Alienation and Theatricality: Diderot after Brecht (review)

Paradoxically, 'alienation' (Verfremdung) has become such a familiar cliché of dramatic theory that it itself needs to be realienated — in the senses both of being 'made strange' for critical analysis, and of being reappropriated from the clutches of its most famous exponent and theorist, the Marxist dramatist and theoretician Bertolt Brecht. Phoebe von Held's rich and fascinating comparative study finds in Denis Diderot the ideal lens through which to revisit Brecht's theories, and in the juxtaposition of the two thinkers uncovers unexpected complexities and theoretical limitations in both. As her counter-intuitive subtitle suggests, von Held reads Diderot and Brecht backwards, finding in Diderot a sophisticated critic of Brechtian ideas rather than an awkward precursor. The guiding theme in von Held's study concerns the actor and role. Famously, both Brecht and Diderot advocate a self-alienated approach to acting over empathetic identification with the fictional character. Yet, while Brecht understands this self-alienation as the cornerstone of his anti-naturalistic 'alienation effect', Diderot attempts to harness the 'cold' actor's self-controlled performance for the ends of illusionistic naturalism and emotional effect. While Diderot might thus appear as bound to precisely the sorts of outmoded and naive modes of dramatic illusion that Brecht denounces, von Held subtly and powerfully shows how the hidden complexities of his position problematize Brecht's own theories. For example, Brecht's theory of dramatic alienation is shown to rely on unacknowledged identificatory processes, in his assumption that the actor's self-alienation will be seamlessly reflected in the spectator's alienated response to the dramatic fiction. Diderot also holds a far more complex position towards oppositions that Brecht holds distinct: stage and world, art and nature, authenticity and inauthenticity. So, while Brecht ultimately remains bound to a Marxist model of culture and society that 'claims the possibility of an ultimate liberation from alienation' (p. 3), Diderot's discussions of the 'pantomime du monde' in Le Neveu de Rameau suggest that alienation might be potentially endemic to social existence itself. Alienation and Theatricality is a complex, subtle, and highly sophisticated engagement with two thinkers who are very easy to misrepresent. Despite her 'deliberately ahistorical' approach (p. 7), von Held discusses neither writer in a historical vacuum, but brings in contextual information pertaining to each, or to the periods preceding or separating them, where appropriate. On the whole, von Held helpfully and clearly discusses the complexities of both thinkers and of the terms they use. Only occasionally does she lapse into claims that require fuller exploration or justification — her understanding of Diderot's goal in terms of Aristotelian 'catharsis, fear and pity' (p. 133), for example, is highly problematic — but these are rare and uncharacteristic slips rather than serious flaws. This is a rich and rewarding study that opens up important new perspectives not only on its two chosen thinkers, but also on the questions of acting both onstage and in society more generally.