Jacques Copeau by John Rudlin (review)

Book Reviews tragicomic experience. Each author reaffirms that although the roots ofthis genre extend deep into theatrical history, our time has taken it to mind and heart with singular fervor. VICTOR L. CAHN, SKIDMORE COLLEGE JOHN RUDUN. Jacques Copeau. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1986. Pp. xvii, 141, illustrated. $39.50; $12.95 (PB). This latest volume in a valuable series of critical studies is a triumph of analysis and sensitive appreciation, written in a lively and fluid style. Although it is not quite (as the dustjacket proclaims) "the first" assessment ofthe work and influence ofCopeau, it can claim justifiably to be the best extended professional examination to appear to date in either English or French. Previous studies by French authors are more comprehensive in biographical detail, often either adulatory or anecdotal, but none have been written by a man of the theatre. The available studies in English, mostly written by such theatre professionals as Eric Bentley, Albert M. Katz, Barbara Kusler Leigh, Kenneth Macgowan, and others, are in the fonn of articles or book chapters, thus necessarily limited in scope. In addition to his experience as teacher and director, the author has enjoyed at least two important advantages in the composition of this insightful monograph. He has read almost all of the scholarly material, including the indispensable series of Copeau's Registres currently appearing (Paris, Gallirnard) under the careful editorship of Copeau's daughter, Marie-Helene Daste. Secondly, and most importantly, he was able to submit the draft of his book to the lucid examination of Madame Daste, Copeau's spiritual heir, and to consult as yet unpublished texts in her possession. Consonant with the author's aim of presenting "a beginner's guide" to the richness of Copeau's contributions to twentieth-century theatre, the structure of the book emphasizes the French director's principal ideas for what he called "the renovation ofthe theatre". The relevant biographical details are skillfully used to illustrate or clarify Copeau's life-long preoccupation with the stage, and the few minor errors or misprints of names and dates inserted by typographical gremlins are of minimal importance. The choice of drawings and photographs, some reproduced here for the first time, greatly enrich the documentation. Copeau's many contributions to the development of the modem stage have been recognized by theatre historians and professionals the world over. Familiar with the theories and innovations in staging and acting ofStanislavsky, Craig, Appia. Reinhardt, to say nothing of Antoine and Lugne-Poe. Copeau brought to his enterprise his own severe literary tastes, high artistic standardS, and the principle that staging is subordinate to the play itself. He had an almost religious conception of drama as the most difficult and highest form ofa collective art. His search for artistic perfection led him to abandon the exploitation of any isolated innovation (which might lead to sterility and, possibly, material success), in order to pursue his higher ideal of the "renewal of man in the Book Reviews theatre", It was a question, he said, of recovering the idea of the Chorus, in the old meaning of the word: "A technical preoccupation of a fundamental kind brought us straight back to the source of inspiration; the Chorus is the mother-cell of all dramatic poetry, and it was from poetry that we had gone astray". This view necessitated a whole education, noting in his brochure on "L'EcoJe du Vieux Colombier" (1921) that "for the purposes ofart, education is amore important factor than vocation. And this is as true for theatrical art as it is for any other". It is this concept of Capeau's "search for appropriate means of renewing the relationship between training and performance, of practising for one's practice" which inspired RudHn's investigation into Copeau's career. This is not the definitive study , which must await completion of the last two volumes of the Registres,especially the one on the Ecole du Vieux Colombier. It is, however, a most valuable introduction for readers of this series and should encourage publication ofan accompanying anthology of Copeau's writings in translation. NORMAN H. PAUL, QUEENS COLLEGE, C.V.N.Y. ...