Dramatic Genre Research Articles

Жанрові модифікації фарсу в сучасній драматургії

Along with the genre forms that have not stopped their development for many centuries, but have gained significant transformations (tragedy, comedy, drama, melodrama, tragicomedy), there are also numerous genres, whichfell out of the history of drama for a long time (often for centuries) and were not claimed by theatrical art. However, in the drama of the 20 th – beginning of the 21 st century the clear tendency for the revival and modification of archaic genres, first of all, seemingly, “dead” genres of the medieval theater is characteristic. In its genre system religious drama genres (especially mystery and miracle plays), didactic (pritch, parable) and comic (farce, interlude, commedia dell'arte) occupy an important place. The article discusses the features of genre modifications of medieval farce in contemporary dramaturgy. A typology of contemporary farce is also suggested (three types are conventional farce, black farce and socio-political farce). Genre signs, features of the plot and of farce in the works of European dramaturgy of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries (M. Frein, M. Kamoletti, D. Orton, P. Schaeffer, E. Nelison, G. Adam, A. Bitton and others) are researched. Scientific (L. Smith, A. Sierz, S. Goncharova-Grabovskaya, N. Malyutina etc.) and author's (R. Cooney) reflections on the farcical genre module are considered.

<em>La gitanilla</em> en el teatro cómico victoriano. Textos y contextos

La fascinación victoriana por la figura del gitano se enmarca en un interés antropológico, estético y social por la representación del otro dentro de los márgenes de un imperio vasto y creciente como lo fue el Imperio Británico en el siglo XIX. En este contexto, como demostramos en el siguiente artículo, además de la constatada obsesión de la literatura europea por la gitanilla cervantina, las posibilidades dramáticas del personaje en el marco de un agitado y ferviente panorama teatral en continuo debate favorecen la refiguración de la gitanilla en diversos géneros y ámbitos escénicos. Desde esta doble perspectiva, abordamos en este trabajo la transmisión de la pieza cervantina centrando nuestros argumentos en el exotismo y la etnicidad de la recreación de la obra a través de dos textos fundamentales: The Gipsy Maid (1861) de William Brough y The Merry Zingara (1868) de W. S. Gilbert.

Pola Karya Konvensi pada Film Sekuel Studi Kasus Film Ada Apa Dengan Cinta? 2

Film Ada Apa dengan Cinta? 2 is a romance drama genre fi lm that was released in 2016. This study will identify the characteristics of the genre of the fi lm Ada Apa Dengan Cinta? 2 as drama romance. Dilakuakan identifi cation process using the basic scheme of the genre. The analysis aims to look at the depth of a movie as a genre film drama romance. The theory used is a genre theory drama by Jane Stokes as the main genre and romance as a sub-genre. The results of the research will be found pieces of pictures depicting scenes drama become romance film characteristics are becoming a common convention in the fi lm Ada Apa Dengan Cinta? 2. Characteristics of the setting and location diantanya is commonly used in everyday life, using the iconography in the form of specifi c causal fashion, narrative events culinary journey, locations and adventurous vacation, the whole character is the protagonist, and the structure of the plot told a farewell and an encounter back in love triangle. As a sequel, the film has differences with its predecessor

Setting the Stage: Drama, Libretti and the ‘Invention’ of Opera in Leipzig in the 1680s

AbstractThe opera house in Leipzig opened its doors in 1693. Operas had been performed in central Germany for quite some time but they were primarily confined to courts. With the founding of the opera, Leipzig, home of an important trade fair, provided an additional musical attraction that could entertain merchants coming for the fair. While the year 1693 marks the beginning of regular opera performances in Leipzig, the preceding decades saw an increased interest in dramatic genres in the realms of both secular and sacred music. The connection between these dramatic works and the opera house are not just circumstantial. Some of the key players in the opera business in Leipzig were involved in these earlier pieces as well, especially the poet Paul Thymich, the first librettist for the Leipzig opera, who provided the majority of texts for the drammi per musica, Singspiels and sacred cantatas.

