ¡55 Storm ¡36–¡44 Stowe, Harriet Beecher 236–237 Strange Interlude ¡70 Straub, Jean-Marie 245 The Straw ¡73 A Streetcar Named Desire 2¡6–220 Strindberg, August 64, ¡08 Stroud, Michael 245 structuralist poetics 67, ¡74, ¡79 “Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences” 67 Style 69, 72, 73, 76 Sudermann, Herman ¡08 Suh, Jeungjoo ¡87 The Sunken Bell ¡06, ¡08–¡09, ¡¡5 Suppliant Women 246 Surrealism 73, 79, ¡34, ¡42 Surrealism and Quebec Literature 73, 79 Swedish Academy ¡45 Symbols of Anguish (Kumon no shocho) ¡¡0, ¡¡¡ Symphonic expressionism 73 Synge, John Millington ¡45–¡46, ¡54 A Tale of Two Cities (Nitô monogatari, Kara) 3¡–33 Tanizaki, Jun’ichirÉ ¡06, ¡09, ¡¡¡–¡¡2, ¡¡7 Taplin, Oliver ¡4, 92, 245 Tatlow, Antony ¡06, ¡¡7 “The Tattooing” (Shisei) ¡¡2 Tavel, Ronald ¡59, ¡60, ¡63 Taxidou, Olga 8¡–92 Tchen, John Ku Wei ¡42 Technology 2¡4, 2¡5, 220 Tel Quel 67 Television 2¡7 Ten Lectures of Modern Literature (Kindai bungaku jikkÉ) ¡¡0 Tennyson, Alfred Lord ¡76–¡77, ¡80, ¡82 Terayama, Shûji 3¡, 33 Terry, Ellen 239 Textual Studies in Canada 5: The Aux Canadas Issue 66 Theatre and the World: Performance and the Politics of Culture ¡¡¡

261

Theatre Arts Magazine ¡80 Theatre at the Crossroads of Culture ¡¡7 Théâtre de Babylone 224 Théâtre de l’Oeuvre ¡50 Theatre-in-Limbo ¡62, ¡63, ¡65 The Theatre of Form and the Production of Meaning 75, 79 The Theatre of Tomorrow ¡80 Theatre Passe Muraille 77 Le Théâtre québécois ¡975–¡995 76, 79 Theatre ¡774 70 Theatrical Club ¡46 Theatron 90, 92 Theosophist movement 76 Theseus and Ariadne or The Marriage of Bacchus 5, ¡4 Thesmophoriazousai 4, 7 They Club Seals, Don’t They? 77, 78 Thick Description ¡32 Thinking Orientals ¡42 “Third-country nationals” (sankokujin) 40 “This Living Hand” ¡78, ¡8¡ Three Birds Alighting on a Field 245 Tian, Han ¡06–¡¡8 Tieck, Ludwig 3 Tir-nan-ogue (the land of everlasting youth) ¡47 Tit-Coq 72, 74 Tiusanen, Timo ¡80, ¡82 “To Charles Cowden Clarke” ¡78 “To Fanny” ¡78 “To Kosciusko” ¡78 Toita, Yasuji ¡08, ¡¡8 Tokyo ¡07, ¡08, ¡¡6 Tokyo Higher Teacher’s School ¡07 Torch Song Trilog y ¡67 Törnqvist, Egil ¡80, ¡82 Toronto 75, 77 Tory Island ¡20, ¡2¡, ¡24, ¡27 Totem and Taboo 208 A Touch of the Poet ¡70, ¡76 Tragedy, Modernity and Mourning 83, 9¡–92 Tragedy on the Lake (Hushang de beiju) ¡¡2 transnationalism ¡32, ¡43 Trauerspiel 9¡ Tremblay, Michel 68, 70, 72, 75, 80 Trojan War 246 The Trojan Women 90 Tsubouchi, ShÉyÉ ¡08, ¡¡5 Tsukiji Little Theatre (Tsukiji ShÉgekijÉ) ¡08 Tucker, Sophie 4 “The Turn of the Screw” ¡75 Turner, Victor ¡24, ¡34, ¡4¡–¡43 Two Trains Running 242 Tyrone, Edmund ¡77

