Performance and the City (review)

In Performance and the City, D. J. Hopkins and Shelley Orr recount an anecdote about attending a lecture given by Daniel Libeskind at which they asked him how he understood the relationship between architecture and memory. "Libeskind replied without any hesitation," they write. "'Architecture and memory are synonymous.' After a moment, he added: 'Architecture is built memory. Like books'" (36; emphasis in original). Hopkins and Orr note that Libeskind did not appear to acknowledge the multiple, contested, and conflicting memories that architecture might facilitate, nor did he recognize the pivotal role the spectator plays in "the activation of the memorial function of architecture and the production of memory" (36). If buildings require our participation in writing and rewriting interactions between city and individual, they suggest, we must consider the roles that performance and theatre play in continually shaping and reshaping the urban space.

Organizing Performance and the City thematically into four sections, each with an introduction, editors Hopkins, Orr, and Kim Solga challenge the notion that the city is a singular text to be read and rewritten. "[A]t what point," they ask, "does the idea of the urban text fail fully to account not only for the multiple physical, material, and psychic interactions between city and citizen, but also for the city as a space of tension and negotiation framed in countless ways by formal and informal works of performance?" (5).

The relationships among space, place, and performance have been the subject of much theatre scholarship over the last twenty years. Works by Marvin Carlson, Gay McAuley, Una Chaudhuri, Elinor Fuchs, Leslie Hill, and Helen Paris, to name but a few, have expanded our understanding of how performance relates to the way we move through space and experience a sense of place. Performance and the City is a valuable contribution to this ever-growing body of scholarship.

Part I, "Pedestrianisms, or Remembering the City," considers how street performances, walks, and memorials might rewrite one's experience with and relationship to the city. The city in question is largely New York. Two of the three chapters explicitly address post-9/11 New York, while another, "Patricide and the Passerby" by Rebecca Schneider, examines the role of monuments in individual and collective mourning and the discourse of Bush's war on terror. Marla Carlson's excellent "Ways to Walk New York After 9/11" is an evocative and personal consideration of living in New York amidst the trauma, chaos, mourning, and political posturing that followed 9/11. Two theatre walks, Her Long Black Hair (2005) and The Ground Zero Sonic Memorial Soundwalk (2004), are described in detail. Carlson's work connects fluidly with the third essay in this section, in which Hopkins and Orr document the changes made to Michael Arad's 9/11 memorial design. Their essay is a clear, cogent account of a memorial that was once intended to facilitate individual and multiple contemplations of loss, but that is now well on its way to becoming a master narrative of uniformly performed grieving.

Part 2, "Urban Performance and Cultural Policy," considers the roles culture and performance play in imagining and constituting a political subject. Essays on performances in Canada (Ric Knowles), New York (Rebecca Ann Rugg), and London (Michael McKinnie) explore the ways in which different kinds of performance can counter and complicate "official" narratives of multiculturalism, arts policy, politics, and global culture.

Part 3, "Performing (for) One Another: Constructing Communities," interrogates the perceptions surrounding various cities (New York in the 1930s; Austin, Texas; Regina, Canada; and Belgrade). Marlis Schweitzer's "Surviving the City" examines hyperbolic though long-established traditional narratives of stage actresses as victims of urban crimes and argues that these texts reveal deep anxieties about city life. Kim Solga documents the 2005 revival of Holly Hughes's Dress Suits to Hire by Split Britches in Austin and thoughtfully examines how the production challenged assumptions held about Austin, both by non-Texans and Texans who do not reside...