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Contemporary Theater and Aesthetic Distance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Oscar Büdel
Oscar Büdel*
Affiliation:
University of Washington, Seattle
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Extract

In confuting Schlegel's ideas on the rôle of the chorus in Greek tragedy, Nietzsche said that he believed in an aesthetic audience and thought the single spectator to be the more capable, the more he was able to take the work of art as art, namely aesthetically. Some forty years thereafter modern drama felt called upon to awaken the spectator from his “illusionist period”—as if there had been any danger that, again in Nietzsche's words, the ideal spectator might rush onto the stage to free the God from his torment. Yet to prevent this once and for all seems to have been one of the foremost axioms of the Expressionist and kindred revolts of the first decade of this century.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 76 , Issue 3 , June 1961 , pp. 277 - 291
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1961

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References

Note 1 in page 277 F. Nietzsche, Die Geburt der Tragédie aus dem Geiste der Musik, Musarion Ausgabe (Miinchen, 1920), iii, 52–53.

My essay was written in the summer of 1958 before the appearance of P. A. Michelis, “Aesthetic Distance and the Charm of Contemporary Art,” JAAC, xviii (1959), of which it therefore does not take account. Discussion of affinitive questions will have to be reserved for a further study.

Note 2 in page 277 Edward Bullough, “Psychical Distance as a Factor in Art and an Aesthetic Principle,” British Journal of Psychology, v (1912–13), p. 98.

Note 3 in page 277 Julien Benda, Belphégor. Essai sur l'esthétique de la présente société française (Paris, 1918), p. xi. Although published after the First World War, this book was written for the most part before 1914.

Note 4 in page 278 Benda, pp. 6, 7, 15, 16.

Note 5 in page 278 For further pertinent and more detailed discussion of this aspect see Bullough, pp. 92 ff.

Note 6 in page 278 Cf. Paolo Chiarini, “Espressionismo,” in Enciclopedia dello Spettacolo (Roma, 1957), iv, 1633.

Note 7 in page 278 W. Dilthey, “Die Technik des Dramas,” in Die gro&e Phaniasiedichtung (Gottingen, 1954), p. 138. Originally published 1863 in the Berliner Allgemeine Zeitung. Recently Siegfried Melchinger pointed out the same fact in discussing the original concept of “epic theater.” (Theater der Gegenwart, Frankfurt/M-Hamburg, 1956, p. 143.)

Note 8 in page 278 Les Mamelles de Tirésias (Paris, 1946), p. 31. The prologue was added in 1916 to the play which was itself written in 1903, and first produced 24 June 1917. A few years later, in 1919, Virginia Woolf, proclaiming her Life-is-a-luminoushalo theory, will demand the same for the novel. Cf. “Modern Fiction,” in The Common Reader. First and Second Series (New York, 1948).

Note 9 in page 278 Die Unsterblichen (Berlin, 1920). Goll's is a typical case for how closely the different movements of Expressionism, Futurism, Surrealism, and Cubism were related to one another. For this see Francis J. Carmody, “L' œuvre d'Yvan Goll,” in Yvan Goll. Quatre Études (Paris, 1956).

Note 10 in page 279 Cf. the foreword to Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel (written in 1922). Also the opinion André Gide gives in his Journal on Parade, a previous ballet réaliste by Cocteau. For a more detailed and very sensitive analysis of Cocteau's debut see Neal Oxenhandler, Scandal and Parade. The Theater of Jean Cocteau (New Brunswick, N. J., 1957).

Note 11 in page 279 Marinetti, Settimelli, Corra, “Manifesto del teatro futurista sintetico,” in II teatro fulurista sintetico, Biblioteca Teatrale dell'Istituto [n.d. but 1915]. Similar ideas Marinetti had already expressed in “Il teatro di varietà,” in Lacerba, i, No. 19 (1 Oct. 1913); published also in Daily Mail, 21 Nov. 1913.

Note 12 in page 279 II Futurismo. Il Novecentismo, a cura di Enrico Falqui (Torino, 1953), p. 59.

