THIS BOOK has had a long period of gestation and a hybrid history. It goes back, first, to a fascination with texts, “fictional” or not, in which the reader is called upon to play an active part. This summons is surely coextensive with all reading in the strong sense. But certain texts render the awareness of this possibility more accessible than others. From Sterne to Kafka, Kierkegaard to Derrida, Freud to Lacan, a transformative involvement of the reader is required in order for the text “itself” to function—just as an “audience” is required for a representation to be “theatrical.” The second source was less academic and developed from the experience of working as a dramaturge in German productions of theater and opera during the 1980s and 1990s. Unlike the director, stage designer, or actors, the dramaturge, like the academic, is primarily concerned with texts. Whereas the academic tends to be guided by a notion of a long-lasting, if not eternal truth, however, the goal of a theatrical production is far more ephemeral, more localized, and more singular. If, as the O.E.D. speculates, the word truth derives from the Old English word for truce, this etymological filiation remains palpable today in the process of theatrical staging: its result resembles a temporary truce between warring factions rather than a peace treaty of long duration. It can therefore differ from performance to performance and in any case rarely outlives them.
This experience contrasts with certain aspects of “scholarly” life, where belief in a durable truth often functions as the tenet of a secular faith. In providing an alternative perspective to this faith, “theatricality” offers another perspective from which to approach the relation of institutions, interpretation, and media investigated in my previous work. For theatricality —which is not the same as theater, although also not separable from it—spans the gap dividing “old” and “new” media in ways whose investigation and reflection can illuminate the cultural, social, and political transformations currently underway.
Although this book thus results from a history involving both academic and theatrical experiences, the texts it brings together were written almost exclusively for academic occasions. Although initially conceived as independent studies, a common set of concerns that gradually emerged links the different texts in various ways. At the center of their concerns stands the tension between the effort to reduce the theatrical medium to a means of meaningful representation by enclosing its space within an ostensibly self-contained narrative, and the resistance of this medium to such reduction. Theatricality resists the reduction to a meaningful narrative by virtue of its ability to signify. This ability associates it with what is called “language.” As the most ubiquitous of signifying media—a pleonasm insofar as all media are such through signifying—language demonstrates the priority of the signifying function over that of representation. In so doing, far from reducing the materiality and corporeality of theater, it marks their irreducibility. This is what Walter Benjamin interprets as baroque “allegory,” and it is why he links it to theater in the form of the German “mourning play.” In its allegorical dimension, the process of signifying always leaves something out and something over : an excess that is also a deficit, or, as Derrida has formulated it, a “remainder”— un reste. It is the irreducibility of this remainder that, ultimately, renders language theatrical, and theatricality significant.
The essays collected in this volume repeat and rehearse certain chapters in the emergence of this significance, while exploring some of its ramifications. They make no claim to completeness and remain as aleatory as their subject matter. Whether or not they leave anything in their wake will have to depend on the readings to which they give rise.
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As work on this book has been in progress for well over a decade, it is impossible to acknowledge adequately or completely the many helpful suggestions I have received. Memory retains the most recent of these, whereas older ones tend to be assimilated over the years so that one forgets that they initially came from elsewhere. My apologies therefore in advance to those whose names deserve to be mentioned here but are not.
This book would almost certainly never have been published without the insight and involvement of Helen Tartar, whose dedication and support have been a constant source of encouragement. Largely due to her interventions, as well as those of Ela Kotkowska, the original manuscript has become far more readable. My friend and former colleague Haun Saussy also gave generously of his time in suggesting revisions and corrections. Jennifer Bajorek and Nicholas Müller-Schöll were discerning readers; Rodolphe Gasché gave valuable suggestions at various points. A word of thanks is also due the Wooster Group, who kindly made available a taped recording of their unforgettable production of O’Neill’s Emperor Jones. Although I was unable to include a discussion of this staging here, their approach to theater and media certainly informs my notion of “theatricality” throughout.
A debt of a different kind is due Klaus Zehelein, currently Director of the Stuttgart Opera; his invitation to work with the Frankfurt Opera in the 1980s allowed me to experience the theatrical process from behind the scenes. A determining aspect of that experience was the opportunity to work on several theater and opera productions, as dramaturg, with the director and stage designer Axel Manthey. I gratefully dedicate this volume to his to memory.
Finally, a unique word of thanks is due my wife, Arlette. Her experience in television production provided me with an invaluable perspective on the relation of “theatricality” to media. Beyond that, her patience and understanding made this book possible.
Although I have tended to modify existing translations or retranslate, I have often used and learned from the published English versions, to which I remain greatly indebted.