Plays of Expectations: Intertextual Relations in Russian Twentieth-Century Drama by Andrew Baruch Wachtel (review)

Abstract

reviews 117 points out, is actually consistent with his disdain of the type ofWesternized culture the Imperial Theatres were promoting. The opening up of theatre to private ventures, therefore, can be seen as part of Alexander's conservative agenda rather than as a liberalization of the art form. The net result, over time, though,was that control of theatre in the capitals was wrested from the state and handed toRussia's 'fledgling civil society' (p. 106). With the abolition of the monopoly, Moscow and St Petersburg were filledwith entrepreneurs, impresarios and theatrical innovators, all ofwhom 'contributed to thewider social trend thatwas gradually challenging the state as the curator of artistic culture and the arbiter of identity' (p. 108). By the last decade of the century, though, intellectuals were becoming disappointed with commercial theatre, which they believed had failed in itsmission of developing citizenship. Although it is difficult to judge the role that theatre played in transforming social mores among the masses, Frame convincingly demonstrates that by the turn of the century, theatrical associations like the Russian Theatrical Society were teaching theatre people professional modes of conduct and a wider sense of theirrights and obligations as citizens. While contributing to debates on civil society in Imperial Russia, Frame's work cannot be said to transform scholarly conceptions of the subject; his discussions of civil society, based primarily upon thewritings of Ernest Gellner, do not fully take into account the enormous scholarship on the topic that has emerged in recent years. His focus on Moscow and St Petersburg, albeit with occasional reference to the provinces, also limits the extent to which his arguments can be applied to the vast Russian Empire as a whole. That being said, the book makes a significant contribution to our understand ing of the role of theatre inRussia and the broader changes taking place in Russian society over the course of the long nineteenth century. Department of History Jeffrey Veidlinger Indiana University, Bloomington Wachtel, Andrew Baruch. Plays of Expectations: Intertextual Relations in Russian Twentieth-Century Drama. Donald W. Treadgold Studies on Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia. Herbert J. Ellison Center forRussia, East European, and Central Asian Studies, University of Washington, Seattle, WA and London, 2006. vii + 163 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. ?i3-99 (paperback). In his thought-provoking study, Andrew Baruch Wachtel examines how dramatists play with the expectations of audience members by using refer ences to other literary texts and traditions to create intertextual dialogues. These dialogues both informan audience's interpretation of a work and invite audience members to make assumptions about what will unfold on stage ? assumptions which may then be fulfilledor confounded. Noting that poetic (and, to a lesser extent, prose) works are a more usual subject of intertextual inquiry,Wachtel argues that in drama, intertextual practice gives rise to a number of additional complexities. When the author Il8 SEER, 87, I, JANUARY 2009 of a poem quotes from or makes reference to material from another literary source, its effectdepends primarily on the individual reader's own reading experience ? whether or not he or she recognizes the citation, and what impact thishas on his or her interpretation of the poem. When suchmaterial appears in a novel, the reader must also consider from whose perspective the quotation comes ? if from the narrator, are the characters aware of the intertextual play; if from a character, are the other characters aware of it, and is themeaning for each character (and the reader) the same? In performance, Wachtel argues, these questions are further complicated by the communal nature of the audience; by the fact that the text is filtered through actors and directors; and by theuse of non-verbal intertexts. Thus an individual spectator who does not recognize an intertextual play may become aware that some thing is going on by the reaction of other audience members; or a director may ask an actor to mimic a gesture made in another well-known production, which is familiar to audience members, (but not to the characters in the play ? who presumably do not share the same 'theatrical memory' as their audience). Wachtel's list could also include the 'real time' nature of perfor mance: readers of poetry...