Performance by Julian Hilton (review)

Book Reviews came into his own when he discovered a new theatrical style or mode, the Metaphysical Farce. In [96], he played B6renger in Ianeseo's The Killer and the Professor in The Lesson. Ultimately. MacGowran will be remembered for piecing togethershort Beckett works and passages from longer works into a show entitled End ofDay. It opened in Dublin on S October 1962. It was made up of Act Without Words I, the Lucky monologue from Waiting/or GOdOl, aspeech from Endgame, anexcerpt from Molloy, apassage from All That Fall, the erotic reminiscence from Krapp's Last Tape, and From an Abandoned Work. In 1965. End ofDay became Beginning 10 End. The pantomime of Act WithoUl Words I was gone, as was the Miles Davis trumpet solo. But, as Young points out, the essential Beckett tramp appeared at last in "a large, shapeless black greatcoat, without whiteface makeup; he now looked more like the forlorn vagabond of Beckeu's novels and less like a certain bowler-hatted silent film comedian" (pp. 104-105). This was the aspect he was to keep for his definitive Jack MacGowran in the Works of Samuel Beckett. Although Beckett directed MacGowran in his sublime patchwork quilt of his oeuvre, he felt that he was working with "a brother, someone who just knew" (p. 138). MacGowran had aperfect instinctive feeling for Beckett's tragicomic humor. Unlike so many critics, who still consider Beckett to be a pessimistic, nihilistic, morbid writer, MacGowran. coming to this work from the inside, always emphasized its wildly comic character. As the two artists worked together, reworking the themes ofthe writer's early novels Uinto ever more concise fragments oftheatre and prose" (p. 136), they anived at the same minimalist aesthetic. This is afme study, amust for every Beckettscholar, and for theatre people.For those who had the privilege of watching Jack MacGowran it brings back glorious memories. This frail being was more than a powerful actor; his presence on the stage was a visual sennon on man's resilience in the face of mortality. It was a.deeply moral experience. ROSETTE C. LAMONT, QUEENS COLLEGE AND THE GRADUATE CENTER OF CUNY JULIAN HILTON. Performance. London: Macmillan 1988. pp. viii. 173· $20.DO; $5.95. This short and concisely written monograph provides a broad introduction to theatrical perfonnance and summarizes current theoretical trends. Its appeal lies in its clarity and its eclecticism, both of which make it suitable for classroom use. The book is conceived as "amodel for describing and anatomising a perfonnance." Its genera1 focus is on the chief components of a play. as described by Aristotle, with special emphasis on acting and spectacle. The author incorporates a wide range of theories (including Elam's semiotics, Rudolf Laban's linguistics, Piaget's behavioral theory, and Levi-Strauss's structuralism) into a general overview of performance concepts. Book Reviews For the titles of his chapters, Hilton has recourse to Shakespeare's Sonnet 15. which contains both the theatrical imagery and the convenient metaphors that apply to the topic of perfonnance and to Hilton's analytical vocabulary. The latter is for the most part lucidly defined and developed, and !he book as a whole reads like a lexicon of Hilton's critical tefillS. The first chapter, "AlI in War witb Time: To Perform orNot to Perform?" includes an excellent sununary of Aristotle's six elements of a play and discusses performance today. In his second chapter, ''This Huge Stage: A New Poetics?" Hilton introduces the tlrree preconditions for theatre that will be developed throughout his study. He cites examples taken from various styles ofdrama to illustrate the parameters of space, time, and actant - the context of the actor. Hilton's terminology is clear and concrete; student readers should have little trouble understanding it. Although he occasionally alludes to semiotics, he avoids complex jargon. For the most part he utilizes one-syHable tenns that pertain to the vital aspects of perfonnance. These terms, however, are not always carefully defmed. For example, in chapter three, "I Engraft You New: Learning to Perform," the reader is buried under an avalanche ofterms that are not developed or explained at all. Pages 54 through 56 alone list no...