Bauformen des Modernen Englischen und Amerikanischen Dramas by Paul Goetsch (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 317 the process is not so unusual as Bair makes it sound, and she completely ignores his extraordinary concentration on detail (as will be apparent in the forthcoming Beckell al Work by Fehsenfeld and McMillan) both in writing and realization. Bair makes Beckett's rehearsals sound like a tug of war between him and his director. or him and his actors. At rehearsals I attended in London, Paris, and Berlin, I witnessed no such struggle. Not, of course, that all is sweetness and light. Theater cannot escape the vulnerability of the actor-above all to inner blocks, secondarily to pressures from director or playwright. Any intense rehearsal process contains a compendium of mercurial emotions, but several actors-notably Billie Whitelaw- are unhappy about the battle scenes that Bair sets on Beckett's rehearsal stages. She has him telling her directly in 1973: "The best possible play is one in which there are no actors, only the text. I'm trying to find a way to write one" (p. 513). If these are his exact words, they show humor as well as irritation, and the irritation is not necessarily with actors. That different actors respond differently to Beckett is predictable. What is nol predictable but contradictable is Bair's statement that Beckett behaves differently in the theaters of different countries- "gloomy and depressed" in England, "meticulous to the point of obsession" in Germany, "shy in the face of the talent and authority of others" in France (p. 561). Rather than "conversations with actors, directors and other associates," Bair should have tried to attend a rehearsal or two. Personally, Beckett remains shy. but professionally, he is always meticulous, demanding morc of himself than of any of his theater coneagues, whatever the country. Bair's 640 pages are based on her 1,620 Notes, the last of which reads: "In one fonn or another, he has made this remark to DB and others." That "one form or another" is Bair's pet phrase, and it epitomizes her approach to biography. ] have quoted so extensively in order not to slip into similar sloppiness. Unscholarly, poorly written, larded with long passages about people who came through Paris to benefit from Beckett's unfailing courtesy, the book is nevertheless addictive. I admit that I gulped it greedily, as other people devour science fiction or murder mysteries. But even before the disclaimers of such sources as Mary Manning, John Montague. and especially A. C. Leventhal, ] did not confuse sensationalism with scholarship. The book's jacket blurb (by an academic who should know better) announces: "it seems possible that Deirdre Bair knows more about Samuel Beckett than does the man himself." She should; she de-composed him for her biography. RUBY COHN University of California, Davis BAUFORMEN DES MODERNEN ENGLISCHEN UND AMERIKANISCHEN DRAMAS, by Paul Goetsch. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche BuchgeseUschaft, 1977. 23Ipp. 42 OM. In an astute, immensely enjoyable gibe at certain paradigmatic ways of reviewing a book (published by David Home, Scholarly Books in America, X [Jan 1969J, 4-7), a reference list is given of beginnings for both favourable and 318 BOOK REVIEWS unfavourable appreciations. A fairly nasty one reads: "the most significant aspect of the [book] is that it has no significant aspect." Professor Goetsch's most recent publication turns the tables, as it were, on the sort of reviewer specialising in the "cavalry attack" variety of critical evaluation; in fact, the study gives anyone who has chosen to comment on it a terrible headache, presenting. as it does, a profusion of aspects which leaves the reviewer in a Tristram-Shandy-like predicament of not knowing where to begin, which points to single out for commentary, and where to end. Most of the issues Professor Goetsch raises are of infinite value to anyone working in the province of modem drama and seeking to pick his way through the "thicket" of generic types and styles of drama. Professor Goetsch's declared aim (p. 4) is to act as a sort of pathfinder to old hands and greenhorns alike. And one can only envy him the skill of his performance. The old hands will discover that the book opens new vistas, most of which they might...