Note 13 in page 279 Il Futurismo. Il Novecentismo, p. 43.

Note 14 in page 279 Benda, p. 11 (Italics in the text).

Note 15 in page 279 Luigi Pirandello, Maschere nude (Milano, 1958), i, 99.

Note 16 in page 279 Cf. Joseph Gregor, Der Schauspielführer (Stuttgart, 1955), iii, 2, 8.

Note 17 in page 280 Arnold Hauser, Sozialgeschichte der Kunsl und Literatur (Miinchen, 1953), ii, 498. Hauser uses in this connection the term “Verräumlichung der Zeit.”

Note 18 in page 280 See Paul Kornfeld's “Betrachtungen tiber den ‘beseelten und den psychologischen Menschen’ ” in A. Soergel, Dichlung und Dichter der Zeit. Im Banne des Expresgionismus (Leipzig, 1925), p. 643: “Die Situation möge kopfstehen.”

Note 19 in page 280 Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience (Paris, 1946), p. 68.

Note 20 in page 280 Cf. Vittorio Mathieu, “Tempo, memoria, eternità: Bergson e Proust,” in II Tempo, ed. E. Castelli (Padova, 1958), p. 164; also Hans Mayer, “Welt und Wirkung Henri Bergsons,” in Deutsche Literatur und Weltlileratur (Berlin, 1957), p. 528.

Note 21 in page 280 Three Time Plays (London, 1952), p. xi. Cf. also Erwin Stürzl, “Die Zeit in den Dramen J. B. Priestleys,” GRM, xxxviii (1957), 37–52.

Note 22 in page 280 “Literarisierung des Theaters,” in Schrifien zum Theater (Berlin-Frankfurt/M, 1957), p. 33.

Note 23 in page 280 Cf. “Literarisierung des Theaters,” p. 34: “… als ob nicht das Individuum schon lang einfach auseinandergefallen ware.”

Note 24 in page 281 Theater der Gegenwarl (Frankfurt/M-Hamburg, 1956), p. 163 f. Interesting are the testimonies supplied in the cases of Anouilh and Sartre. Gustaf Griindgens reports that Sartre, when questioned by Germans as to whether the production of Les Mouches in Paris had been classical or romantic, replied that it definitely had been classical, fully corresponding with his intentions.

Note 25 in page 281 Apollinaire: “… les grossissements qui s'imposent si l'on veut frapper le spectateur” (Foreword to Les Mamelles de Tirésias, p. 14). Cf. also Marinetti's and Cangiullo's concept of a “Teatro a sorpresa.”

Note 26 in page 281 Cf. Lipps' and Volkelt's concept of Einfuhlung, not too different from Bergson's ideas on theatrical audiences as set forth in Le Rire.

Note 27 in page 281 Such features, moreover, do not make for dramatic qualities. Cf. Hugo von Hofmannsthal : “Je starker ein dramatischer Dialog ist, desto mehr von diesen Spannungen der Atmosphare wird er mit sich tragen und desto weniger wird er den Biihnenanweisungen anvertrauen.” (Gesammelle Werke (Frankfurt/M., 1955), Prosa iv, 197.)

Note 28 in page 281 Soergel, p. 640.

Note 39 in page 282 Maschere nude, i, 255.

Note 30 in page 282 Ibid., pp. 255–260.

Note 31 in page 282 Ibid., p. 265. At the Berlin performance in the Lessing Theater (31 May 1930), however, the audience indeed intended to be part of the game which caused the only really improvised scene: the appearance of the real director Hans Hartung who shouted insults at the real audience!

Note 32 in page 282 Ibid., p. 303.

Note 33 in page 282 Werner Kallmorgen, a German theater architect, cleverly remarked on this subject: “Das Schlagwort vom ‘Total-theater’ das den Zuschauerraum unter Illusion setzt und das Publikum zwingt, in der Garderobe seine Zivilkleider abzugeben und das dem Stuck entsprechende Kostiim in Empfang zu nehmen.” Darmstddler Gcsprach: Theater, ed. Egon Vietta (Darmstadt, 1955), p. 23.

