Dramaturgy and Performance (review)

{ 251 } Book Reviews any awareness that issues of religion, secularization, and modernization are currently at the forefront of gothic scholarship. For instance, in discussing the phenomenon of the ghost on the gothic stage, there is no analysis of how conflicted the audience would have been about this avatar of Catholicism, medievalism, and animism in their midst. While the book focuses on gender construction, a fairly overworked emphasis in gothic scholarship over a decade ago, it does not examine the more crucial issue that is currently being examined in gothic studies : Why were these works so popular, and what sort of cultural work was being performed for their audience members? If Ameri­ cans attended the theatre, were they motivated by a need to find a substitutive religious ritual, or did the plays enact the struggle that was currently being waged between the forces of rationalism, science, and materialism and the opposing forces of supernaturalism , “superstition,” and a resurgence of the transcendent? All of this is to say that Anthony has provided us with a real service by excavating the raw materials we need to locate and study these long-­ lost “Ameri­ can”gothic dramas. They need, however, to be placed in a more nuanced, scholarly , and interpretive framework that will allow us to understand exactly why they spoke to their early Ameri­ can audiences so powerfully. Diane Long Hoeveler — Marquette University \ \ Dramaturgy and Performance. By Cathy Turner and Synne K. Behrndt. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. xi + 229 pp. $26.95 paper. When discussing approaches to dramaturgical analysis in Dramaturgy and Per­ formance, Cathy Turner and Synne K. Behrndt, both professional dramaturges and lecturers at the University of Winchester, encourage openness and inclusivity . Building on numerous personal interviews with leading dramaturges in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Europe, as well as archival research , the authors present an understanding of dramaturgy and dramaturgical analysis that is expansive rather than reductive, suggesting numerous possibilities and applications. As part of the Palgrave series Theatre and Performance Practices, Turner and Berhrndt’s book is intended as an introductory text that offers a brief and accessible analysis of the historical developments and contemporary practices of dramaturgy. Although the authors sometimes discuss dramaturgy in Eu- { 252 } Book Reviews rope and North America, their work focuses on the current practices of dramaturgy in the United Kingdom, which is particularly useful because little has been published on the growing presence and diversity of the dramaturge in the United Kingdom. The book is divided into three parts that are further subdivided by thematic categories. Part 1 provides a historical and ideological overview of dramaturgy , addressing the perennial question “What Is Dramaturgy?” While the authors do not limit dramaturgy to any one definition, allowing a multiplicity of voices to work against any such singularity, they understand dramaturgy as the composition of a work as well as the analysis of the composition within the context of a performance event. Using metaphors such as architecture and weaving, the authors work to expand the meaning of dramaturgy to include nonverbal performance, thereby hoping to wrangle the term from its roots as a literary function. The authors’ feelings about the literary roots are clear in the statement “dramaturgs need not be the dusty, literary theatre historians that many . . . had rather believed them to be” (2). Therefore, the dramaturges discussed in the book are largely those who are meant to shatter this view: they are most often engaged in creative collaboration, policy development, and curating experimental performance events. The first two chapters of this section focus on significant moments in the development of dramaturgical practices in Germany, while the third presents a fast-­ paced introduction to post-­ 1960 political theatre in England. Although the dramaturgical work of Lessing, Schiller, Goethe, and Brecht has been explored in previous texts, the brief historical discussion offered by Turner and Behrndt is essential here for providing a foundation for the analysis of dramaturgical practices that follows. Linking Lessing’s largely literary dramaturgy with that of his successors, who became more involved in production dramaturgy, the authors establish dramaturgy as an essentially dynamic and politically engaged practice. This perspective is most evident in chapter 2, “Brecht’s Productive Drama...