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  • Dramaturgy: A Revolution in Theatre
  • P.K. Brask
Mary Luckhurst . Dramaturgy: A Revolution in Theatre. Cambridge Studies in Modern Theatre series. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. 284. $99.95/£48 (Hb).

During a seminar for translators of drama, the German director Peter Kupke stated that, in order to translate a play, a translator needed to engage with context, text, subtext, and Gestus. These categories, for me, also define the most important aspects a dramaturg in the dramatic theatre must delve into and produce practicable responses to. However, this is not the focus of Mary Luckhurst's book. It begins a step prior to the actual work, so to speak. Her view is more historical.

Dramaturgy: A Revolution in Theatre is of particular interest for people wanting to study the notion of dramaturgy as it has played out in the context of the United Kingdom. Chapter headings reveal Luckhurst's main focus: "Dramaturgy in Nineteenth-Century England"; "William Archer and Granville Barker: Constructions of the Literary Manager"; "Kenneth Tynan and the National Theatre"; and "Dramaturgy and Literary Management in England today."

In addition, the book contains two chapters, "Gotthold Lessing and the Hamburg Dramaturgy" and "Bertolt Brecht: The Theory and Practice of the Dramaturg" that are of significance to anyone anywhere with a professional interest in dramaturgy and the dramaturg. These chapters are brilliantly researched. Where many researchers have to rely on translations of foundational texts, Luckhurst knows German and is, [End Page 533] therefore, able to access and assess much archival and other material that is closed to many scholars in the field. In 1767, Lessing became the first person to hold the post of dramaturg. His job was to choose seasons, find and consult on new plays, translate and adapt plays, and function as an in-house critic. The actors soon resented his activities in this last assignment and saw to it that they were curtailed. For the two years Lessing held the post in Hamburg his activity was all in aid of the development of a national German theatre and repertoire. Brecht, of course, revolutionized theatrical practice in aid of a Marxist view of the theatre, in which the dramaturg played a pivotal role. Brecht saw the dramaturg as someone who bridged theory and practice. For this reason, at the Berliner Ensemble, dramaturgy students also had to learn directing and directing students had to learn dramaturgy. Between 1939 and 1955 , Brecht clarified his theory of the ideal dramaturg in The Messingkauf Dialogues, both a performance text and a theoretical document. It was from Brecht's students and their students that the notion of the production dramaturg as a collaborator with the director began to spread across the western world and is now slowly becoming an important practice of some theatres dedicated more to art rather than to commerce.

Luckhurst chooses not to offer fixed definitions of the terms dramaturg and literary manager. Instead, she "examines certain functions of professional theatre-making which from Shakespeare to the present fall within the (overlapping) spheres of dramaturgy and literary management" (11). In doing so, she convinces us that, when dramaturgy is done well, such as in the cases of Lessing, Brecht and his students, and Tynan, the person holding the position of dramaturg or literary manager is nearly indispensable. Clearly, however, very few are able to function at this level of skill, insight, and artistic acumen and this suggests the question of what important and necessary role a dramaturg has in the current theatre (by which I mean theatres in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States) that do not enjoy the level of funding of some continental European companies. Unlike actors, who remain the sine qua non of theatre making regardless of whether they are good or bad, the dramaturg has no inherent raison d'être. The traditional dramaturgical roles of selecting seasons, researching, analysing, translating, adapting and rewriting plays for production, casting, critiquing, program writing, and so on are functions that may (continue to) be well taken care of by artistic directors, directors, actors, designers, public relations personnel, friends, spouses and lovers, and more. Of course, if a theatre comes across a person as...

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