A Sociosemiotic Theory of Theatre by Jean Alter (review)

Book Reviews theatre that is "celebratory, public, all-inclusive" (p. 154) forming "an unofficial counter-culture" (p. 166). MacLennan and McGrath have much to be discouraged about. He no longer has a company or a reliable outlet for his writing, and English Tories still rule Scotland. Yet both accounts are affinnative: the struggle continues, while new groups and new kinds of theatre evolve - largely outside Britain. These accounts are a testimony to lives devoted to uniting theatre and political principles. MALCOLM PAGE, SIMON FRASER UNIVERSn'Y JEAN ALTER, A Sociosemiotic Theory o/Theatre. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 1991. Pp, xii, 281. $32.95. Contrary to the author's claim (p. xi) that this is an "ambitious and prov.ocative book," A Sociosemiotic TheOlY of Theatre could more accurately be described as pseudotheoretical bombast bearing little relation to the claims in the Preface. The chapter headings seem promising enough: Reference and Performance (pp. 31-(0); A Grammar of Theatre Referentiality (pp. 91- 148); Transformational Processes: Production! Reception (pp. 149-230); Playwrights, Directors, Actors and Their Work (pp. 231...Q9). But there is considerable discrepancy between the suggestive chapter titles and the discussion offered. Though almost half of Alter's book (pp. 31- 148) purports to be about reference, the author resolutely .avoids discussing any works of reference theory whatsoever, with the exception of a passing mention of Ogden and Richards's Tlte Meaning 0 / Meaning and 1. L. Austin. 1n view of the complex debate on this topic in philosophy of language, linguistics, literary theory, and indeed in works on the theory of theatre such as those by Patrice Pavis, Anne Ubersfeld, and Tadeusz Kowzan, this is more than a minor omission. One would, at the very least, expect some mention of, say, P. F. Strawson, 1. Searle, J. Donnellan, W. V. O. Quine, G. Frege, together with an attempt to locate the theory presented in this volume within the framework of those philosophers of language and theatre theorists who have for years been focusing on the issues Alter addresses. What is flamboyantly labelled "A Grammar of Theatre Referentiality" turns out to be a string of banalities amounting to little more than a superficial account of directors ' ways of shaping the reception of meaning (not reference, as claimed) by the audience. The extended example (one of the few in the volume) of Ariana Mnouchkine 's Kabuki-style production of Richard /I is an unconvincing attempt to show that its intercultural mechanism is exceptional. 1t is in fact the challenge implicit in any production of a play out of context. The claim that performance and referential functions are mutually exclusive is the central theory presented, though not convincingly demonstrated, in this volume. One of the main problems with this book is its perverse theory of reference that is at variance with all theories of reference known at least to this reviewer. There is 490 Book Reviews constant slippage in the discussion on "referentiality" with frequent confusion between referems and meaning - an elementary error. Alter's definition of the referent chops and changes from page to page. Thus on p. 26: "The specific state of affairs to which the sign refers shall be called the referent. The referent is I/ot a general class of states of affairs defined by the signified of a sign; it is a concrete manifestation of that class, at a given time and in a given space." Elsewhere reference is equated with "telling a story" (p. 50), merges with the signified (pp. 174-75) or becomes a new kind of beast called "referential interest" (p. r84) or "referential meaning" (p. 191), and so on. Alter's semiotic universe is odd, to say the least, for we learn that "signifieds playa minor role in theatrical processes" (p. 28). Since he acceEts (pp. 174- 75) that referents occur in theatre dialogue, it seems strange to find the persistent claim that the so· called "perfonnant" function and the referential function are incompatible, and that the perfonnant function can' in fact ~liminate the referential function. Even Jakobson allows that the poetic function contains traces of reference. The "Grammar of Referentiality" offers little that is new. Its title is deceptive. It is...