Critical Proximity: A Case for Using the First Person as a Production Dramaturg

On 1 May 1767, in speaking about the choice of play for the inaugural production of the ambitious Hamburg National Theater, Gotthold Ephriam Lessing noted wryly: “It was clearly important to begin with a German original, which in this case would also have the attraction of novelty. But the intrinsic value of this particular play could not make any claims to such an honor. The choice would warrant criticism, if anyone could demonstrate that they could have found something better” (essay 1, paragraph 3). Lessing apparently only holds back his most severe criticism of the quality of this play because of the overall abysmal state of new plays being produced on German stages. Thus, the field of dramaturgy was christened in the fire of the sharp-eyed and sharp-witted criticism that Lessing leveled at his own theatre on the occasion of its very first production. It does not seem that he had any kind of grudge against his employers, despite his dim view of the play; in fact, in the brief preface he provides to his Hamburg Dramaturgy, he praises the opening of the theatre highly, especially in light of what he sees as a gaping need for productions of new German plays rather than imports from other European stages.

I contend that it is from Lessing’s perhaps brave and perhaps foolhardy commitment to excellence that the field of dramaturgy draws a widely held view that dramaturgs should strive to be unfailingly objective as they offer criticism. Dramaturgs are often taught to position themselves at a critical distance from production work, even (and perhaps especially) their own production work, to preserve high aesthetic standards and prevent being swayed by mitigating personal factors. Anyone who has been part of even one production knows that rehearsal is rife with mitigating factors. In his first essay of the Hamburg Dramaturgy, Lessing’s honest appraisal of the work being done on German stages was well-grounded in a thorough knowledge of dramatic structure, theatre history, production conditions, and aesthetic principles. He demonstrated his clear knowledge of all these, as well as his extensive understanding of the play’s source text in his point-by-point demolishing of Cronegk’s Olindo and Sophronia. (By the way, the young playwright died at age 26; Hamburg presented his play posthumously. Although Lessing acknowledged this fact, it does little to soften his unenthusiastic assessment of the play. An inaugural, posthumous production—talk about mitigating factors!)

In Mary Luckhurst’s thoroughgoing yet accessible history of the dramaturg, Dramaturgy: A Revolution in Theatre, she addresses the fact that the English-speaking stage seemed to be relatively late to incorporate the field of dramaturgy and the role of the dramaturg into theatrical practice. Luckhurst helps to uncover dramaturgs working in areas and eras previously thought to be without them. Consider this quotation from Florence Alexander:

I always attended the two last rehearsals before every play because my opinion was worth having just before the play was produced. My remarks were taken down in shorthand and I was always told I was wrong, but in the end my opinions were always taken and proved all right. When an actor has been rehearsing a play for weeks he becomes blind to its faults. I could say things to Alec about his work that nobody else could, and when I went in to the last rehearsals I was called the sledge-hammer.

(60)

As Alexander attests, functions associated with the role of the dramaturg were alive and well during the explosion of theatrical activity in nineteenth-century England, but this work was largely hidden. Alexander held no official title at the St. James Theatre in the 1890s, but she was in a unique position as the wife of theatre manager and actor Sir George Alexander. So here we have an example of someone who had distance from the rehearsal process and yet the trust of the actor-manager. Her blend of “fresh eyes” and trusted perspective made her a good candidate to give critical feedback to improve the production before opening. The term...