262

Index

Tyrone, James ¡75 Tyrone, Mary ¡77 Ulster ¡29 Ulster Literary Theatre ¡46 Ulysses 240 Uncle Silas ¡75, ¡8¡ Uncle Tom’s Cabin ¡07, ¡¡6, 237 Uncle Vanya ¡08, ¡09 Unger, Craig ¡62 Unidentified Human Remains 75 The United Irishman ¡48 United States of America ¡34–¡35, ¡40–¡4¡, ¡89 The Unknown O’Neill ¡80–¡8¡ Unspeakable Acts 4¡ Usmiani, Renate 70, 77, 80 Vaccaro, John ¡59, ¡60, ¡63 Vampire Lesbians of Sodom ¡59–¡67 Vampire Princess (Kyûketsuki, Kara) 36 Vega, Lope de 24 Vena, Gary 64 Verfremdungse›ekt ¡03 Verlaine, Paul-Marie ¡07 Vestris, Madame 8 Victorian ¡72, ¡75–¡76, ¡80–¡8¡ Video 2¡7, 2¡9 Vilpoux, Catherine 245 The Virgin’s Mask (Shôjô kamen, Kara) 32 Visual Field 2¡7–2¡8 Voaden, Herman 73 Volksbühne Berlin 2¡5–220 Volosinov, V.N. 56, 57, 60–62 Votes for Women 239 Vovolis, Thanos 245 Walcott, Derek 245 Walesa, Lech 2¡8 Walker, Craig Stewart 68, 74, 80 Wallach, Allan ¡65 Walter, Hugh Fitz ¡47, ¡49 Walton, J. Michael 5, ¡0, ¡4 Wang, Xiangyuan ¡¡¡, ¡¡8 Warter, John 5 Waseda University ¡¡5 Wealth (Plutus) 5, 6, ¡3–¡4 Wehr, Demaris 45, 47, 48, 5¡, 55 Weinzierl, Ulrich 220 The Well of Loneliness 240 Wertenbaker, Timberlake 245, 246 West Germany (FRG) 2¡5 Wheelwright, Charles 5

“Whistlecraft” see Frere, John Hookham Whitman, Walt ¡07, ¡¡¡, ¡¡7 “Who Is Afraid of Max and Madeleine?” 75, 80 Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf 75 A Wife for a Life ¡73 The Wild Duck ¡46 Wilde, Oscar ¡74 Wiles, David 245 Wilkerson, Margaret 24¡ Willet, John 92 Williams, Raymond ¡04–¡05 Williams, Tennessee 2¡3 Willmot, Rod 77 Wilson, August 236, 24¡–244 The Winter Company ¡74 Wolf, Irving 76 Woolf, Virginia 239–240 Worth, Katharine ¡55–¡56, 226, 246 Wrigley, Amanda 246 Wu, Judy Tzu-Chun ¡42–¡43 Wuthering Heights ¡76 Wylder, Mark ¡76 Wylder’s Hand ¡76, ¡8¡ Yale Cabaret ¡32 Yan, Zhewu ¡¡2, ¡¡3, ¡¡6 Yankee Notions 77 The Year of the Dragon ¡42 Yeats, William Butler 93–¡05, ¡45–¡46, ¡49, ¡52–¡56 Yeeroborin Gang ¡85 Yellow Is My Favorite Color ¡42 The Yeomen of the Guard 8 Yeusoon Hangjaeng ¡86 Yi Sang Counts to Thirteen ¡32 Young, William ¡3 Younger, Kelly ¡29 Yowoowha Sarangeul ¡85 Yu, Dafu ¡09, ¡¡¡ Yu, Henri ¡34, ¡42 Yu, Shan ¡¡4 Y¨raku-za ¡08 Zainichi-Korean 28–38, 40, 4¡ Ze-Ami ¡03 Zeitlin, Froma 244 Zimmerman, Cynthia 75, 80 Zimmerman, Mary ¡95–2¡¡ Zong, Baihua ¡¡5, ¡¡8 Zoo Story 75 Zoom 236

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