Memory in Play: From Aeschylus to Sam Shepard

329 Pages·2008·6.32 MB·English

by  Attilio Favorini (auth.)

Memory in Play
PALGRAVE STUDIES IN THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE HISTORY is a series devoted to the best of
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Also in the series:
Undressed for Success by Brenda Foley
Theatre, Performance, and the Historical Avant-garde by Günter Berghaus
Theatre, Politics, and Markets in Fin-de-Siècle Paris by Sally Charnow
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Moscow Theatres for Young People by Manon van de Water
Absence and Memory in Colonial American Theatre by Odai Johnson
Vaudeville Wars: How the Keith-Albee and Orpheum Circuits Controlled the Big-Time and Its
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Performance and Femininity in Eighteenth-Century German Women’s Writing by Wendy Arons
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Plays in American Periodicals, 1890–1918 by Susan Harris Smith
Representation and Identity from Versailles to the Present: The Performing Subject by Alan Sikes
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Beyond the Golden Door: Jewish-American Drama and Jewish-American Experience by
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American Puppet Modernism: Essays on the Material World in Performance by John Bell
On the Uses of the Fantastic in Modern Theatre: Cocteau, Oedipus, and the Monster by
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Performing Magic on the Western Stage: From the Eighteenth-Century to the Present edited by
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Memory in Play: From Aeschylus to Sam Shepard by Attilio Favorini
Memory in Play
From Aeschylus to Sam Shepard
Attilio Favorini
MEMORY IN PLAY
Copyright © Attilio Favorini, 2008.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2008 978-0-230-60464-3
All rights reserved.
First published in 2008 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-37241-6 ISBN 978-0-230-61716-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230617162
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Favorini, Attilio, 1943–
Memory in play : from Aeschylus to Sam Shepard / Attilio Favorini.
p. cm.—(Palgrave studies in theatre and performance)
1. Drama—History and criticism. 2. Memory in literature. I. Title.
PN1650.M435F38 2008
808.8(cid:2)0353—dc22 2008017504
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: December 2008
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Transferred to Digital Printing 2009
In Memory of My Mother and Father
and
My Friend
Alfred Donargo
“Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of
thorns or flowers that would have never bound you, but for the formation of the first link
on one memorable day.”
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
Contents
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
1. Drama and the History of Memory 13
2. Drama and the Memory of History 47
3. Memory Plays before the “Memory Play” 87
4. The “Memory Play” and After: Narrative Paradigms 137
5. Drama of Mnemic Signs 179
6. Confrontation or Convergence: Staging the Encounter of History
and Memory 227
Notes 275
Works Cited 289
Index 309
Acknowledgments
Almost anyone who picks up this book will know more about some aspect
of the topic than I do. I can only hope that, like the blind men and the
elephant, all its flaws may not be discernible by a single reader. Issues of
length have made this study selective and Eurocentric rather than global. There
are rich traditions of memory drama in India, Japan (from Noh to documentary
dramas of World War II), South Africa (apartheid), and Southeast Asia. The most
popular Chinese language play over the past twenty years, Stan Lai’s Secret Love in
Peach Blossom Land, constructs a utopia based on the absence of historical memory.
An ever-growing body of memory-driven drama is being created by indigenous and
diasporic populations almost everywhere in the world. Though my editors have
been generous with the length of my manuscript, my book will consequently be
open to such objections as “What about Chicano/Chicana plays?” or “Favorini for-
gets Follies.” The appropriate response, I think, is wonderment at the brave new
world of memory plays constantly unfolding before us.
I claim my book as a work of theatre history. As Martin Puchner recently editorial-
ized in Theatre Survey (November 2007), the examination of dramatic literature apart
from any individual realization of a play should be able to coexist as part of theatre
history alongside essays on other aspects of performance. In any case, because I have
considered memory as a system property of dramatic construction, the realities of the
stage have never been far from my mind.
I have strived to find a common language to discuss a field far more divided and
contested than Lear’s kingdom, while at the same time deploying and explaining spe-
cialized terms when they seemed to be particularly illuminating of the material at hand.
Neuroscientist readers do not need an explanation of parallel distributed processing any
more than students of the drama need as detailed an account of Beckett or Pinter as I
have provided. But true dialogue requires the patience to hear each other out.
Among those who heard me out was a bastion of graduate students from my
memory seminar, some of whom were also my keen research assistants, to all of
whom I am grateful. If I mention David Pellegrini at the beginning of my work and
Lofty Durham at the end, they stand as memoranda for all the others. My colleague
Bruce McConachie encouraged me at a crucial stage, as did Joe Donohue, Micki
Chi, and Kurt Van Lchn. Gary Williams read an early draft and offered invaluable
suggestions. Don Wilmeth read a later stage of the manuscript with care and wisdom,
and speeded it toward publication. Farideh Koohi-Kamali added her support when
crucial decisions on length had to be made. Joan Bowman both proofread and cor-
rected the manuscript with a keen eye for detail and clarity.
The farther afield I wandered in search of memory, the more I needed guidance.
I owe a debt of gratitude to colleagues from many disciplines, at the University of
x Acknowledgments
Pittsburgh and elsewhere, but especially those who participated in a series of Memory
Colloquia associated with a season of memory plays produced by the Department of
Theatre Arts. Peter Machamer, Edouard Machery, Edward Casey, Merlin Donald,
Jay McClelland, Mark Wheeler, Suzanne Nalbantian, Janice Haaken, Constance
Congdon, and Steven DeKoskey all offered their thoughts and encouragement. The
Dean’s office of the School of Arts and Sciences facilitated my work with a sabbatical
leave, as well as research and publication support from the Richard D. and Mary Jane
Edwards Endowed Publication Fund.
Parts of this work have been previously published. Elements of chapters 2 and 6
originally appeared in the introduction to my Voicings: Ten Plays from the Documentary
Theatre (Ecco-HarperCollins). The section of chapter 2 devoted to Aeschylus
appeared as “History, Collective Memory, and Aeschylus’ The Persians” in Theatre
Journal (March 2003). A small part of the Beckett and Pinter sections of chapter
5 appeared as “The Remembered Present in Beckett, Pinter and Gerald Edelman”
in Consciousness, Literature and the Arts (April 2006). Parts of chapter 3 appeared
as “The History/Memory Discourse in Robert Sherwood’s Reunion in Vienna” in
Journal of American Drama and Theatre (Winter 2007). The section on Ibsen and
Strindberg in chapter 3 appeared as “Some Memory Plays before the ‘Memory Play’”
in Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism (Fall 2007). I am grateful to all of the
editors and publishers involved.
My wife Lisa and my children, Francis, Marie, Anton, and Francesca, inspired me
throughout. Words cannot express my gratitude.