Shattering Hamlet's Mirror: Theatre and Reality by Marvin Carlson (review)

In recent years, the relationship between theatre and reality has most often sparked conversations regarding postmodern performance or documentary theatre. But Marvin Carlson's Shattering Hamlet's Mirror: Theatre and Reality succinctly demonstrates that, in fact, there has always been some element of "the real" in the Western theatrical tradition. If theatre imitates life, as our understanding of mimesis demonstrates, its observed reality must use recognizable signs from the real world to do so. One of the central concerns of the book is how material from the real world affects the execution and reception of mimesis in dramatic art. Through an extraordinary sampling of historical case studies, Carlson dismantles the line between the representational and the real on stage, proving that the two are more interconnected than previously thought.

His book offers an extended discussion on mimesis in the introduction as he considers how Hamlet's reflection in the mirror represents the conundrum of the real on stage. By expanding upon this well-known theatrical image, Carlson argues that changing worldviews are reproduced in theatre's reflection over time. Subsequent chapters focus on central elements of theatrical production: the script, the actor's body, the set, and props.

The discussion of text begins with Shakespeare's directives to the audience—"Open your ears"—before differentiating between uses of verbatim text in documentary theatre, The Wooster Group's postmodern collage of text, and autobiographical narrative in performance art. The discussion of the actor's body touches upon the reality of the body itself versus the reality of celebrity, and the different ways an actor's extra-theatrical life often appears on stage. Elsewhere, the set and props are considered in their dual nature as simultaneously symbolic and real, which leads to a fascinating history of the many Yorick's skulls in performance. Whether a real skull from a human body or a plaster model decoy, Carlson posits that the aura of the object has a greater effect than its authenticity. In the last chapter, "All the World's a Stage," Carlson turns his attention to the audience to consider audience reception and agency in deciphering reality in performance for themselves.

Carlson's encyclopedic knowledge of U.S. and European theatre, and his ability to make connections across seemingly disparate examples, makes this book essential for those interested in theatre history. He breezes through everything from Buffalo Bill to Evreinov's The Storming of the Winter Palace, from the Gob Squad to Volker Lösch, all within one chapter. Carlson's connections between theory and performance trace the development of theatre scholarship from mimesis through semiotics, phenomenology, deconstruction, and reception theory.

Carlson concludes that "the real and the represented are not a set binary, but are the products of human consciousness and ways of seeing and encoding." In the end, it is the audience who must determine what is real onstage in any genre of performance-based art.