Realms of the Self: Variations on a Theme in Modern Drama by Arthur Ganz (review)

Book Reviews ARTHUR GANZ. Realms of the Self: Variations on a Theme in Modern Drama. New York and London: New York Univer.;ity Press 1980, Pp, xvi, 240, $18; ~9 (PB), At the end of Sam Shephard's La Turista, one character leaps through the back wall of the set, leaving the others to gape at his cut-out silhouette. For Arthur Gaoz that "departure to a realm beyond theatrical 'reality'" sums up the primary Shaping impulse discernible in modem drama: a longing for some magic land. some realm in which the "self' might find total fulfillment. Ever since Ibsen's Brand, he argues, the theatre has played increasingly skeptical variations on that romantic theme. Realms ofthe Selfdevelops its thesis by way ofadouble movement from the simple to the complex. Part I , emphasizing the "outer" world, begins with Wilde and Synge, whose "comparatively simple" transformations of reality produce "a realm of art where the limitations of life can be surpassed." It then proceeds to three major comic artists who have found "some method of transcending the boundaries of the real world without denying its nature." In Chekhov "self-fulfillment" is postponed to the distant future; in Shaw certain characters may ascend to a real or metaphoric "heaven"; and in Giraudoux the heroes are summoned to forsake the human world for one that is "supramortal." Part 2, emphasizing the "inner" world, begins with Williams and Miller, whose plays are shaped by dreams of a self restored to "innocence" by love or knowledge. It then proceeds to three major artists whose more ambivalent yearnings lead them to embody "the full compleJdty of the theme of self and world," In fbsen the self wants both gratification and stem self-exaltation; in Pirandello it is tormented by the desire for a self-perception free of the ambiguities of action and appearance; and in Pinter it seeks a total dominance and a total withdrawal. Gaoz recognizes that his panorama ofromantic modernity in the theatre is incomplete. He suggests, fairly enough, that his essay on Pinter might enable us to project for ourselves an analogous argument concerning Beckett. And he asserts, more provocatively , that any discussion of Strindberg and Brecht would have entailed for him a "deeply distracting" argument for the "downward revaluation of their present stature." Some readers would surely welcome at least a glimpse of that argument, especially since 570 Book Reviews they may sti1l feel after reading Realms ofthe Selfthat Brecht's dialectical dramaturgy stands as a forceful challenge to Gaoz'5 thesis. Indeed, those who admire the dramaturgy of any playwright discussed here may conclude that the book's strength resides not in its thesis but in its beautifully economical studies of individual plays as they render the skepticism that now seems inseparable from a dream of transcendental escape. (We have, of course, seen many demonstrations of the romantic roots of modern art and literature; and most of this book de~ives in fact from essays that Gaoz has published over the past two decades.) The section on Chekhov, for example, contains a fine summary of the sexual polarity that charges his characters' search for a world elsewhere. That on Shaw - surely one of the best brief essays we have on this playwright - offers a penetrating and just analysis of the mingled optimism and pessimism in his plays. A comparable balance informs the examination of Giraudoux's ambivalences; and all of the essays in Part 2 excel in similar ways. Ganz skillfully lays out the tensions and confusions within characters, and within their patterned relationships, which prevent any attainment of an ideal realm. His deft naturalizing of Pinter's work, which translates it into "familiar materials central to human experience," provides an appropriate climax for these studies in uncertainty. Partly for such reasons, I find myself reading Realms of the Self as an argument against its own thesis. Though useful enough as an organizing device, that thesis heavily depends on the reduction of a play to its narrative content and the reduction of a playwright's intentions to those of his characters. Story often seems more important to Oanz than dialogue or scenic fonn; and he can even insist that Mac and...