From Perinet to Jelinek: Viennese Theatre in Its Political and Intellectual Context by W. E. Yates , Allyson Fiddler , John Warren (review)

Abstract

552 Reviews (p. 184). The contrast with Gay's Beggar's Opera is well made, not always to Brecht's advantage, so that the statement that this 'may be seen as the highpoint of Brecht's career' (p. 192) is surprising. Ronald Speirs examines Brecht's Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder as important for the establishment of the Berliner Ensemble, for its role in internal cultural politics in the GDR, and as a landmark in Brecht's own development as a producer of stageplays . Its dialectical presentation of major social themes and events relevant to the late twentieth century emphasizes social contradictions set at the start of a series of wars that Brecht believed to result from capitalism. Mother Courage's position is revealed as both tragic and ironic, supported by visual and verbal rhetoric that is both meaningful and precise. Michael Minden considers Peter Weiss's Marat/'Sade as a turning point in Weiss's development, deliberately complex and confusing in the use of time, ofthe authority of Sade, and of its network of ideas. Reviewing interpretations that stress its presenta? tion ofpotential freedom and its revelation of primitive energies, its immediate impact on the audience and its closeness to the theatre of cruelty,Minden adds his reflections on the role of shock in response to the demands of modern audiences saturated with media effects. 'The mixture of radical socialist politics and radical sex is irresistible' (p. 222). The play is finallypresented as a happening. Ben Morgan introduces his discussion of Jelinek's Krankheit oder moderne Frauen by considering at some length its predecessor, Handke's Publikumsbeschimpfung.Selfdeconstruction and an anti-theatrical style are identified in Jelinek's earlier dramas. In Krankheit 'theatre has been, as it were, broken down into its component parts' and the audience are left with the work of recombining them (p. 242). The play is also seen as a reaction to the gender imbalance of dramatic tradition. By concentrating mainly on important features that made each drama into a land? mark, these essays offerconsiderable help to students. Although they present no new research findings, their detailed comments should invite further discussion and be quoted to advantage in essays, dissertations, and lecture courses. The collection may then itself become a valued landmark. Mellen University, Iowa Brian Keith-Smith From Perinet toJelinek: Viennese Theatre in its Political and Intellectual Context. Ed. by W. E. Yates, Allyson Fiddler, and John Warren. (British and Irish Stud? ies in German Language and Literature, 28) Oxford, Bern, etc: Peter Lang. 290 pp. 2001. SWF72. ISBN 3-906766-80-2 (pbk). Although the title and the chronological arrangement of these papers may suggest a survey of the familiar Viennese theatrical canon, we in fact get something more unusual: an account not only of mainline theatre but also of associated forms such as cabaret and monodrama, with attention to such institutional spects of theatre as censorship, criticism, and even fireprecautions. The central dramatic tradition is represented by essays on Grillparzer (Hans Holler and F. J. Lamport, the latter comparing the mythic drama Libussa with Hebbel's Die Nibelungen), welcome appreciations of plays by the once celebrated, now underrated Karl Schonherr and Max Mell (by Emma Smith and Judith Beniston respectively), and the Jedermann theme as revived by Hofmannsthal and updated by Felix Mitterer (Ulrike Tanzer), while recent drama is also treated in essays on monologues and silence in Bernhard's Heldenplatz (Stefan Krammer) and on sport and violence in Jelinek 's Ein Sportstiick (Allyson Fiddler). The emphasis is transferredto reception, and thus to the interaction between dramatist and public, in essays on Raimund's MoisasursZauberfluchby Ian Roe (who notes the deficiencies ofcurrent Raimund research, in MLRy 99.2, 2004 553 contrast to the Nestroy boom), and on the unfriendly Viennese reaction to Horvath's critical Volksstiicke(Louise Adey Huish), while John Warren provides a masterly brief survey of theatrical criticism between the wars, giving particular praise to David Josef Bach. W. E. Yates's essay on 'The Rise and Fall ofthe One-Act Play' attends especially to the financial circumstances and public preferences that help explain the popularity of one-acters from the 1850s to the 1880s and their revival by Modernists...