Sociological Aspects and Local Specificity in the Classical Ketoprak Script of Surakarta Style

Javanese literary works are reflections of the scriptwriters real world. Ketoprak script is one of the literary works of the traditional Javanese drama genre. There are several kinds of ketoprak scripts in Java and each region has different aspects. Each ketoprak text can reflect the social condition of its native area when analyzed by sociological literary-approach. Sociology of literature is a study that connects literature with its social reality. Classical ketoprak script of Surakarta style viewed from the perspective of sociological literature is a reflection of the socio-cultural life of the community in Surakarta. It is seen from a socio-historical perspective, socio-cultural, and linguistic aspects used in the classical ketoprak script of Surakarta style. These three aspects make the classical ketoprak script of Surakarta style has a local specificity and characteristics that distinguish it from other Javanese literature.Keywords: sociological aspect, local specificity, Javanese literature, classical ketoprak script

Las Hijas de Eva de Santiago Serrano : douze personnages en quête de genre

From its genesis in 2008 to its different actual stage productions, the unpublished play Las Hijas de Eva, by Argentinian « teatrista » Santiago Serrano (1954), reworks the images of feminine gender and feminism in a parodic way that mixes tragic and melodramatic tones, with a metatheatrical movement that reveals the backstage of an artistic and identity process, while questioning simultaneously dramatic genre and gender.

Engaging with The Bridge: Cultural citizenship, cross-border identities and audiences as ‘regionauts’

This article explores civic engagement with the Danish/Swedish crime series The Bridge (Danmarks Radio/Sveriges Television 2011–) based on qualitative interviews with 113 audience members, and drawing on the notion of cultural citizenship. The perspective of cultural citizenship, as understood and operationalized mainly by Hermes, is married with critical perspectives on the crime drama genre and its audiences, along with cultural analysis of the construction of and engagement with the cross-border region in which the drama is set. The analysis shows that civic engagement with the crime series is prompted through the construction of community and allegiances through which audiences feel connected. This argument unfolds in three main analytical sections, detailing how audiences’ articulations of community are focused around distinct yet overlapping dimensions of community as (1) a national social ritual, (2) a sense of Nordic community, and finally (3) community as regional identity and sense of belonging to a borderless Öresund utopia – the integrated region between Denmark and Sweden. In so doing, the article offers rich insights into how audiences shape civic identities as members of nation states, of historical and cultural regions and as border-crossers between these geo-cultural entities - in dialogue with popular culture and around the boundary-work of the different communities offered by such texts.

Teatro, Infancia y Escuela: reflexiones sobre el género dramático en la Literatura Infantil

Teatro e infancia mantienen una relación muy sólida y productiva desde que el público infantil se asentó como un posible destinatario específico de estas obras. El teatro infantil ha estado relacionado desde sus inicios con la institución escolar, puesto que ha destacado, especialmente, por su potencial como herramienta didáctica para la transmisión de conocimientos y valores. No obstante, al igual que para el conjunto de la literatura, el valor estético es su principal requisito, lo que parece dificultarse para los escritores de obras dirigidas a los más jóvenes por la presión social sobre lo que deben decir, enseñar o transmitir. En el artículo se realizará una aproximación al término teatro infantil aportando datos que permitan definirlo y determinar su alcance, su evolución en el territorio español y se defenderá la posibilidad de recepción del género no sólo como espectáculo, también como texto de lectura.

