Twentieth-Century Russian Drama: From Gorky to the Present by Harold B. Segel (review)

Book Reviews HAROLD B. SEGEL. Twentieth-Century Russian Drama: From Gorky to the Present. New York: Columbia University Press 1979. Pp. xvi + 502, illustrated. Anyone attempting to write a history of Russian drama during the Soviet period faces a number of fonnidable problems. Soviet theatre has its enthusiastic interpreters in the West (to whom we are indebted for several worthwhile studies), but no one has much good to say about Soviet drama, which enjoys the reputation of being dull, gray. and conformist. By all accounts play-writing has lagged far behind perfonnance since the days ofChekhov. Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, Vakhtangov, Tairov are seminal figures in modem theatre, but big names in Soviet play-writing, such as Ivanov, Kirshon. Simonov. and Pogodin, do not get (or deserve) a passing mention in serious criticism of world drama. Even the recent fluny of productions of genuinely interesting contemporary Soviet plays on the American stage (Rostotsky's Strider in New York, Roshchin's Valentin and Valentina in San Francisco, Vampilov's Duck Hunting in Washington) has been occasioned for the most part by exciting stagings of these works in the USSR, which were seen by visiting American directors. It is little wonder that we have had no history of Soviet drama in English. In undenaking to fill this gap. Harold Segel has recognized the pitfalls of his subject and directly confronted the problem of how (Q make attractive to readers a dramatic literature about which it is difficult to have more than lukewann feelings. The title of Segel's book, Twentieth-Century Russian Drama, indicates that he has enlarged the frame of his subject in bmh time and space so as to include a11 drama written in Russian during our century. By so conceiving his book, Segel finds a brilliant practica1 solution to the a1leged monotony of Soviet drama. A sizable portion of the book can be devoted to dramatic works outside the strict - and restrictive - Soviet canon, thereby lending color and variety to the study and immeasurably enriching it. In this fashion Segel is free to deal at length with what most appeals to him: works by pre-revolutionary, exile, internal emigre, and underground authors who were oppressed, or not officially sanctioned, for ideologica,l heresy or fonnalism, For example, the third and much the longest chapter, ''The Revolt against Naturalism: Symbolism, Nco-Romanticism, and Theatricalism," deals with the dramas of Bely, Briusov, Biok. Sologub, Gumilov, Yevreinov, and others, whose importance has often been overlooked in the later Soviet period for doctrinary reasons, Likewise, within the enlarged time framework, Segel is able to open with two chapters on Gorky, the first on the pre-revolutionary plays, the second on the Soviet phase of his career, The recent rediscovery of the author of Enemies, Summer/olk, and Barbarians in the Western theatre bears out the wisdom of Segel's allotting Gorky such a prominent place in his book. Uncommitted to a narrow chronological order or encyclopedic coverage, Segel focuses on interesting issues and themes, and pursues major authors and representative plays, passing quickly over the worst propagandistic hack work and devoting a full chapter to Evgeni Shvarts and his three superb fairy-tale plays for adults. Segel's approach to the inevitably controversial nature of Soviet art is judicious, moderate, and nonpolemic; he neither condemns wholesale, nor apologizes for, nor overrates his subject. Rather he views the evolution of Soviet drama both on its own tenns and from an outside position. In Twentieth-Century Russian Drama Segel gives us the background for important literary and theatrical controversies, extensive discussion of the social and ideological Book Reviews 243 dimensions of the plays in question. and a sampling of contemporaneous Soviet criticism. At the same time he makes telling observations on language, structure, plot fannulas, and recurring character types, and displays lively curiosity about dramatic genres, their traditions, fonns. and techniques. He argues convincingly for the continuity of grotesque and fantastic satirical comedy in Russian drama, which goes back to Gogol and Sukhovo-Kobylin, and resurfaces periodically in the Soviet period. Panicularly valuable is Segel's ability to place Soviet drama in a broader intellectual and social context through parallels with Russian classics, comparisons with better-known...