Embodied Memory: The Theatre of George Tabori by Anat Feinberg (review)

126 REVIEWS Holocaust performatives engaged in continual acts of redefining might work better in spaces where multiple narratives need not necessarily exclude or silence each other and where the viewer is "actively engaged in producing meanings" (3) and, indeed, in the creation of the space itself. Spectacular Suffering is not only a challenging and complex analysis of Holocaust perfonnatives but a critique of various critical frames themselves. In chapter 3, "Feminism and the Jewish Discourse," for example, Patraka explores the intersection of feminism and "Jewishness," its conflicts as well as the discursive openings it offers. She illustrates how the paucity of gendered frames on the subject leaves some questions unanswered, such as why the majority of survivor testimonies appear to be written by women. As Patraka herself states, Spectacular Suffering is a collection of essays grouped around certain issues and written over a length of time. The book raises morc questions than it resolves because, as Patraka argues, her book, like any other Holocaust performative, should be open-ended: a space for provoking debate and fe-evaluation. As Patraka writes, there is no "golden nugget" of knowledge to take away (14). On the one hand, it is not a thesis with a single through-line of argument; yet, on the other, because of the discourses and critics referred to, the chapters are linked, though occasionally in an unsure manner. Patraka's intermittent use of emotive language, the limited selection of primary texts and sites, and the ungrounded criticism of certain theatrical genres (her critique of realism, for example, can equally be applied to her more favoured form of epic theatre) result in a certain incompleteness . This effect is compounded by the fact that the nature and preknowledge of her "spectator" remain undefined. Some of Patraka's suggested strategies would work with certain spectators but not with others. However, Spectacular Suffering is a provocative book that, like any interpretation of the Holocaust, should prove a space for continual revisiting by the Holocaust historian. ANAT FEINBERG. Embodied Memory: The Theatre of George Tabori. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1999. Pp. 346, illustrated. $39.95 (Hb). Reviewed by Edward IsseI', College ofthe Holy Cross George Tabori is a seminal figure in twentieth-century American and European theatre: an accomplished actor, a successful director, an award-winning playwright, a founding director of the experimental Berkshire Theatre Festival , and the founder and artistic director of Theater der Kreis in Vienna. Since exiling himself from America thirty years ago to pursue his career in Europe, he has achieved acclaim in Austria and Gennany as an innovative director and an uncompromising playwright, receiving the J. Kainz Medal and the MiiI- Reviews 127 heim Prize for Dramatists (twice) and becoming the first non-Germanlanguage author to receive the BUchner Prize. He is renowned - and often vilified - in Europe for his controversial productions of Beckett and Shakespeare , and he has been recognized as perhaps the foremost playwright of the Holocaust. Yet despite these achievements, Tabori has failed to attract either critical or popular attention in the United States. Recently, however, there has been greater interest in Tabori among English-speaking audiences. His dark farce about Hitler, entitled Mein Kampf, was produced in London in 1989, mounted by The Actors' Gang in Los Angeles in 1994, and published in English in 1998 in Carl Weber's edited anthology Germany: Plays as part of the PAJ Books Contemporary Drama series. A subtitled film version of Tabori's My Mother's Courage, directed by Michael Veroeven, was produced in 1997 to critical acclaim, and in 1999, the University of Wisconsin Press reissued the first volume of Robert Skloo!'s anthology The Theatre of the Holocaust, which includes Tabori's The Cannibals. But perhaps the most important publication for establishing Tabori's reputation in America is Anat Feinberg's 1999 work Embodied Memory: The Theatre of George Tabori. Successfully introducing Tabori's work in a cogent and compelling manner, Feinberg's book is accessible to non-specialists but is so well researched that it is an invaluable resource for scholars. Feinberg's analysis fills the critical void surrounding Tabori by combining biographical investigation with critical analysis. Dividing her material into four major...