The Profession of the Playwright: British Theatre 1800-1900 by John Russell Stephens (review)

418 Book Reviews The Ghost Sonata, the three productions of A Dream Play, and To Damascus. Chapter 4 is devoted to Moliere and productions of Don Juan, Tartuff, and The Misanthrope. Here Bergman is seen as aiming "to establish a mutual pact, as it were, between actor and spectator - a pact that recognizes and depends upon the spectator's willing panici~ pation in the creative process" (143). The spectators must be reminded that they are in a theater with actors performing for them. Chapter 5, ''The essence of Ibsen," outlines strong and innovative productions of A Doll House, The Wild Duck, and Hedda Gabler. In the second production of Hedda the realistic and social plane of the work is transcended . Nothing is "permitted to distract from the ruling image of the play' as a drama of destiny, a cold fable of characters buried alive in a deadly vacuum" (192). It is a genuinely revolutionary production, both passionately supported and passionately rejected by viewers. The stage is bisected vertically so that t~e inner room where Hedda "writhes in desperation and frustration" (195) can be clearly seen. The red-velvet cunains create" an "airless, timeless red inferno" (195). Gone is General Gabler's portrait and all "allusions to the Dionysian vineleaves in L¢vborg's hair" (194). Nothing can divert the viewer from the heart-rending human drama. "To begin again".is the title of the final chapter. In 1985 Bergman directslohn Gabriel Borkman, his last play for the Residenz Theater. "Now I only want to direct what's impossible" (246). He returns to Sweden and his own language to direct the impossible : King Lear, Hamlet, Mishuma's Madame de Sade, and, finally, Peer Gynt (1991), a play in which we are made to experience "a sliding, elusive borderline between dream and reality" (278). Cavils? Well, a lover of Grieg might object to the reference to his score for the first production of Peer Gynt as "inappropriate romanticism" (186). Others might object to the persistent down-playing of opsis in Bergman's theater: "Theater ought to be the encounter of human beings with human beings and nothing more" (190). Clearly the . Markers agree entirely with Bergman. Indeed, as we read through the volume. we sen~e that the Markers are committed loyalists. For them Bergman's productions are, one is tempted to say, normative. But surely commitment can be a virtue in criticism. A text glows when it is written by a disciple. AnQ the Markers are, clearly. disciples of Bergman. The book is the better for it, since ardent disciplines are never bores. The Markers, with their meticulous scholarship, their strong prose style, their obvious enthusiasm for their subject, should only be praised - and thanked. It is difficult to read through the book without sharing their enthusiasm. CHARLES LELAND, ST. MICHAEL'S COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO JOHN RUSSELL STEPHENS. The ProfeSSion o/the Playwright: British Theatre [800-1900. Cambridge University Press 1992. Pp. xx, 254. $64.95. In The Profession o/the Playwright, John Russell Stephens charts the fortunes- mainly financial and contractual - of British dramatists during the nineteenth century. He draws on a wealth of documentary evidence from published and unpublished sources, bringing Book Reviews 419 together information on the backgrounds and status of dramatists, the vagaries of the copyright legislation in Britain and America (which only reached something like its modem form in the 189°5) and the mechanics of play publication. Of particular importance are changes in the consideration given by actors and managers (0 the wishes of authors. During the second and third decades of the century contractual arrangements for most dramatists were shamelessly exploitative, as theatres suffered a massive depression in social standing and profitability. In the middle decades, the energetic campaigning ofBulwer Lytton and his allies and the hard-headed deal-making ofBoucicault secured bener remuneration and protection. The playwright and the novelist were on something nearer an equal footing. By the end of the century a'Play produced by a West End management was likely to have been cast in accordance with its requirements rather than written to suit an existing troupe ofactors. By the I 890S some amhors (not all) were able...