Distance Manipulation: The Russian Modernist Search for a New Drama by Joanna s> Kot (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 147 Fitz-JamesO'Brien'sblatantplagiarismof the Russianwritermay be takenas an albeitback-handedtestimonialto his literaryworth. Department ofModernLanguages ROBERT REID Keele University Kot,Joanna. Distance Manipulation: 7heRussian Modernist Search foraNewDrama. Northwestern University Studies in Russian Literature and Theory. Northwestern University Press, Evanston, IL, 1999. v + 170 pp. Notes. Bibliography.Index. $54.95. THIS study takes five disparate dramatic texts which, together, are seen to constitute an experimental approach to twentieth-centurydramatic writing, and discussestheirsignificancein termsof 'distancemanipulation'.The plays are a world-acclaimed masterpiece -- The Cherry Orchard; a distinguished example of RussianSymbolistdrama Blok'sThePuppet Show; a little-known play by Sologub, T7he Triumph of Death,and two obscure works by Zinaida Gippiusand VyacheslavIvanov HolyBloodand Tantalus. The choice of plays might seem arbitrary,were it not for the fact that they are allRussianand belong roughlyto the same historicalmoment, two having been stagedfamouslyby Meierkhold.However, the selection is made to stand or fallon thesignificanceof 'distancemanipulation'which, here, hasaprotean and ubiquitous task to perform in sustaining a difficult, even chimerical, intellectual project. The term has partly formal and partly performative connotations in that it is seen to relateto qualitieswithin dramatictextswhich engage, or disengage,the intellectand emotion of someone called a 'recipient' or 'virtualrecipient' (who, for some reason, is always referredto as 'he'). It also hiassomnething to do with the ways in which plays areperformedeitherto invoke emotional engagement, or produce intellectual estrangement. On the formallevel, realistictexts are seen to conform to a hypothetical 'recipient's' expectational niormswhereas experimental texts which seek to break with realismevoke a correspondingeffectof distanciation.Each text is discussedin termsof its capacityto promote or inhibitsuch an effect. There are moments when the book succeeds in sublimating its own theoreticalpremises as in the unpretentiousand straightforwarddiscussion of ThePuppet Show.However, large sections are couched in the followingkind of hyperbole: 'In their texts a large number of distally oriented and nonperlocutionaryreferentialsegmentsare alternatedwith proximalexpressive segments. Such a distributionsubstitutesforthe drama'straditionalhighly perlocutionaryoriented discourse,while continuing to presentabstract,distal material'(p. 124). This passageis takenfrom the conclusion, which only lacks two of the book'sfavoured'buzz'words, 'deixis'and 'deictic',to be complete. Apart from massive generalizations, marked usually by a numbered note directingthe readerto:'See. . .' (followedby alitanyof names andpublication dates), cogency of argument is occasionally undermined by non-revelatory insightsof the following order: 'Alot of words are poured forth in TheCherry Orchard as in all the playwright'sworks:the charactersspeak incessantly' (p. 40). Well, after all, it is a play. The same section describes Astrov as a 148 SEER, 79, I, 2001 character in 7hreeSisters(p. 36) and anybody who did not know TheCherry Orchard could be forgiven for believing that the play concerns Ranevskaia's relations with her husband, her son and her lover, there being 'very little action in the traditional sense [... .] Ranevskaia'shusband dies of drink, her son drowns [and] her lover robs her' (p. 43). Pishchikis describedas having a 'tendency of putting himself to sleep' (p. 42) whilst the charactersare seen to be 'trappedin a kind of limbo that is not only spiritual,but often material,and even economic' (p. 35, emphases added). The author also quotes, uncritically, (in addition to supplying the wrong page reference)J. L. Styan's claim that there are no less than fifty off-stage characters in the play, including 'gardeners'.To cap it all, 7The Cherry Orchard is described as 'an example of a new genre, one that points to the absurdity of twentieth-century theatre' (p. 47) when presumablywhat is meant is Theatre of theAbsurd. In case this should seem unfair to Ms Kot, her impressive list of 'Works Cited' runsto twentypages (infact the endnotes, bibliographyand index take up fortypages nearly one third the length of the actual text) and she does give the impression of being very knowledgeable about Polish dramatists.In fact, one wonders why she did not base her study on the unknown and littleknown [to thisreviewer]names thatshecites.At itsbest, the bookis intelligent and informed;at itsworst it is both intellectuallyimmodest and expressively/ theoreticallybizarre.Bewailingthe styleof Tantalus and apparentlyforgetting that what is being describedis a play, Kot complains that, 'likethe flickering of an impressionist'spaintbrush, Ivanov [sic] dots the text with these tiny motifs [i.e. words] [...] that from a distance help create...