Utopia: 권력의 공리주의적 음모

This essay examines a British conspiracy thriller Utopia (2013-2014, broadcasted by Channel 4) written by Dennis Kelly whose writing encompasses all the dramatic genres: TV drama, play, musical script, radio drama and scenario. Utopia juxtaposes realistic and unrealistic elements in scenography and characterization, which creates an eerie atmosphere that the viewer cannot expect reality. The series portrays ordinary people who are fans of a graphic novel Utopia. They have suddenly been hunted down by killers of Network, a secret organization of which utopian project is to cut the human population which soon reaches eight billion back down to 0.7 billion. In order to accomplish their objective, Network will have 90 per cent of the human population sterilized by distributing flu vaccine. Their rationale is that the Earth and human being must perish for climate change and resource depletion that, as they claimed, overpopulation have caused. The series poses an ethical dilemma that the greater pleasure can only be achieved by the lesser people against the classical utilitarian doctrine; the present population must be declined for the greater welfare of the future generation.

HALLYU (KOREAN CULTURE WAVE) TRENDS IN SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS DISTRICT

Study on Hallyu contents consumption habits according to was not covered as a research topic in a variety of Hallyu studies, but the acceptance of Hallyu content, of course, is a very important variable affecting the overall distribution and consumption. Therefore this study focused on literature and expert FGI in relation with the three major religions Buddhism, Islam, Catholicism and an survey research was held with Buddhism, Islam, Catholic countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia, Costa Rica, Peru, Chile. Based on this analysis, the results are discussed.As a result of analyzing the answers of the experts participated in the FGI, 3 emerging issues and 18 sub-issues were identified. 3 main issues are the diffusion state of Hayllu content, the problems in the diffusion process of Hallyu content, and the diffusion method of Hallyu content. Expert reported Buddhist countries in and around Southeast Asia is on a maturity phase and Muslim regions focused on Turkey and the Middle East is on a growth phase. In addition, Catholic region with a focus on Latin America had been understood that the introductory period has passed but somehow entered the lower level of growth than the Islamic sphere. Specially, was confirmed by the expert interviews that our Hallyu content was mainly spread in the Buddhist countries in and around Southeast Asian region.The summary of the main results of the survey in Buddhist and Islamic countries people who experienced Hallyu content, ‘drama’ had the highest response and in Catholic countries, ‘K-Pop’ had the highest response. Secondly, the experience regarding Korean culture has shown to be ‘Korea food’ regardless of the religious sphere. The contacting channels of Hallyu content were through the free internet services such as youtube, P2P and etc. regardless of the religious sphere. Genre preference in Buddhist countries chose ‘Entertainment’, Islamic countries ‘drama’, Catholic countries ‘K-Pop’ as their favorites. The most preferred Korean drama genre showed to be ‘melodrama’ regardless of the religious sphere and ‘limited amount of contents’, ‘inconvenient content transfer process’ showed to be the highest response to the inconvenience using the contents. Results of examining the impact of the contents on religious image of Korea, is recognized as a positive impact regardless of the religious sphere.Results of examining the impact of Hallyu content on religious life, neutral response such as it has nothing to do with religion was the highest. This shows the Korean Culture & Content does not help, nor disturb the religious life. Interest in the Korea Culture and the craze in the popular culture throughout China, Japan, South East Asia, and the spread of Korean drama, movies, and K-Pop through Europe and South America is cultural phenomenon that is increasing. Based on this, by covering areas such as fine arts, celebrity, tourism and etc. is expanding gradually from culture Hallyu to economy Hallyu. However, focusing on the short term economic performance on the traditional Hallyu can’t avoid the criticism. It will be able to provide new country image and brand management focusing also on social, cultural and religious values besides the economic benefits.In particular, by analyzing the consumption based on the is possible to derive sustainable growth and development of Hallyu as a cultural content, and in terms of culture communication Hallyu consumer analysis and response as strategic, politic planning. Through this study, if an in-depth study of strategic subject and action plans research is followed, policy utilization value can be even greater.