Note 34 in page 282 The perspicacious Antonio Gramsci was already aware of the affinity of Pirandello's ideas with those of Evreinov. Yet these appear here not in their sociological aspect, e.g., masking or unmasking of character, as Gramsci saw them applied by Pirandello. Lacking any secondary implication they are transplanted into the atmosphere of theater itself and approach Huizinga's concept of play as set forth in his Homo ludens.

Note 35 in page 282 From several quarters there has come recently a new appreciation of Schnitzler's importance as an innovator. Wolfgang Kayser thinks his significance for the Tealro groltesco may have been overlooked because of the emphasis put upon the works of Synge and Andreev (Das Groteske, Oldenburg, 1957, p. 219).

Note 36 in page 282 Here I could not agree with R. J. Nelson (Play within a Play (New Haven, 1958), p. 119 f.) who says of the play: “We do not have the mingling of the real and the unreal, their perplexing fusion as in Pirandello and much twentieth-century drama.” The mingling is quite obvious, but it happens on the stage.

Note 37 in page 283 Der grüne Kahadu, ed. Schinnerer (New York, 1938), pp. 36–37.

Note 33 in page 283 “The Theatricality of Shaw and Pirandello,” Partisan Review, xvi (1949), 589.

Note 39 in page 283 “L'évolution du théâtre,” delivered 25 March 1904 in Nouveaux Prétextes (Paris, 1930), p. 19. As to Pirandello's use of the mask as symbol, see also Ulrich Leo, “Pirandello. Kunsttheorie und Maskensymbol,” DVLG, xi (1933).

Note 40 in page 283 Cf. Karl Vossler, “Zeit- und Raumordnungen der Btihnendichtung,” in Aus der romanischen Welt (Karlsruhe, 1948).

Note 41 in page 283 Cf. Quevedo, Doctrina de Epicteto xix (Obras, Madrid, 1877, iii, 395) : “No olvides que es comedia nuestra vida, / Y teatro de farsa el mundo todo, / Que muda el aparato por instantes, / Y que todos en él somos farsantes.” Further, Lope de Vega's Lo fingido verdadero, Jean Rotrou's Le véritable Saint Genest, etc. On this subject in general see Jean Rousset's excellent work La Littérature de l'âge baroque en France. Circé et Paon (Paris, 1953).

Note 42 in page 284 It is not wholly without reason that critics have attempted to establish parallels between Tieck and Pirandello. Cf. G. Mazzoni, “Pirandello e ‘Il gatto con gli stivali’,” in Il Messaggero (Roma, 10.8.1938).

Note 43 in page 284 Alhenàumsfragmente, Nr. 307.

Note 44 in page 284 “Vom neuen Drama,” in Ich glaubet Bekennlnisse (Miinchen, 1928), p. 36.

Note 46 in page 284 R. Schlösser, Das Volk tmd seine Bühne (Berlin, n.d. [1935]), p. 55.

Note 48 in page 284 “Il teatro,” in Dopo il diluvio, ed. Dino Terra (Milano, 1947), p. 342.

Note 47 in page 285 Thornton Wilder, The Skin of Our Teeth (New York and London, 1942), p. 13.

Note 48 in page 285 Interesting is a faint resemblance to Giordano Bruno's Candelaio, where the speaker of the Anliprologo leaves hurriedly after expressing doubts that the play will get off the ground because of the troubles some actors are beset with.

Note 49 in page 285 P. 130.

Note 50 in page 285 Herr Puntila und sein Knecht Maili, in Versuche 22-Z4 (Berlin, 1950), p. 38.

Note 51 in page 285 Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie, New Directions, 1949, p. 5.

Note 52 in page 286 Cf. also John Gassner, “Forms of Modern Drama,” in Comparative Literature, vu (1955), 143: “This ‘willed’ and cultivated theatricalism suggests, if it does not invariably succumb to, a schizoid and Alexandrian sensibility.”

