The Political Stage by Malcolm Goldstein (review)

204 BOOK REVIEWS Everywhere men were becoming aware of the deeply disturbing problems created by the industrial revolution, the urbanization of the population, and the impact of science, especially the conflict between science and religion. The conventions and attitudes of romantic literature were criticized for being outmoded and artificial. A desire for relevance and truth developed. Instead of exotic settings, there was a demand for the settings of everyday life. Instead of battles for political liberty, there was demand for social and economic freedom. Instead of princes, noblemen, and Byronic heroes, there was demand for characters who represented the average man. Instead of the romantic problems of love and honor, there was demand for a discussion of the disturbing economic, social, and personal problems of the day. Instead of the language of poetry or elaborate rhetoric, there was demand for the diction and rhythms of ordinary speech. A radically altered concept of the mission and method of literature was needed. (pp. 223-224) Except for the conflict of science and religion, these forces and conditions were present a century before and in fact lay directly behind the emergence of melodrama . That they also remained to stimulate the growth of a new realistic drama in the age ofIbsen suggests that the author needed something more particularized than these large and, in themselves, reasonably valid generalizations to explain the development of two such radically different kinds of dramatic writing. It is nevertheless true that many parts of the book present unexceptionable, straightforward narrative based on well-known standard sources. Wilson's intended audience, he explains, is "the general reader and the beginning student," neither of whom is apt to be troubled by sophisticated scholarly and critical issues. Moreover, the author has invented a special way of appealing to this readership: a series of fictionalized visits toa typical theatre in each period. As in the instance of a visit in 1902 to David Belasco's new theatre on opening night, Wilson makes interesting and commendable attempts at reconstruction. The result, however, is not fully successful; the accounts are too generalized, lacking the flavor that only authentic contemporary responses (which he blends and summarizes) can convey. Perhaps it is the identity-less spectator postulated in these imaginary excursions that prevents our gaining a real sense of what it might have been like to be someone, anyone, actually present at the event. And this, overall, is the major disappointment of Three Hundred Years of American Drama and Theatre: it lacks convincing definition. For all the usefulness that an updated retelling of the fortunes of the American theatrical enterprise may have, the book is an undistinguished contribution to general enlightenment , marred by vapid generalization and a marked tendency toward potted summary. The great popular synthesis of this fascinating and remarkably unwieldy subject remains, frustratingly, still unwritten. JOSEPH DONOHUE University of Massachusetts, Amherst THE POLITICAL STAGE, by Malcolm Goldstein. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974.482 pp. $13.75. "Dass ist Scheisse," exclaimed Brecht after witnessing a rehearsal of his play, Mother, ill New York in 1935. Never the man to shy away from the scatological, he apparently in this instance had good reason to grieve. Unwilling or unable to BOOK REVIEWS 205 produce the play entirely along "Epic" lines, the Theater Union, one of the most professional of the new producing units of the thirties dedicated to dramatizing the life of the working man, made what were for Brecht vitiating compromises: the pianists were seated in darkness rather than in full view of the audience, the lighting was too naturalistic, and the costumes were done with an authenticity that subverted the idea behind the playwright's famous "distancing" process, the Verfremdungseffekt. Most frustrating of all, the scenes were rearranged in a manner that deliberately emphasized the pathos of the situation. In spite of these modifications (made in part, one assumes, for greater audience appeal), Mother did not succeed, and closed after only thirty-six performances , the unit's shortest run. Clearly, America during the Great Depression was not ready for Brecht - and for most other playwrights whose work was radical in fact as well as in intent, for the thirties' stage was never quite as political...