Introduction: Shaw and Classical Literature—What You See Is Not Always What You Get

Introduction: Shaw and Classical Literature—What You See Is Not Always What You Get

Sermon and Spectacle: J.B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls

This essay argues for a reassessment of J.B. Priestley’s place in the canon of twentieth-century British drama on the basis of his literary craftsmanship. Priestley’s work tends to be dismissed as too didactic and popular to warrant serious study. An Inspector Calls belies that assessment: while on its surface it is a simple plea in favour of England’s post–World War II move to socialism, the play’s surprising formal intricacy reveals an exemplary partnership of form and content. The formal analysis performed here attends to the collision of dramatic genres – the medieval mystery or miracle play and the modern mystery as detective story – that structures the play as a series of oppositions, provides the basis for its characterization, and lends urgency to its ethical choices. The combination of Priestley’s comprehensive political vision – which ranges from the granular level of individual consciousness to a theory of history itself – and his skilful aesthetic strategies delivers drama that is intellectually engaging and entertaining.

Emergence of the viewing public: Does social television viewing transform individual viewers into a viewing public?

This study wanted to find out whether social viewing, the act of exchanging ideas through online media while watching television programs, can turn an audience member into a viewing public. This study proposed nine variables that represent attributes of viewing pubic and content analyzed social viewing discussions based on those variables. The results showed that more than half of the discussions reflected negotiated reading and independent reading of the television texts. A factor analysis of the nine indicators of social viewing resulted in three factors – issue viewing, network viewing and critical viewing. The comparison of three factors across four programs showed that social viewing is sensitive to genres of programs. As expected, the documentary, a non-fiction genre, caused viewers to be engaged in issue related discussions with critical perspectives. The drama genre, on the other hand, was less successful in transforming an audience into public. The study also found that the quality of program did not influence the social viewers’ discussions.

Драматические жанры на сцене шекспировского театра: формирование зрительских ожиданий

<p>В конце XVI — начале XVII в. в Англии существовали смешанные представления о драматических жанрах. Неоклассические теории жанра причудливо переплетались с театральной практикой, ориентированной на широкий круг зрителей, среди которых было немало людей неученых и даже неграмотных. В этих условиях именно театры должны были взять на себя труд по формированию жанровых представлений и ожиданий аудитории. Воспитание жанрового вкуса у зрителей было на руку актерам, поскольку позволяло театральным коллективам свободно экспериментировать с жанровыми условностями в расчете на понимающий отклик публики. Судить о том, как это происходило, мы можем по редким экскурсам в жанровые теории, сохранившимся в дошедших до нас текстах пьес.</p><p>Один из фрагментов такого рода — первая сцена анонимной пьесы «Предостережение честным женщинам» (A Warning for Fair Women, опубл. в 1599 г., приписывается авторству Т. Хейвуда), в которой на сцену выходят персонифицированные Трагедия (Мельпомена), Комедия и Историческая хроника. Они обсуждают сложившиеся отношения между жанрами, и Трагедия обещает зрителям новинку — «документальное» представление об убийстве богатого лондонца. Учитывая, что эту пьесу ставила шекспировская труппа «Слуги лорда-камергера», налицо своеобразный конфликт драматургических концепций: Мельпомена прогоняет со сцены Комедию и Историческую хронику, т. е. именно те жанры, которыми в 1590-е гг. прославился Шекспир как драматург. Попутно здесь указывается на связь между представлением в жанре трагедии и черными занавесями, которыми убрана сцена, — получается, что у английских актеров 1590-х гг. было в обычае сигнализировать зрителям о жанровом характере пьесы, которую им предстоит смотреть.</p><p>Этот пример говорит о том, что, во-первых, публика того времени имела ясное представление о различных жанровых категориях, причем проводниками этого знания были актеры, преследовавшие собственные практические цели; во-вторых, жанры в шекспировскую эпоху были категориями подвижными, формировавшимися буквально «на ходу»: если сначала зрителей следовало приучить к особенностям определенного жанра, то затем драматурги смело могли играть на зрительских ожиданиях, исполняя или не исполняя их в соответствии с собственными творческими задачами. </p>

