Modern Theories of Drama: A Selection of Writings on Drama and Theatre, 1840-1990 (review)

Modern Theories of Drama: A Selection of Writings on Drama and Theatre, 1840-1990. Edited by George W. Brandt. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1998; pp. xxii + 344. $90.00 cloth, $24.95 paper.

Creating an anthology of primary source texts forces the editor to face a profound question: which documents should be included? The choice of materials not only defines the scope of the work, it also provides insight into the editor's conception of what constitutes applicable—and acceptable—source texts. The decision to create an anthology, therefore, is also a decision to create a new way of viewing old material in the hopes of creating new ways of seeing the ideas and issues residing within.

Brandt's anthology is built around the concept of modern theories of drama; he therefore focuses his attention on the theatre artists and theorists of the past one hundred fifty years. His introduction provides an overview of the historical shift in dramatic theoretical approaches during this time from the primacy of the text to the emphasis on "visual signifiers" such as acting (xiii) and describes three main categories of dramatic theory—the prescriptive, the polemical, and the analytical—which populate the anthology. Brandt also stresses how the selections in the anthology reflect another theoretical trend in theatre beside the focus on visual elements over text: namely the increasing importance of social and political context in understanding a theatrical work.

The book's five sections—"General Theory," "Voices of Realism," "Anti-Naturalism," "Political Theatre," "Semiotics"—are thematic groupings that provide an encapsulated view of the breadth of theoretical opinions from 1848 to 1990. The pieces included range from works by authors such as Richard Wagner, Arthur Miller, Bertolt Brecht, and Marvin Carlson to those less often included in drama anthologies, such as Georges Polti, Yvan Goll, Ernst Toller, and Umberto Eco.

Section three, "Anti-Naturalism," is the longest and includes some unusual offerings, particularly in the European vein. In addition to the lesser-known offerings by Goll (represented by two essays), Guillaume Apollinaire, and Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz, Brandt has also included essays by Adolphe Appia and Edward Gordon Craig that foreground the visual aspects of non-naturalistic theatre. Additional essays by Eugene O'Neill, Antonin Artaud, and Filippo Tommaso Marinetti make this section stand out in terms of both breadth and depth of representation.

The most intriguing editorial decision, however, lies in the final section, "Semiotics," which contains essays by Carlson, Eco, Jindr=ich Honzl, Martin Esslin, and Patrice Pavis. Brandt justifies his decision to focus on this particular analytical strategy by calling semiotics "the one discipline which has attracted a great deal of academic attention since the 1960's" (xxi). Given Brandt's statements in the introduction concerning the downgrading of the theatrical text in favor of other production elements (a practice which he dates from Diderot's On Dramatic Poetry of 1758), the decision to devote an entire section of the anthology to semiotics is understandable, even if use of the approach itself has declined in the United States in recent years.

As with any anthology, every inclusion automatically means the exclusion of something else; Brandt's work also reflects this particular limitation. The material in Modern Theories of Drama stops at 1990 (a conscious choice according to the introduction) and ignores much of the major work in colonial and feminist theatre theory that had occurred before this date. The section on "Political Theatre" contains only seven essays: two from Brecht and singular offerings from Toller, Erwin Piscator, Peter Weiss, Augusto Boal, and Michelene Wandor (the anthology's only offering by a female theorist). This section needs to include at least as many entries as the previous one on "Anti-Naturalism" (which contains twenty essays) to give a better sense of the depth and breadth of its theme. Brandt does acknowledge in his introduction that the definition of political theatre differs depending...