Staging Depth: Eugene O'Neill and The Politics of Psychological Discourse by Joel Pfister (review)

Book Reviews Stalin. Edward Braun has responded with welcome revisions of his classic books. He reissued his anthology in 1991 , and has significantly rewritten his critical study and retitled it Meyerhold: A Revolution in Theatre. The bibliography in MeyerhoJd testifies to the extent of Braun's revisions. He includes all major studies about the director published from.1980 to the present. Moreover , he incorporates into the fabric of his book the latest work of scholars such as Konstantin Rudnitky, John Freedman, Marjorie Hoover, Beatrice Picon-Vallin. Paul Schmidt, Anatoly Smelyansky, and Maya Silkovetskaya. These resources provide expanded infonnation on Meyerhold's work in the provinces, his fascinating approaches to operatic production, and his rmal horrific months. These additions make Braun's book one o·f scope and value. In short, Braun has succeeded in keeping his study of Meyerhold not only current, but the most complete of its kind in English. By Braun's own admission, "My aim is to provide a comprehensive appraisal of a unique career that spanned forty years and remains seminal in the development of Western theatre up to the present day" (4). He does so admirably by tracing in detail the various productions that comprise this extraordinary career. His descriptions are precise, aided by eye-witness quotations, and generously illustrated. The book thus provides invaluable information about Meyerhold's prodigious output. Braun also aims "to establish the continuity of [Meyerhold's] ideas and practice"(4). In this he is, of necessity, less successful than in his expository goal. His conclusion clearly identifies those points of continuity that he raises throughout the study: Meyerhold 's poetic impulses, his fascination with the grotesque and clowning, his musicality (both literal and through stage movement), and his essentially cineniatic vision. Within the text however. analysis of these points naturally takes a back seat to the vast amount of factual material that needs reporting. Braun thus opens the door to others to extend his analytical approach. Similarly, Meyerhold's problematic personality erupts in Braun's text from time to time, teasing more than satisfying the reader. 1 highly recommend this book to any theatre lover who wishes to keep up with the flood of new knowledge about the past that is arriving daily from Russia. This book significantly expands our vision of Meyerhold and reaffIrms his importance in the development of Western theatre. SHARON MARIE CARNICKE, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA JOEL PFISTER. Staging Depth: Eugene O'Neill and The Politics of Psychological Discourse . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1995. Pp. 327, illustrated. $45·00, $17·95 (PH). Joel Pfister proposes in this volume a not-antagonistic reappraisal of O'Neill's contributions to, and place in, the American drama. He notes that virtually all critics and audiences share two judgments of O'Neill's body of work: that it represents the deepest and most profound drama produced in America, and that it addresses and iIlumf- Book Reviews nates universal truths of the human condition. Pfister questions both of those judgments. Rather than merely celebrating O'Neill's plays for possessing "depth," Pfister steps outside them to examine the culture's hunger for that quality, and concludes that Americans of the flfst half of the century, particularly those who made up the Broadway audience, needed an author who validated their lives by telling them they were of philosophical and metaphysical significance, and embraced O'Neill because lJ.e was the first or best at filling that need. O'Neill's plays posited definitions of both culture and psychology that the audiences wanted to believe true, and thus "authorized members of the professional.managerial class to conceive of themselves in psychological and universal terms ... that permitted them to deflect their vision from the oppressive class structure they had a hand in producing ... and to encode their own fear of falling ... as malaise" (220). [n short, it was more comforting - and also more ennobling - to think of oneself as victim of the human condition than as victim of capitalism, bad luck or personal bad choices; and O'Neill's plays, even at their darkest, offered that comfort. The pun in the first word of Pfister's title is meant to raise...