Oral storytelling and national kinship: Reflections on the oral narrative performance in the Kenya Schools and Colleges Drama Festivals

The story, in the form of the oral narrative, has always been a communalizing genre in the traditional African setting. It then functioned as a tool that brings together not only the artist and the particular audience, but also the entire community within which the performances are derived and performed. However, postcolonial, modern and global situations have greatly impacted on the traditional kinship structures in Africa and kinship fostering tools like the African oral narrative have not been spared. The introduction of the oral storytelling onto the proscenium stage in the Kenya Schools and Colleges Drama Festivals (KSCDF) has contributed to perpetuate the performance of this genre to significant degrees. This move has not only recalled attention to oral narratives, but also has revolutionized the performance and functional aspects of oral storytelling. Various aspects of the oral narrative genre have changed, from the multi-ethnic audience to the elaborate narrative structures and the varying orientations of the oral artists in KSCDF. The dramatic elements of the narrative have also been enhanced to justify its inclusion within the wider dramatic genre. This article investigates the structural and thematic reorientations of the contemporary Kenyan oral narrative and how it influences the reorientations of kinship in a postcolonial reality characterized by heterogeneous consumer audience and the need for national commonality. The aim is to understand the reorientations of oral storytelling and its scripted machinations of multi-ethnicity woven into the narrative as part of its contemporarily requisite features; the question is whether or not these reorientations enable the ideological adoption of some form of kinship across the diverse ethnic groups in Kenya. 

The Literary Genre of Arabic Poetry in Khorasan in the 4th Century AH

From the first century AD, Khorasan has been popular as one of the bases of Arabic poetry and this era has been the heyday of Arabic poetry in this place. As the study of poems based on literary genres enables people to study these works more cohesively, we have divided the Arabic poems of the 4th century into four genres, namely lyrical, epic, dramatic and didactic. Then, we discuss the history of each of these types among Arabs and afterwards analyze the Arabic poems of Khorasan. We concluded that lyrical and didactic genres are the most widely used types of poetry among Khorasani poets and that their poems did not have the dramatic genre. Also, epic poems did not exist in the poetry of this period, neither in the world literature sense, nor in the sense that was considered among Arabs. We just observed boasting and praise poems that are a subset of epic poetry.

Performing Religion: Chinese Catholic Biblical Drama in the Republican Era

In the aftermath of the collapse of the Qing regime in 1911, a corpus of dramatic texts, chiefly rewritings of biblical stories, was published by the Catholic presses in China during the Republican era (1912–1949). Some biblical tales were creatively represented in a variety of dramatic genres, including traditional Chinese opera, folk performing arts, and modern spoken drama. These performative texts were periodically put on stage in Catholic churches, schools, and orphanages during religious festivals and celebrations. The staging of biblical dramas performed important religious functions: dramatizing the history of salvation, providing edifying entertainment, facilitating community building and transformation, and presenting the Catholic Church as a morally relevant and socially engaged community in Republican Chinese society. This pioneering study of Chinese Catholic biblical dramas shall deepen our understanding of the Chinese reception and transformation of the Bible through dramatic texts, and the ...

Theaterdramaturgien von der Aufklärung bis zur Gegenwart by Evelyn Deutsch-Schreiner

