The Great Tradition and Its Legacy. The Evolution of Dramatic and Musical Theater in Austria and Central Europe. (Austrian and Habsburg Studies 4) by Michael Cherlin, Halina Filipowicz, Richard L. Rudolph

Abstract

28 Reviews (including clerical) interests,were indeed immensely complex. This realization leads to a number of criticisms. This book is so packed with information and analysis that it has the makings of a standard work that one would want to consult again and again. To achieve that, however, more consideration for the user would have been required: a good index, for example, maybe even a listing, with dates and other pertinent information, of themany scholars, associations and organizations, and periodicals mentioned; better proof-reading (to remove embarrassing mistakes, such as the three different spellings of the name of the author of Imperial Leather. Race, Gender, and Sexuality in theColonial Conquest [ 1994], Anne McClintock) ;and meaningful footnotes on the actual page rather than being referred to one of themore than a thousand endnotes where one then finds a name and date to be checked in the bibliography ? an exhausting wild-goose chase. In parts, especially in thewide-ranging introductory chapter, the author has the tendency to subsume virtually all 'anthropological' thought since the Renaissance (literally from Copernicus to Freud) under one sinister hierarchical (i.e. paternalist and racist) and universalist super-narrative, thus implicitly creating her own post-colonial and feminist counter-narrative. This approach brings with it the distinct danger of practising what it pretends to criticize. But even with these minor objections, overall this book marks an impressive and important achievement. National University of Ireland, Maynooth Florian Krobb The Great Tradition and Its Legacy. The Evolution of Dramatic andMusical Theater in AustHa and Central Europe. Ed. byMichael Cherlin, Halina Filipowicz and Richard L. Rudolph. (Austrian and Habsburg Studies 4). New York and Oxford: Berghahn. 2003. xiii + 274 pp. $75.00; ?55.00 (hardback). isbn 1-57181-173-7. $25.00; ?18.50 (paperback; 2004). isbn 1-57181 4?3-5 The trouble with grandiose titles is that the reader usually expects rather more than can be given within the compass of a relatively slim volume. This title certainly promises much, and what we have are fifteen essays on aspects of drama and musical theatre, ranging over two centuries. The book is divided into two sections: 'dramatic theater' (introduced by Halina Filipowicz) and 'musical theater' (introduced byMichael Cherlin). These introductions repay careful reading (even ifwe may not agree with Filipowicz's suggestion of the sexual excitement created by theatrical performances, p. 6) and provide some coherence to a wide-ranging collection of articles. The theatre section is divided into two parts, of which the first, 'The Enlightenment and the "New Beginning'", contains essays on 'Moral optimism and the fine arts in late-eighteenth-century Austria' (by the historian Ernst Wangermann), on the uses towhich nineteenth-century Polish dramatists put the 'national hero' Tadeusz Kosciuszko (Halina Filipowicz; but we note that none of the four plays mentioned was staged inVienna), on Nestroy, linking him to several 'followers' in the twentieth century (CarlWeber), on pantomime, AUSTRIAN STUDIES, I3, 2OO5 281 dance and physical culture in German and Austrian modernism (Harold B. Segal), and on Max Reinhardts Viennese productions of the 1920s (Michael Patterson). The second part, 4Post-Holocaust and Postmodern Theater', has essays on Jelinek's Nora play (Christina Kiebuzinska) and on George Tabori (Hans-Peter Bayerd?rfer), as well as two on Thomas Bernhard ? on Heldenplatz (Alfred Pfabigan) and Vor demRuhestand (Jeanette R. Malkin). The main focus ison Austrian drama, and readers, depending on their knowledge of the subject matter, will find something of interest inmost of the papers. This reviewer particularly enjoyed four, those by Segal, Kiebuzinscka, Bayerdorfer and Malkin. 'Pantomime, Dance, Sprachskepsis, and Physical Culture inGerman and Austrian Modernism' covers in itsnine pages a broad base and will, hopefully, encourage readers to look out works they haven't yet read and to relate drama to a wider field. Kiebuzinska's 'Elfriede Jelinek's Nora Project; or what happens when Nora meets the capitalists' provides a thorough, ifstraightforward, analysis ofJelinek's satirical 'Nora' play written in 1979, deconstructing Ibsen's A DolVs House and The Pillars of theCommunity.Hans-Peter Bayerd?rfer's 'George Tabori's Return to theDanube, 1987-1999' looks at another of the 'anti-Austrian' dramatists of the late twentieth century, putting Tabori's efforts into the...