Ce que seul le théâtre peut dire: considérations poélitiques by Enzo Cormann

Abstract

battles draws attention to a turbulent period in French intellectual life. Long on theory, short on pertinent analysis, Connors skims the surface of troubled waters. St. Francis Xavier University (N.S., Canada) Edward M. Langille Cormann, Enzo. Ce que seul le théâtre peut dire: considérations poélitiques. Besançon: Solitaires Intempestifs, 2012. ISBN 978-2-84681-349-5. Pp. 190. 15 a. Because it is comprised of articles and talks published or given between 2004 and 2011 for and in various venues, this freewheeling collection is, the author admits, marked by a certain “disparité formelle” (6). The two parts into which the work is divided contain five sections each and consider the modernity, origins, crisis, and pertinence in and of the theatrical and the dramatic enterprises respectively. It is less an attempt to provide a definitive, coherent answer to the question of what modern theater is than “un axe de réflexion,” “une façon d’envisager la pratique [théâtrale]” (8). The “réflexion vagabonde” (14) by which Cormann aptly characterizes his work had its roots in a seminar taught by Félix Guattari, his “mentor schizo-analytique” (11) in the early 1980s. At that point he began to think about the “processus de (re)singularisation” that struck him as key to understanding contemporary theater and to which we owe this “souci d’élucidation du dispositif théâtral,” this “réflexion ‘poélitique’” (11). Modern theater, he reminds us, is always meta-theater. It fuses the poetic with the political. It makes poetry public and makes poetry out of the circulation of meaning, the sharing of emotions, the “provisoire délégation d’examen fictionnel, tout entière dédiée à l’état et à l’avenir de l’assemblée, envisagée comme représentante circonstancielle de l’espèce humaine”(31). Both representing the world and representations of the world—things, others, past, present, and future—modern theater “doit d’abord être absolument” (30). Although neither ground-breaking nor particularly original, the various “notes,” ranging in number from four to thirty and into which Cormann divides his thoughts, help us better appreciate the inherent tension at play in a theatrical, or “poelitical” performance, “entre la proposition dramatique et sa réalisation scénique” (86). One should never, for example, overlook the interdependence between those on the stage and those off it nor forget what‘really’ is at ‘play’ in a performance, who speaks and to whom. Actors come both from the wings and from the public,“le groupe des présents [...] qui occupent la salle, les gradins et qui [...] ne sont pas encore des spectateurs” (36). A theatrical performance is in actuality not a “mise en scène” but a debate, a “mise en assemblée du drame” (50), an infinite dialog. Perhaps most important, more than a place to seek answers for what was or is, the theater is an experimental space for exploring which might be, “une assemblée de curiosités, de sensibilités, de singularités” (184). These are all pertinent points and worth remembering. But Cormann’s background as a dramatist, not a theatrical practitioner per se, coupled with his distinctly literary approach result in 212 FRENCH REVIEW 87.4 Reviews 213 some oversimplification. His conceit, for instance, that cinema and video might better be able than the theater to represent the world as it actually is but that theater is unique in its ability to produce new esthetic paradigms, “soumettre à l’expérimentation collective [...] des univers de valeurs mutants” (185) seems a stretch, unnecessarily reductive, maybe even misrepresentative. California Polytechnic State University Brian G. Kennelly Delamaire, Mariette. George Sand et la vie littéraire dans les premières années du Second Empire. Paris: Champion, 2012. ISBN 978-2-7453-2042-1. Pp. 554. 125 a. George Sand is widely recognized today as not only a remarkable individual, but also as a major writer, thanks in part to the publication of her Correspondance, together with the proliferation of scholarship surrounding the bicentennial of her birth in 2004. Indeed, the last forty years have worked wonders in opening access to her lesser-known writings, in paying homage to her feminism and...