Stages of Annihilation: Theatrical Representations of the Holocaust by Edward R. Isser (review)

160 Book Reviews berg texts mentioned in the Book"; "Notes"; "Bibliography"; "Index." The cover illustration, Caspar David Friedrich's Wanderer fiber dem Nebelmeer, provides a powerful visual entry into the book. Here is God's plenty, all that a serious student of Strindberg will want or need to enter the Nebelmeer and make sense of it by recovering "his faith in the imagination" and experiencing "new ways of seeing" (10). Carlson has done his work well. The English-speaking student now has a splendid guide to Strindberg. Although there is some repetition, the writing is generally'so good that the argument can be easily followed; for example: "In A Dream Play the evocative atmosphere of the shadowy place causes the Daughter to remember the many things she has experienced. As she recites them, the Poet begins to understand the vital role imagination has to playas mediator between art and nature, dreams and reality" (314). The text is blessedly free of jargon. Or, if Carlson does use it, he takes care to define it simply and immediately. Note the example of semes (98): "Strindberg's mythopoeic imagination. which in so many of his works ties humans to nature and natural rhythms. here uses mythic elements ... as sernes, discreet units of meaning, reverberating with ancient import in a modern context and acquiring new significance in the process." We can only thank Harry Carlson for his labours on behalf of Strindberg, whose Inferno and whose Reawakening he has brought to life for us. CHARLES LELAND, ST. MICHAEL'S COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO EDWARD R. ISSER. Srages of Annihilation: Theatrical Representations of the Holocaust. Madison, NJ: Farleigh Dickinson University Press 1997. Pp. 209. $33-50. In the introduction to his 1982 anthology of European Holocaust plays, Robert Skloot lists five objectives of serious playwrights who are drawn to this forbidding part of our recent history: honoring the victims, teaching history to audiences, evoking emotional responses, discussing ethical issues and suggesting solutions to universal, contemporary problems (The Theatre of the Holocaust. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press). Skloot applies this criteria to his in-depth discussion of Holocaust drama in a subsequent work: The Darkness We Carry: The Drama of the Holocaust (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988). After analyzing several groups of plays arranged by theme or country (Germany , France, USA), Isser arrives at a similar conclusion: "The most significant - the most legitimate - plays are those works that confront the Holocaust in its enonnity; that compel an audience to look without turning away at the horror and ineffability of the event. In these works the violence of the oppres- Book Reviews sor is not transfigured or made palatable. The authors of such dramas create startling stage images, fully realized characters, and respect the documented record" (173). Thus, like Skloot, [sser favors Charlotte Delbo's Who Will Carry the Word and George Tabori's The Cannibals. Also on [sser's list of good Holocaust plays we find Robert Shaw's The Man in the Glass Booth, Liliane AUan's Mister Fugue or Earth Sick, Peter Barnes's LAughterI, Claude ' Grumberg's The Workroom and the Free Zone, Gilles Segal 's The Puppetmaster of Lodz, Emily Mann's Annula: An Autobiography, c.P. Taylor's Good and Christopher Hampton's The Portage to San Cristobal. (Coincidentally , Elinor Fuchs' 1987 international collection, Plays ofthe Holocaust (NY: TCG), features works by Barnes and AUan too, but surprisingly includes Nelly Sachs' dramatic poem Eli: A Myste/y Play of the Suffering of Israel, because, in the editor's words, along with the other five plays, Eli is about the "life and death of the community" XII.) Praise for works that focus on the events, strive for historical accuracy and show respect for the victims, contrast with Isser's rejection of dramas that use the Holocaust to advance political or social agendas. Thus, among others, [sser is critical of Tony Kushner (A Bright Room Called Day) and Martin Sherman (Bent) for appropriating the gruesome events in order to affect or influence the politics of AIDS, Peter Weiss (The Investigation) for justifying communist domination of Eastern Europe and Barbara Lebow (A Shayne Maydl) for calling attention to a variety of feminist issues...