Staging Masculinities: History, Gender, Performance by Michael Mangan (review)

Reviews 665 Savran's A Queer Sort ofMaterialism is full of exciting ideas, thoroughly supported by contextual detail and theoretical sophistication. It will transfonn the terms within which recent American theatre is viewed. MICHAEL MANGAN. Staging Masculinities: HisrOlY, Gender, Pe,formance. Houndmills, U.K.: Palgrave, 2003. Pp xi +276. US$75.oo (Hb); US$24.95 (Pb). Reviewed by Terry Goldie, York University First things first: it boggles the mind that someone would attempt to describe the history of masculinity on stage, from the beginning to the present. Mangan recognizes this and commences by setting out his limitations, the first being that his approach is "deeply Eurocentric." He states that his specialization is "British" theatre but then suggests that he follows "those points when this theatre history tends to stress cultural continuity between the English stage and the theatres of other countries" (12). This presumably justifies the emphasis on Ibsen in the section on the nineteenth century. Mangan rather glibly uses the Englishness of his trajectory to account for the fact that "there are no chapters , for example, on Racine, on Kleist or on Calder6n"(I20). Of course, this list could be extended to infinity. The book might be the notes for a course, in which the lecturer begins with a potted history of the classics and then proceeds to a quick excursion through medieval drama. Mangan emphasizes the Ordo RelJreSelllatiollis Adae, The Sacrifice ofIsaac, Everyman, and Mankind. The choices might seem arbitrary, but the one text that everyone knows, Everyman, is there, and most of the plays are found in David Bevington's Medieval Drama, which seems to remain the standard course adoption. These texts are followed by a look at the Robin Hood plays. Given the modern turn in medieval scholarship to the "people" and away from the church and the elite, this seems apt. While Mangan does not say much surprising about the Robin Hood plays, he offers an able cultural studies approach to the material. Then the Renaissance and Shakespeare. Shakespeare offers plenty of examples for masculinity, but then Shakespeare offers plenty of examples for almost anything. Mangan's theme of "Lovers and Soldiers" gives him a focus, but one which seems a bit inevitable. Why do a book on "staging masculinities " and completely avoid Christopher Marlowe? Has there ever been an English playwright who invested so much attention in masculinity, particularly the sex, power, and violence so often associated with men? In the Restoration, Mangan emphasizes Wycherley, as worthy a choice as any other. Then comes Etherege. But why the Earl of Rochester? Whether or not he wrote Sodom, he seems, at most, an example of the seamier side of 666 REVIEWS stage masculinities. The play may not even have been staged, as Mangan notes. This seems something which Mangan wishes to emphasize because Rochester is such an interesting piece of male sexuality, whether or not he is of any importance in the history of English drama. In the eighteenth century, the spotlight is on The London Merchant, presumably as what might be called a counter-Sodom. This is bourgeois respectability in performance, setting the stage for a variety of dramatists from Oscar Wilde through Noel Coward through Terrence Rattigan to Michael Frayn, none of whom is mentioned. Of course, such respectability is fractured, as Mangan says, by Ibsen and his disciple Shaw. Shaw would no doubt like to see Ibsen in any history of the English stage. I wonder whether he would feel the same about David Mamet's Olealllla and Rob Becker's Defending the Caveman, both of which feature prominently in Mangan's discussion. OleatlnG is a well-written play on an interesting subject but not likely to be viewed as important in the future. I hope I do not seem too huffy if I say that Defending the Caveman is not a play but a phenomenon and will be forgotten tomorrow. To see either as the most interesting examples of "Staging Masculinities" in the contemporary theatre is strange at best. To sec them as other than quintessentially American, no matter how adapted, is ludicrous , After the above, it might seem odd to reveal that I think this is a good book...