Toward a Dramaturgical Sensibility: Landscape and Journey (review)

The central argument of Geoffrey Proehl's Toward a Dramaturgical Sensibility: Landscape and Journey is that those who practice dramaturgy should acknowledge and celebrate the "tension [which] exists . . . between a need to generalize, assert, and define and a counter-need not to be caught too tightly in generalizations, assertions, and definitions" (119). In both form and substance, Proehl advocates a sensibility that balances the intellectual and the emotional, the concrete and the ephemeral, the yin and the yang of theatrical practice. Using Cleopatra's response, "Not know me yet?" (3.13.162), to Antony's jealous accusation as an analog for the dramaturg's experience, the book explores the philosophy and practice of dramaturgy in a unique way. Proehl writes that Cleopatra's question is "inseparable from the development of a dramaturgical sensibility. The process of trying to unravel the mysteries and indeterminacies of a play's dramaturgy [which] creates in those who undertake this work . . . an awareness of the limits and potential of knowledge" (17). Three impulses inspired him: an "interest in how dramaturgs describe their work" (18), the desire to understand how a play works dramaturgically, and an awareness of the deeply personal nature of the theatrical experience.

In part 1, Proehl uses "Landscapes" as a metaphor for the ground on which dramaturgical practice is built. Chapter 1, "Conversations," treats the role of language and its complement, silence. He observes that talking and writing are the dramaturg's essential tools for understanding how a play works and how best to collaborate with other artists. He also notes the limitations of language and its frequent failure to communicate true meaning. Silence is also fundamental to the dramaturg's work. Whether observing the silences in a text, practicing "brilliant listening" or self-imposed silence, Proehl "affirm[s] the value of dramaturgical silence" (43).

Chapter 2, "Pleasure," is the first of two chapters that investigate the dramaturgical sensibility in terms of the Dionysian (the pleasure of learning, research, contemplation) and the Apollonian (the search for patterns, methods, techniques). Proehl's prose style embodies the complexity he seeks to unveil. His first section is a meditation on temporality and its significance in characters' lives, both in the process of making theatre and as a symbol of expectancy and loss. The second section covers research and knowledge, which Proehl asserts are more complicated than "the normative expectation that dramaturgs will be a source of useful, scholarly information about the play and . . . its contexts" (61). He notes that "suspicion that knowledge is antithetical to the creative process" (62) has led dramaturgs to examine the paradox inherent in their roles as researchers—that the unknowable feeds the dramaturgical sensibility as powerfully as research. He weaves an account of American dramaturgs' perpetual efforts to define themselves and concludes with a tribute to his mentor, Michael Lupu, who believes that "the inherent, theatrical potential of the written text is its most important feature" (111).

Chapter 3, "Pattern," addresses dramaturgy as the analysis of a play's action. Defining dramaturgy here as "a close reading of the musical interplay among the parts of a play and the whole it becomes when staged" (87), Proehl summarizes six methods of script analysis honed in classrooms and rehearsals by Elinor Fuchs, DD Kugler, Lee Devin, Julian Olf, David Ball, and himself. He notes the tension that exists between the need to develop an analytical vocabulary and the need to "continually question its limitations" (87). The chapter's compilation of various approaches is a valuable resource for teachers and practitioners of script analysis. Proehl's technique uses the terms "melodrama," "metaphor," and "closure" as "rough metonyms for basics ways of thinking about a play's dramaturgy" (105). These amorphous categories reflect his commitment to honoring a text's ambiguities, but seem too abstract to be useful in clarifying its working structure.

In part 2, "Journey," three chapters draw a vivid picture of Proehl's experiences as the production dramaturg...