Reviewed by: Theaterdramaturgien von der Aufklärung bis zur Gegenwart by Evelyn Deutsch-Schreiner Dagmar C. G. Lorenz Evelyn Deutsch-Schreiner, Theaterdramaturgien von der Aufklärung bis zur Gegenwart. Vienna: Böhlau, 2016. 351 pp. The Graz-based theater scholar Evelyn Deutsch-Schreiner offers, in her study Theaterdramaturgien von der Aufklärung bis zur Gegenwart, an incisive, innovative approach to the history and practice of German-speaking theater from the Enlightenment to the present day with a focus on dramaturgy. Embedded in her project are analyses of major Austrian representatives and their interaction with German and non-German theater practices and personalities. Deutsch-Schreiner begins by examining the changing tasks and missions of the dramaturge as literary advisor to directors and theater companies, script and program designer in charge of programming and scheduling, market researcher, and hands-on consultant. These roles differ from one historical period to another and depend on the inclinations and talents of the individual dramaturges. Deutsch-Schreiner’s project is inclusive and far-reaching. It explores the history of German dramaturgy beginning with a pace-setting essay on Lessing and his theoretical and practical contributions to the development of German-speaking theater. The discussion then proceeds to markedly different dramaturges such as Schiller, Brecht, Heinar Kipphardt, Dieter Sturm, and the Swiss dramaturgy represented by the exile Kurt Hirschfeld. Finally, Deutsch-Schreiner records the entrance of female dramaturges into the traditionally male bastion by examining the work of Stefanie Carp and Nadine Jessen and their impact on contemporary theatrical practice. In the unfolding mosaic, Austrian dramaturgy, represented by Joseph Schreyvogel, Arthur Kahane, and Hermann Beil, figures prominently, both in its own right and as a force influencing and fertilizing German theater. Through their contacts with German and international actors and theorists and their appointments at German and international stages, these Austrian dramaturges transported the stage tradition of Vienna and Salzburg across Europe and, during the Nazi era, across the Atlantic. Deutsch-Schreiner’s approach is inclusive and supranational. She explores German dramaturgy and the genre of drama more generally within the cosmopolitan and increasingly professional context as part of European and Western conventions and aesthetics. She notes that the trajectory of the first theater journal, a model for Lessing’s undertakings, aimed to be international in character and fostered a universal concept of theater (31). Schiller, the first freelance dramaturge, likewise emphasized his cosmopolitism and envisaged [End Page 188] enlightened audiences. Still, Deutsch-Schreiner takes into consideration the dependency of the dramaturge upon local conditions and requirements, e.g. the Weimar stage, and she notes a change in paradigm in the late eighteenth century when the Burgtheater was named the German Nationaltheater. The influential Viennese dramaturge Joseph Schreyvogel perpetuated the Enlightenment tradition with Schiller as his model, but, as Deutsch-Schreiner writes, as a critic and practitioner he also supported Austrian authors such as Grillparzer, whom he discovered and mentored, thus providing new thematic and formal trends. His production of König Ottokars Glück und Ende, Deutsch-Schreiner argues, made Grillparzer’s play the iconic patriotic Austrian drama. The study also discusses the impact of the Austrian censorship laws since Maria Theresia on the history of theater as well as the stifling effect of the normative aesthetics and forms of expression designed to repress liberal ideas. By placing Arthur Kahane, Max Reinhardt’s first dramaturge, in a central position in her study, Deutsch-Schreiner stresses the importance of Vienna’s Jewish bourgeoisie as an innovative element in the development of theater. Relocating to Berlin, Kahane and Reinhardt played an important role in the cultural interchange between the two capitals and as an integrating force in northern and southern theater life. Deutsch-Schreiner traces these personalities’ activities at a variety of theaters and thematizes Kahane’s interest in American authors such as Eugene O’Neill, jazz, and modern musicals. For Deutsch-Schreiner Kahane’s death on the eve of the Nazi takeover (and the banning of his books) as well as Reinhardt’s death in exile mark the end of a vibrant theatrical culture, which, as she implies, was opportunistically invoked in the postwar era to appropriate Reinhardt’s theater as iconically Austrian. Following a review of...

