Theatre and Anti-Theatre: New Movements since Beckett by Ronald Hayman (review)

Book Reviews 323 However, in spite of their occasional flashes of insight, on the whole they have remained so superficial as to limit their usefulness tremendously, though the volumes may be legitimate library acquisitions because of their referential natures. STEVEN H. GALE, MISSOURI SOUTHERN STATE COLLEGE RONALD HAYMAN. Theatre and Anti-Theatre: New Movements since Beckett. New York: Oxford University Press 1979. Pp. 272. In 1961 . Martin Esslin christened the drama of Beckett, Adamov, Ioneseo, Genet, and proselytes of various nations "the theatre of the absurd," a term which, despite its limitations, still survives to describe the work of the generation of dramatists writing in the wake of Waiting for Gadat. Now, in implicit recognition of the inadequacy of that label, Ronald Hayman suggests one of his own, which he calls, simply. "anti-theatre." The tenn. of course, is not new, having been applied by Ionesco to his plays, by Rainer Werner Fassbinder to his Munich Theatre, and by Nicholas Hem to the drama ofHandke (Peter Handke: Theatre andAnti-theatre (London: Oswald Wolff, 1971 ]). But Hayman sees the label as one capable of encompassing the new movements in theatre since Beckett. For Hayman, anti-theatre emphasizes the "negative, destructive. revolutionary , reductionist, and abstractionist tendencies in the new theatre art." Yet despite this broad applicability, Hayman fails to demonstrate how the plays of writers so diverse as Beckett, Ionesco, Genet, and Handke (which he claims are anti-theatre) and Pinter, Stoppard. Albee, and Shepard (which he claims absorb anti-theatrical influences) offer any common ground. His thesis for the Albee chapter, for example, is that "in one way or another, nearly all his plays have been provocative," to a great extent because Albee departs from realism. Hayman's one paragraph on Tiny Alice, which is typical. points to two such departures: (I) several characters are unnamed (an anti-realistic technique which Hayman then negates, since Albee characterizes them as individuals), and (2) the action following the opening scene is "densely symbolic" (a claim Hayman simply does not support). In discussing Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenslern Are Dead, Hayman again makes two points which he feels would qualify Stoppard as a creator of anti-theatre: (I) Stoppard learned from Beckett that he could "dispense with the whole machinery for generating suspense by means of plot, conflict and non-stop action," and (2) through the players troupe, Stoppard "draws attention to the thealricality of his play." About Pinter's The Homecoming, Hayman observes that (1) "the setting is less realistic ... than in earlier plays," and (2) the sexual confrontation between Lenny and Ruth is non-realistic. In categorizing characters, settings, and events, Hayman consistently and erroneously assumes that any deviation from the definitive realistic theatre which he uses as a measure is "anti-theatre." Apparently because of this assumption, Hayman feels it unnecessary to develop the significance of such alleged departures but rather is content with simply cataloging them. Even with plays so rich in performance possibilities as Handke's Sprechslucke, Hayman concerns himself primarily with the ways in which these theatre pieces deviate from mimetic art in terms of language, plot, and character. While Hayman's analysis of this playwright, whom he correctly views as among the most important of recent years, is considerably stronger than his analyses ofothers, even here he stops shan of suggesting 324 Book Reviews the implications of Handke's so-called non-mimetic art, which. when considered in terms of performance, is anything but anti-theatrical. In his introduction, Hayman gives token acknowledgment to the complicity of creation involved in contemporary theatre. yet he only superficial1y discusses the perfonnance and reception aesthetics so essential to an understanding of Handke's work. Ironically, Hayman is at his best when discussing directors Artaud, Brook, Grotowski , and Chaiken (apologizing for his omission of ArrabaJ, The Living Theatre, and others). Here, although be says nothing which is particularly revealing, at least his discussions ofthese directors' theoretical approaches to theatre are solid. Unfortunately, the directors are relegated to a separate section of the book, suggesting Hayman's refusal to integrate perfonnance and text, the very union which he singles out in his introduction as an index of the change in modem theatre...