Melissa L. McKay (review)

Abstract

MLR, 99.3, 2004 795 edge researchers revitalize the area as they lay to rest the old myths; while the rest of us hover at various points in between. The University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago Martin Munro Maryse Conde et le theatre antillais. By Melissa L. McKay. (Francophone Cul? tures and Literatures, 36) New York: Peter Lang. 2002. $48.95. xii + 142 pp. ISBN 0-8204-5262-9. Research in the area of Francophone and Creolophone theatres of the Caribbean is emerging in the English-speaking world, thanks to the ground-breaking work of Bridget Jones, (Paradoxes ofFrench Caribbean Theatre: An AnnotatedCheck List (London: Department of Languages, Roehampton Institute, 1997)). As a contribution to badly needed scholarship in this area, Melissa McKay has published a shortened version of her doctoral dissertation (New York: University of Columbia, 1998) on the theatre ofthe Guadeloupean writer and academic Maryse Conde, best known forher awardwinning prose (Segou, Tituba, sorciere noire de Salem, En attendant le bonheur, La Femme cannibale, ete). The three chapters take us from the general context of theatre in the French Overseas Departments of Guadeloupe and Martinique to a discussion of particular writers, mainly prose writers, who have produced theatrical texts, as well as two important playwrights, Gerty Dambury and Ina Cesaire. Chapter 2 deals with individual plays while Chapter 3 proposes an analysis of the central themes of each play, which the author relates to similar themes found in Conde's novels. A conclusion, an interview with Maryse Conde, and a bibliography complete the book. The imprecise use of concepts, misconceptions, bibliographical omissions, generalizations , and a glaring lack of knowledge of theatre in general and French Caribbean theatre in particular make for extremely uneasy reading. McKay states she will be discussing 'mise en scene' (p. 49), but then systematically avoids questions of perfor? mance, staging, and stage aesthetics, speaking in anecdotal terms about the conditions under which a play was produced. Thus her discussion in Chapter 2 (pp. 56-60) of Conde's An Tan Revolysion (unpublished), the only one of the plays she has ever seen performed?and this was in an English-language adaptation by students at the University of Georgia in the United States?remains naively descriptive and gives us no insight into a richly intercultural theatrical text. McKay does on occasion quote critical opinions from the press in France and Guadeloupe, but she does so without offering any critical context. Why rewrite a diluted resume of Aime Cesaire's plays when volumes have been devoted to Cesaire's dramaturgy by the most sophisticated of Caribbean scholars? Why speak of Haitian theatre (not officially part of the French Antilles, something McKay does not specify ) without referring to Franketienne, Syto Cave, Herve Denis, or la Compagnie Kouidor, all of whom have greatly influenced the theatre of Guadeloupe and Mar? tinique? Why were there no interviews with the theatre practitioners (other than Jose Jernidier) who performed and staged several of Maryse Conde's plays? In Chapter 3, where McKay deals with the plays' narrative, she is on more fami? liar, i.e. literary,ground and some of her descriptions are interesting. However, it is particularly when she establishes parallels between Conde's lived experience and her plays that we realize to what extent she is out of her depth. She does not seem to understand how 'real' events are filtered through stage practices, strategies of dia? logue, and stage conventions which are constantly being redefined, especially in the Caribbean, where Afro-Caribbean traditions of orality come into contact with Euro? pean stage dynamics. Consequently, the reader comes away with no understanding of 796 Reviews Maryse Conde's theatre poetics, as well as with the impression that McKay's manu? script needed some serious rewriting to correct stylistic imperfections. What might have been a model for future French Caribbean theatre studies has not materialized. Carleton University Alvina Ruprecht The Oxford Companion to Italian Literature. Ed. by Peter Hainsworth and David Robey. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2002. xlv + 644pp. ?60. ISBN o19 -818332-1. It needs to be stated that now there is an Oxford Companion to Italian Literature, and for professional Italianists this represents a...