Foundational Arts: Mural Painting and Missionary Theater in New Spain by Michael Schuessler

Reviewed by: Foundational Arts: Mural Painting and Missionary Theater in New Spain by Michael Schuessler Anna M. Nogar Schuessler, Michael. Foundational Arts: Mural Painting and Missionary Theater in New Spain. Tucson: U of Arizona P, 2013. 224 pp. Michael Schuessler’s study of two murals and a play dating from the first epoch of Spanish conquest in New Spain provides valuable insight into the mestizo nature of the forms, and their complementarity as colonizing instruments. Schuessler posits that the murals were sites of “palimpsestic synthesis” (29): instances where indigenous elements were interwoven into European structures and principles. Schuessler urges this concept forward, proposing that the mural artwork, likely painted by indigenous artist-scholars or tlacuilos, manifests a complex fusion of native worldviews with Spanish modalities; as he terms it, “a foundational example of… Indo-Christian syncretic iconography” (21). Schuessler lays out the parallelism between artwork and drama, asserting that each didactic tool sought to “instill the Christian faith by using elements that the Nahuas recognized as belonging to their own culture” (142). Schuessler purposefully limits the scope of his investigation to the artwork located at two Augustinian monasteries in Hidalgo, Mexico: the mural program at the Monastery of San Miguel Arcángel in Itzmiquilpan, and the murals in the open chapel at the Monastery of San Nicolás Tolentino in Actopan. Both buildings were designed by Augustinian friar Andrés de Mata, and their murals were hidden under whitewash until the later twentieth century. In the case of the Itzmiquilpan murals, Schuessler reveals a subtext to their religious primary subject matter: the Chichimec raids that fulminated nearby. Schuessler reads the latter, whose massive structure is heavily decorated with artwork representing apocalyptic themes, in the context of what many consider the first New Spanish dramatic work, El juicio final (The Last Judgment), a play in Nahuatl penned by Franciscan Andrés de Olmos in the 1530s. Schuessler argues that the commonalities between mural and play suggest that the moral drama may have been performed in the chapel for an audience of native neophytes, and pinpoints the intersections between them. Schuessler foregrounds his study in chapter one, “Towards a Literature of Foundations,” with a discussion of early hybrid/mestizo New Spanish cultural production. Starting with a survey of scholarship on the drama genre in early post-con-quest Mexico, Schuessler draws comparisons between Spanish theater before and up to the sixteenth century, and the “hypothesis of an incipient Mesoamerican theater” (43): indigenous dramatic performances prior and contemporaneous to Spanish conquest. The discussion continues with an historical exploration into how religious theater was used to evangelize in early New Spain, and how it was adapted to new environs and audiences. [End Page 226] Schuessler’s second chapter examines the development of mural art and drama as instructional instruments in New Spain. Schuessler traces back the European prototypes for both genres, and is quick to cite the many colonial-era sources (among them Franciscans Toribio de Benavente, Diego Valadés, and Dominican Bartolomé de las Casas) that reported native artists painting, including an outdoor chapel decorated by indigenous artists. Schuessler suggests that these murals were often inspired by images in printed Spanish-language texts. In most of these cases he maintains that “images with pre-Columbian influences, frequently limited to the marginalia of the pictorial program, may be found in vines, flowers, plants and other leitmotifs that adorn the portraits of saints, the Crucifixion, the Tree of Jesse, and the Apocalypse, among other frequent subjects” (82). Yet Itzmiquilpan and Actopan deviate from this tendency, as indigenous influence there is more extensive, from the colors and dyes used to saturate the images (the sacred turquoise green invoking Quetzalcoatl), to the paintings’ images, in which “classic figures from Greek and Roman cultures [are] combined with gods, animals and magical beings that pertain to Nahua polytheistic religion” (85). Schuessler proceeds with a close examination of the murals at Itzmiquilpan in chapter three, which he asserts are “an extraordinary synthesis of the icono-graphic depiction of several principles of Catholic dogma, Indian mythology, and a recent historical and political event” (99). Schuessler discusses Itzmiquilpan’s fascinating image of a centaur, in which the fusion of European themes with...

