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Per un teatro politico: Piscator, Brecht, Artaud by Massimo Castri

Review by: Marjorie L. Hoover
Books Abroad, Vol. 48, No. 4 (Autumn, 1974), p. 846
Published by: Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40128443 .
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 perspectives on world literature

cialized field of Marxistscholasticism,as re-

MassimoCastri.Per un teatropolitico:Pisca- vealedin its conclusionsreachedby arguments
tor, Brecht, Artaud, Turin. Einaudi. 1973. of pure dialecticalabstraction.
292 pages.2,400 1. MarjorieL. Hoover
OberlinCollege
In one of the firsttwo volumesto launch
a new series, Castri, by a lamentable
omission,unfortunatelydistortshis subject- Jose Ramon Cortina.Ensayossobre el teatro
political theater in our century. The back moderno.Madrid.Gredos.1973. 143 pages.
jacket blurb of this attractively presented
little book acclaimsits exhaustiveanalysisof In his "Essayson the ModernTheater,"
the ideas of "the three founders of political Jose Ramon Cortina turns from an an-
theater, Piscator, Brecht and Artaud." The alysis of modern Spanish drama, which he
authoradduceslimitationof spaceas the rea- did so well in El arte dramdticode Antonio
son for not including Meyerhold,a major Buero Vallejo(see BA 70:2,p. 270), to a con-
founding father. Indeed he furtherrules out siderationof aspectsof the twentieth-century
treatmentof "the vast gamut of attemptsat theater in Europe and the United States.
'direct'politicaltheater,"enumeratingas also These essaysare containedin three chapters:
out of boundsfor his study:the Russianrevo- I. The Theorists;II. The Dramatists;and III.
lutionarytheater,the Germandecade1920-30 The Producers.EdwardGordonCraig (Eng-
(one wonderswhat appendectomynecessitates land), JacquesCopeau (France) and Bertolt
the removalof Piscatorand Brechtthus from Brecht (Germany) are the main theorists
the living tissueof their age), politicaltheater presented.Craig proposedan esthetic-theatri-
connectedwith the war in Spain and finally, cal movementin which a dramaticproduction
"the explosion of 'politicality'in the new should be a combinationof harmoniouspat-
theaterof most recentyears,especiallyin the terns of movement, making the theater a
Anglo-Saxonworld (P. Brook, Living The- visual art and the directorthe most important
atre,Open Theatre,Breadand Puppett[sp.!], figure. For Copeau, theatrical art should
TeatroCampesino,S. FranciscoMime Troup identifywith life; scenographyshouldbe sim-
Black Theater,etc.)." With the table ple, suggestingratherthan reproducingreal-
["sp.!~|,
thus bared what remainsfor his operation? ity; and theatricalunity was of greatestim-
In five almostequal parts,he rightly devotes portance.Brechtwas morecomplex,changing
one each to his three protagonists.The first, his theoriesto match his plays, accordingto
however,is expendedon "precursors" of poli- critics. He championed the "epic theater,"
tical theater in France at the time of the which had its origins in the Germanexpres-
French Revolution, 1848 and 1870. Upon sionistic drama of the 1920s. Detachment
this discussionof a precedentquite irrelevant (remoteness) was used as a dramatictech-
to the history of twentieth-centurypolitical nique, and the spectatormadeto think and to
theater,therefollowsanalysisof that sociologi- feel a catharsisof pleasuresimilarto that felt
cal phenomenonthe Vol\sbuhneverein[sp.!], in a scientificdiscovery.
apparentlyfor no other reasonthan because Among the dramatistsdiscussedin Chapter
Piscatordiscussedit in his bookDas politische II are Johan August Strindberg(Sweden),
Theater of almost a half-century ago. The Benito Perez Galdos (Spain), Emile Zola
last and fifth part, devotedto "perspectives," (France), and Edward Sheldon,Elmer Rice
ends amazingly in a dialecticalsynthesisof and Eugene O'Neill of the United States.
extremes,Brechtand Lukacs! There are excellentanalysesof the principal
Clearlythen Castri'streatisehas nothing to playsof these authors.Cortinapointsout how
do with either historicalresearchor literary Strindbergbecamethe leader of the modern
or theatercriticism,contraryto the expecta- school of playwrights as his style evolved
tion invited by the series title "critical re- from naturalismto symbolismand finally to
search."In all these fields it is some fifteen expressionism.
years outdated.Ratherit belongs in the spe- The principalproducerspresentedin Chap-

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