Encountering 'Terra Australis': The Australian Voyages of Nicolas Baudin and Matthew Flinders by Jean Fornasiero , Peter Monteath , John West-Sooby (review)

Abstract

1124 Reviews in the French- and Creole-speaking Caribbean. She highlights in particular the am? biguous status of Creole among a cultural elite that delights in popular performances in Creole, while withholding the cultural endorsement that it would automatically accord to performances in French from Metropolitan France. She also notes the li? mits of suitably specialized research and criticism in the field, pointing out that the perspective is predominantly local rather than international, despite such valuable inputs as the checklist by Bridget Jones and Sita E. Dickson Littlewood, Paradoxes of French Caribbean Theatre: An Annotated Checklist of Dramatic Works. Guade? loupe, Guyane, Martinique from igoo (London: Department of Modern Languages, Roehampton Institute, 1997). However, the volume's richness reflects,above all, the seminal tension of displacement, a tension originating in the colonial link but now extending to the links between differentislands and differentlanguages (including English), and between archipelago and continent?chiefly the French metropole and the US hinterland. For Ruprecht, indeed, forces of displacement (exile, immigration, nomadism) explain the originality of the area's profoundly hybrid theatre, involving elements as diverse as the Creole comic tradition, the percussive rhythmsofthe drum, and the constraints of literary French. The volume is based on a conference held at the University of Carleton in Ot? tawa, although extra essays were commissioned to fill some gaps. While the level of discussion is impressive overall, the highlights include, along with the outstand? ing introduction, Annie Dominique Curtius's essay on the subtle semantics of the presence/absence of women in Cesaire's drama; Maximilien Laroche's illuminat? ing study of radio drama in Haiti; and Clare Tufts's study of the ideological fissures revealed by the controversial 1996 production ofLa Tragedie du roi Christophe at Avi? gnon. However, Christiane Ndiaye on jostling levels of discourse in Jean Metellus's Anacaona and Marie-Jose N'Zengou-Tayo on the theatrical representation of Haitian migration also provide stimulating insights, as do Michele Montantin's comparative study of the 'dramaturgie creole' of Simone Schwarz-Bart's Ton beau capitaine and Maryse Conde's An Tan Revolisyon, Lucie Pradel's study of the creative integra? tion of the ka tradition into contemporary theatre, and Jean Small's contribution on the cross-cultural value of francophone/creolophone theatre as it migrates from the French-speaking to the English-speaking Caribbean. This latter notion of cultural export (and the question of how value, meaning, and interpretation change en route) is also at the centre of Freda Scott Giles's study of the issues raised by the staging of Conde's play in the US. The volume is further enriched by Gary Warner's paper on the consciousness-raising role of a Creole theatre group set up in Sainte-Lucie in 1987; by insightful essays on Daniel Boukman (Hans-Georg Ruprecht) and on Vincent Placoly (Marie-Agnes Sourieau) respectively; and by more theoretical stu? dies of the links between theatre and therapy (Suzanne Crosta) and between theatre and Tinvisible'?the latter being realized in the dimensions of orality and ritual, for example (Serge Ouaknine). Because of the range and the sustained tenor of the con? tributions, this is, then, a useful, stimulating, and important publication. University College Dublin Mary Gallagher Encountering 'Terra Australis': The Australian VoyagesofNicolas Baudin and Matthew Flinders. By Jean Fornasiero, Peter Monteath, and John West-Sooby. Adelaide : WakefieldPress. 2004. xii+4iipp. ?43.95; AU$49.95. ISBN 0-87413873 -6. The eucalypts shading Napoleon's memorial at Ajaccio are a fragrant reminder of one of history's big 'what ifs': what if Napoleon had not lost the Battle of Waterloo MLR, 100.4, 2005 1125 but had gone on to establish the colony in Australia to which the French cartographer Freycinet and the zoologist Francois Peron had already attached the name Terre Napoleon} The last fiveyears have seen a sudden outpouringof books celebrating the French expedition to the great South Land and the meeting in 1802, in what is now called Encounter Bay, ofthe French expedition under the command ofthe ill-starred Nicolas Baudin, who would die of tuberculosis at Mauritius on the way home, and the British ships, commanded by the young, ambitious, and equally ill-starred Matthew Flinders...