Performing History: Theatrical Representations of the Past in Contemporary Theatre. By Freddie Rokem. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2000; pp. 241 + ill. $42.95 hardcover

Abstract

At first glance, Freddie Rokem's violent yoking of two unrelated events, the French Revolution and the Shoah, seems a bit odd. Rokem has good reason for linking plays treating these disparate subjects, however: both phenomena encourage a view of history “as a series of tragic failures of basic human values” (1) and, as such, the two are viewed dialectically. (In postwar theatre, the Terror has often served as a metaphor for the horrors of World War II.) Issues of representation also seem to make the coupling of these events unusual. While the French Revolution's self-conscious spectacularization seems to lend itself to theatre, the subjective, occluded suffering characterizing the Shoah nearly defies representation. This contrast would seem to present opposing challenges to playwrights, yet, frequently, dramas about the French Revolution and the Shoah employ similar metatheatrical devicessuch as plays within playsto present their histories.