Note 53 in page 286 With Brecht the term “epic” has retained little of its original implications but stands as a synonym for anti-dramatic and anti-emotional.

Note 54 in page 286 “Das moderne Theater ist das epische Theater,” in Schriften mm Theater, p. 23.

Note 55 in page 286 “Hans Garbe fiber die Aufführung,” in Theaterarbeit, ed. Helene Weigel (Dusseldorf, 1952), pp. 168–170.

Note 56 in page 286 Cf. Stendhal, who has his Romantique say: “Il me semble que ces moments d'illusion parfaite sont plus fréquents qu'on ne le croit en général, et surtout qu'on ne l'admet pour vrai dans les discussions littéraires. Mais ces moments durent infiniment peu, par exemple une demi-seconde, ou un quart de seconde. On oublie bien vite Manlius pour ne voir que Talma.” Racine et Shakespeare (Paris, 1925), i. 17.

Note 57 in page 286 It is this aspect which does not at all exist for Brecht, and which he wholly mistakes. In his “Verfremdungseffekte in der chinesischen Schauspielkunst” (Schriften, p. 79) he states that the actor who has achieved complete identification would need no more art than the cashier, doctor, or general whom he represents needed in real life. But it is exactly the degree of identification, the subtle play of the antinomies from which the drive to play originates!

Note 58 in page 287 “Kleines Organon fur das Theater,” in Schriften, p. 130. 59 “Das moderne Theater ist das epische Theater,” in Schriften, p. 19.

Note 60 in page 287 Versuche 27–32, Heft 12 (Berlin, 1953), 106.

Note 61 in page 287 Theater der Gegenwart (Frankfurt/M-Hamburg, 1956), p. 179.

Note 62 in page 287 To prevent thus an audience from seeing certain things because they are not conducive to an ideal world seems to mistake the mission and sense of theater. Cf. Pascal's negative position in this respect in the oft quoted fragment No. 11 (Brunschvicg) of the Pensées, and also Molière's comment in the Préface of 1669 to Tartuffe. Furthermore, the Encyclical of Pope Pius XII Miranda prorsus with which Guido Calogero takes issue in this sense (“La libertà di vedere. Considerazioni sulla natura dello spettacolo,” in Il Ponte, xiii, 1957, 1191–98).

Note 63 in page 288 Cf. Friedrich Schlegel (Prosaische Jugendschriften, ii, 218): “Was in der Poesie gcschieht, geschieht nie, oder immer. Sonst ist es keine rechte Poésie. Man darf nicht glauben sollen, daß es jetzt wirklich geschehe.”

Note 64 in page 288 Cf. Wilhelm Dilthey (Das Erlebnis und die Dicldung (Gbttingen, n.d.), p. 118, et passim): “Der Vorgang, in dem…die poetische Welt entsteht und ein einzelnes dichterisches Werk sich bi1 -d e t, empfangt sein Gesctz aus einem Verhalten zur Lebenswirklichkeit, das vom Verhältnis der Erfahrungselemente zum Zusammenhang der Erkenntnis ganz verschieden ist.” [Spacing as in text.]

Note 65 in page 288 Cf. Marinetti [Manifesto del tealro fuhtrista sintetico, p. 19): “Eliminare il preconcetto délia rihalta lanciando délie reti di sensazioni tra palcoscenico e pubblico.”

Note 68 in page 288 Even where the name was retained for open air theaters as in Italy in the 18th and 19th centuries, it always denoted a theater in the half round (Cf. the Arena Nazionale of Florence, the Arena del Sole in Bologna, etc.).

Note 67 in page 288 Cf. Melchinger, p. 36; also Hélène Leclerc, who speaks of the “deux cellules initiales du théâtre: la scène et la salle, la place de jeu et le groupement des spectateurs.” (“Autour d'une exposition,” RHT, ii (1950), 303.)