Art, Vision, and Nineteenth-Century Realist Drama: Acts of Seeing by Amy Holzapfel

Reviewed by: Art, Vision, and Nineteenth-Century Realist Drama: Acts of Seeingby Amy Holzapfel Andrew Gibb Art, Vision, and Nineteenth-Century Realist Drama: Acts of Seeing. By Amy Holzapfel. Routledge Advances in Theatre and Performance Studies. New York and London: Routledge, 2014. Cloth $148.00; Paper $45.95. Xvi + 227 pages. With this book, Amy Holzapfel achieves nothing less than the complete upending of our long-held assumptions about realism as a dramatic genre. As she correctly points out, theatre scholars have long accepted that realism "sought to produce an exact copy of life on the stage" (2). Not so, argues Holzapfel, who leads us through the stages of the genre's nineteenth-century development, from Eugène Scribe's well-made plays to Gerhart Hauptmann's naturalism. She convincingly demonstrates that realist playwrights, deeply engaged with the scientific and artistic discourses of their times, sought a balance between the desire for objective reproduction of the observable world and the subjective demands of artistry. Holzapfel's great innovation is to contextualize representative plays within period understandings of the philosophy and physiology of vision in order to highlight realism's simultaneous staging of objective and subjective reality. In the space of five chapters, Holzapfel expertly guides her reader through the stages of realism's development, from the middle to the end of the nineteenth century. Her progressive argument is supported by the uniform structure of the chapters: she begins each with a representative example of visual art, interprets that work as a translation of prevailing scientific understandings of human vision, then introduces us to the contemporaneous realist dramatists whose works responded to those ideas. In this way, the author makes a strong case for the development of realist drama as an artistic reaction to changing thought about human vision: its creators sought to rescue the ideal of individual creativity and subjectivity from the advance of scientific objectivity. Holzapfel begins her first chapter with references to the genre paintings of Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin and Jean-Baptiste Greuze, much admired by philosopheand dramatic critic Denis Diderot. She usefully expands upon the theories of Art Historian Michael Fried to posit character absorption, rather than plot, as the operative factor of the well-made play, an assertion she proves through analyses of plays by Scribe, Sardou, and Dumas fils. Holzapfel effectively demonstrates that these scripts necessitated active stagings that constructed realism "out of actions of the gesturing—seeing and touching—body" (46). The discussion of Émile Zola's naturalism found in Chapter 2 is set up by the documentary photographs of Nadar (Gaspard-Félix Tournachon), and those made by his brother Adrien Tournachon to illustrate the experiments of neurologist Guillaume Duchenne de Boulogne. Holzapfel highlights an often overlooked fact about these pieces: in addition to their primary subjects, they prominently feature the presence of an observing expert. She successfully parlays that observation into the argument that the embodied vision of such scientific spectators mirrors Zola's [End Page 159]belief in "naturalism as an active, interpretive, and paradoxical negotiation between visual objectivity and subjectivity" (77). Chapter 3 opens with the last known image of Henrik Ibsen, an example of the popular photographic technique of stereography. Other artistic forms cited in the chapter include Pre-Raphaelite painting, spirit photography, and composition photography. These are read against the writings of philosophers J.W. von Goethe, Arthur Schopenhauer, and physiologist Hermann von Helmholtz. Holzapfel traces these influences on A Doll House, Ghosts, and The Wild Duck, forcefully arguing that Ibsen's oeuvre "discredits the notion that full disclosure of truth is either necessary or even plausible … through our own unreliable sense of vision" (114). With Chapter 4, Holzapfel returns to composite photography, highlighting the work of eugenicist Francis Galton, which she links to the photographic self-portraits of August Strindberg. The latter images, as well as Strindberg's plays, represent for Holzapfel "a process of layering sediments of the self upon one another to form a visual impression of a subject" (153), a point effectively made with analyses of The Father, Comrades, Miss Julie, and Creditors. The final tremor of Holzapfel's seismic argument is Chapter 5's treatment of Hauptmann's plays...