Peter Szondi's Theorie des modernen Dramas (1956/63): From Absolute Drama to Absolute Theory

Peter Szondi published his dissertation Theorie des modernen Dramas for the first time more than half a century ago. Considering that it is now available in its 26^th edition with more than 100,000 copies sold in German alone, the dissertation marks an unparalleled success in the humanities.¹ It has not only become a long-selling book, but by now is a justifiable classic. I remember how helpful I considered the slim Suhrkamp volume as a graduate student, since Szondi provides such a seemingly effortless, and therefore all the more persuasive, key to open a comparative outlook on plays by Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg, Anton Chekhov, Gerhart Hauptmann, Bertolt Brecht, Thornton Wilder, Eugene O'Neill, and Arthur Miller.

The book's usefulness derived from its straightforward thesis, a thesis that also conveniently allows for a brief summary here. Based on a neo-Hegelian point of view, Szondi considers a play to be aesthetically convincing when its content is identical to its form. From Elizabethan and French neoclassicist plays, Szondi extracts and subsumes this form-content congruence and defines the plays' characteristics as absolute Drama, which functions heuristically as his ground zero. Derived from Aristotelian poetics in its opposition to epic elements, the absolute Drama consists of the following three requisites: a) the dramatis personae represent autonomous individuals who are motivated b) to resolve their interpersonal conflicts by speaking to one another. The dialogues unfold c) in a linear time sequence in front of the spectator who watches the actors. Around 1890 modern society began to undermine and ultimately annul the notion of autonomously acting subjects, and thus the ability to resolve through meaningful dialogues. Thereby, Ibsen, Chekhov, Strindberg, Hauptmann, and Maeterlinck were confronted with a crisis of the absolute Drama without yet finding an adequate, formal solution. They inadvertently introduced epic elements in their plays, and thus destabilized the centerpiece of the drama, the meaningful dialogue. In the eyes of Szondi, it was up to playwrights such as Brecht, Ferdinand Bruckner, Pirandello, O'Neill, Wilder, and Miller to create "Lösungsversuche" for the crisis by explicitly introducing epic elements into their plays, and thus sublimating the dialectical rift between form and content that occurred a generation earlier.

When re-reading the text—this time in the superb English edition from 1987—I caught myself in an ambiguous, even uncomfortable position. On the one hand, Szondi's rhetorical presentation of his thesis allegorizes what it postulates: form and content become alike since he includes only the bare minimum of information for what is necessary in supporting his argument. As a result, I was again impressed by how precise and coherent Szondi presents his interpretation of plays written between 1890–1950. On the other hand, I found his hermetically sealed argument so well presented that it simultaneously becomes its Achilles' heel.

Thus, a causal fault, if not a paradox, occurs: Because Szondi's theoretical approach to modern drama is so crystalline, his argument becomes formulaic, even reductionist, in that it addresses only the three aspects of absolute Drama, which ultimately weakens its very potency. As a result, re-reading the text evoked some critique by utilizing the book's own concepts, namely that of history and form as the basis for the re-assessment: First, employing a historical view towards Szondi's arguments reveals some of his blind spots. Second, shifting to a theoretical approach allows one to "rescue" his theory when using it in the same mode as he conceived of an absolute Drama, i.e., his theory, when seen historically, can serve as an absolute theory, moving one towards a better understanding and scrutiny of today's postmodern or post-dramatic theater practices.

Contrary to Szondi's austere text, I want to begin my reflections with a comparison that illustrates my ambivalence and serves as my point of departure. Without stretching the imagination too far, his thesis resembles modern architecture in which form follows function. His rhetorical style and content evoke houses that bring forward nothing but clear rectangular lines, houses that are naked and stark, devoid...