Aπό τη θεωρία του θεάτρου στις θεωρίες του θεατρικού: Eξέλιξεις στην επιστήμη του θεάτρου στο τέλος του 20ού αιώνα (review)

Review collections by critics are often self-aggrandizing diatribes or passionless plot reiterations that offer very little to good art. This is not the case with Walter Puchner's 50th book, Από τη θεωρία του θεάτρου στις θεωρίες του θεατρικού (From Theater Theory to Theories of the Theatrical), an intriguing collection of 51 lengthy reviews, first published in the theater journal Paravasis 1985–1999, that crystallize some of the key issues in the vexed debate over contemporary theoretical theatre discourse.

Puchner's book includes established names from Euro-American scholarship (Carlson, Helbo, Pavis, Schechner, Kowzan, Lehmann, Fischer-Lichte, Roach, Reinelt, and others), Australian (Gilbert and Tompkins), as well as Greek scholarship (Moudatsakis, Pefanis, Grammatas, Thomadaki, Tsatsoulis, and Patsalidis). The fact that the path the writer travels is already well-blazed is no problem since it enables him to halt and reflect on things done and things yet to be done. As he states, his goal is to provide the reader with certain tools to enable him to resist the "violent and uncritical introduction and application of any fashionable trend developed in the western world" (p. 439). He draws the reader's attention to what he thinks is the major drawback of globalization—the neo-imperialism of the English language and Anglophone scholarship—and claims that Greek theater people should find ways to protect the "unique" (i.e. different) physiognomy of Greek drama. Puchner is not preaching isolationism or local chauvinism; what he claims is that uncritical imitations of foreign models (xenomania) should stop because they lead to a new form of colonization. This presupposes the creation and cultivation of a local theory of theater, for without it, not much can be done in the context of our own sociopolitical and cultural climate.

Puchner maintains that the theater system is far too complex to be totally "conquered" by one critical method and holistic criteria do not suffice. At the same time, adopting a multiplicity of theoretical positions does not work either. They have produced a temporary fatigue that has led many theater people away from the authority of the scholars to more intriguing techniques that deliberately undermine the applicability of all theoretical models. Instead of resorting to tried theoretical or methodological models; e.g., semiotics and structuralism among others, they develop more "open" and flexible approaches, where the "I" of the observer/reader is always involved. Since any form of objectivity is banned, what is left is personal intuition and personal experience.

In this book, comprising five chapters, Puchner does not develop a thesis using a single-line argument, yet he does have a major premise upon which the essays rest. What Puchner's discerning and astute analysis of theater theory suggests is that critics should put aside their arrogance and approach theater with more humility, less autocratic attitude, more artistic intuition, and an awareness of the fact that theory always follows from and never proceeds artistic creation. According to the blurb on the back cover, theater is not created for the critics but for the people—critics and theoreticians come later. Comprehensive in scope and authoritative in its use of archival source material, Puchner's book offers persuasive insights into the creation of contemporary theories.

Each chapter groups books around a certain theoretical issue. The first begins with a study of "Structuralism and Semiotics in Theater Art." This is a section that outlines the book's concerns. Using Patrice Pavis's book on the semiotics of theater reception, and Andre Helbo's Theory of Performing Arts, among others, Puchner claims that theater scholars expected too much out of semiotics, which led to its gradual replacement by a number of other theoretical tools, among them poststructuralism, performance theory, and others. He claims that Helbo overestimated the viewer's receptive/decodifying abilities. This essay is followed by a piece on theater anthropology and ethnology. Puchner tackles the new trends in international theater practice and scholarship and shows how attention has shifted from the binarisms of semiotics to the more open and inclusive worlds of theatrics rather than theater. From national theater we have moved to inter-national, inter-cultural...