Postdramatic Theatre and Form ed. by Michael Shane Boyle, Matt Cornish, and Brandon Woolf

Abstract

Reviewed by: Postdramatic Theatre and Form ed. by Michael Shane Boyle, Matt Cornish, and Brandon Woolf Dean Wilcox POSTDRAMATIC THEATRE AND FORM. Edited by Michael Shane Boyle, Matt Cornish, and Brandon Woolf. Methuen Drama Engage series. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2019; pp. 280. In the twenty years since Hans-Thies Lehmann gathered the disparate work of artists like Robert Wilson, Sarah Kane, the Wooster Group, and Tadeusz Kantor under the banner of "postdramatic theatre," the term has been applied to an ever-increasing assortment of works, artists, and disciplines. Much like Martin Esslin's "Theatre of the Absurd," Lehmann's moniker has taken on a life of its own. This volume seeks to problematize the term by reflecting on its various uses and abuses, and in many cases offering theoretical connections at which Lehmann's work only hints. The volume opens by exploring form as it pertains to performance in opposition to literary analysis. The editors are careful to note that this focus has often undercut concentration on social issues such as feminism, race, gender, and economics. Addressing these concerns, the work is divided into two parts, "Formal Aspects" and "Social Formations." In many respects, this volume can be considered a dialogue with Lehmann's approach, particularly stemming from the influence of his mentor, Peter Szondi. Wisely, Elinor Fuchs offers both a historical overview and a critique of the evolutionary tropes employed by Szondi and absorbed by Lehmann. Fuchs interrogates these critics over the use of a tripartite Hegelian structure in which "[t]he third, 'post' phase for Szondi abandons the classic shape of the pattern, and suggests decay, while the 'post' phase for Lehmann suggests a liberation, and even [End Page 267] a starting over" (27). In an attempt to avoid this culde-sac, Fuchs proposes two divergent categories: "drama," forged from the dialogic tradition; and "performance," which owes a debt to the avantgarde. In the latter, the performative aspects take precedence over literary and textual elements, creating a separate tradition rather than an evolution of a singular form. Fuchs's articulation of this division provides the framework for the text as a whole, which deals with Lehmann's characterization of the postdramatic "rather ambiguously as both a rupture with and a continuation of traditional drama" (33). Throughout, key elements of Lehmann's definition, such as narration, self-reflexivity, fragmentation, disruption of presence, and a shared space between performer and audience, reoccur as iterative themes as well as points of contention. These ideas are challenged on the basis not of validity but rather of the limitations of Lehmann's scope in defining them. Each author addresses one or more of these concepts and broadens the extent to which they can be applied and assessed. Emphasis is given to discussions of alternative spaces, festivals, state-supported theatres, contemporary dance, the Lacanian real, and dementia as devising strategies. Grappling with the limits of Lehmann, most authors employ alternative strategies for analysis located, for example, in the notion of the palimpsest via explorations of specific directing processes and texts; in pastiche, such as in the relatively new form of "concept-dance," in which critical distance and self-reflective practice inform the performance of quoted dance material where "the process of remembering in itself is considered a performative process" (165); and in "broader geographic and political economic forces beyond artist control" (50). "Formal Aspects" tackles the elements discussed by Lehmann in his section on aspects: text, space, time, body, and media. Each is addressed by an individual author in a "chapter" rather than an "essay," a clever approach maintained throughout that allows the volume to articulate a whole built from fragments. Even so, each essay requires a perpetual adjustment to a new voice, complete with a different perspective and theoretical position, and in some cases the chapters read like slices of larger arguments. As a result and to its benefit, the work appears like a multifaceted object, in which each surface allows a different vantage point. "Social Formations" offers inquiry into the avantgarde and the postdramatic within the context of festival performances, Lehmann's notion of the "real" filtered through Lacan, "l'ecriture de plateau" or "set writing" in contemporary French theatre, concept...