Note 88 in page 288 Other Greek theaters had adopted similar solutions to allow a frontal view. One such is the Theater of Dionysos in Athens, which uses the tangent instead of the elliptic form of Epidauros. For respective dates see Wilhelm Dorpfeld and Emil Reisch, Das griechische Theater (Athens, 1896), p. 120 ff., and p. 169 ff.

Note 69 in page 289 T. B. L. Webster (Greek Theatre Production, London, 195(5, p. 22) gives for this the terminus post quern as 320/10 and the terminus ante quern as 156/5.

Note 70 in page 289 Cf. Glenn Hughes, The Penthouse Theatre (Seattle, 1950), p. 9: “If the comedian has, during many centuries [sic], in several countries, performed successfully in a circle, then why not draw a circle and put him in it? That is, a modern comedian—not a traditional clown. Not Scaramouche, but Nick Potter.” Yet, this is, alas, not such an undisputed conclusion that by dint of it we can confine Nick Potter to a circle! Cf. Emil Staiger, “Vom Pathos,” Trivium, ii (1944), 87: “Neuerdings gibt es Dramaturgen, welche die Rampe beseitigen und die Buhnenspiele lieber in einer Art Arena Oder dann in einem Raum aufführen möch-ten, der innigeren Kontakt erlaubt. Das zeugt von einem völligen Mißverständnis der dramatischen Kunst.”—Even Thomas Mann (who, indicatively, never viewed theater with a gentle eye) is among the “abolitionists.” So he tells us (“Versuch über das Theater,” written 1910; in Rede und Antwort, Berlin, 1922, p. 61) : “Die konkrete Erscheinung des Volkstheaters ist selbstverständlich das Massentheater, dessen Zuschauerraum den Typus des Zirkus-Amphitheaters wieder [sic!] wird annehmen miissen, und dessen Buhne nicht die unseres Halbtheaters bleiben kann.” We are somewhat surprised at this “wieder,” for where have amphitheaters in antiquity been built and used for plays? Were the Coliseum in Rome, the Arena in Verona built for theater or for circus? —Mann modified his rigid first stand somewhat in his later Heidelberg speech of 1929, but his basic view on the function of theater remained the same. (Cf. “Rede iiber das Theater zur Eroffnung der Heidelberger Festspiele,” in Altes und Neues, Frankfurt/M, 1953, pp. 342, 352.)

Note 71 in page 289 Walter Gropius, “vom modernen theaterbau, unter berücksichtigung des piscator-theater-neubaues in berlin,” Berliner Tageblatl, 2 Nov. 1927.

Note 42 in page 289 The difference between circus and theater from the point of view of reality has been discussed by Céline Arnauld (“Le cirque, art nouveau,” in L'Esprit Nouveau. Revue Internationale d'Esthétique, i, n.d.). Cf. p. 98: “On a tendence à rapprocher le cirque du théâtre. Selon moi, c'est une vue des plus fausses. Le cirque est un spectacle fait de réalités. Le théâtre, au contraire, ne vit que de fictions…. Au cirque, la crainte que nous ressentons devant certains exercices dangereux est une crainte réelle provoquée par un danger réel. Sur la scène, tout est fiction, et il faut une âme naïve pour oublier que tout cela n'est qu'un jeu.”

Note 73 in page 289 Cf. Glenn Hughes, p. 24f.: “It has been our observation that at Penthouse plays people in the first three rows are really in the play [sic!]. With the fourth row they begin to feel themselves outside it. And we must not succumb to the temptation to enlarge our audience.” Yet, in the same pamphlet (p. 51) the author says: “The theatre, any theatre, lives by illusion,” which strikes us as a contradictio in adjeclo. How can the arena-type theater with all its anti-illusion measures possibly create “illusion?” It is one of the very forms which are used to destroy “illusion!”

Note 74 in page 290 An example of this type is the theater of Baylor University by P. Baker.

Note 76 in page 290 See DerArchitekt (1955), No. 4, pp. 129–131.

Note 76 in page 290 See Darmstddler Gespräch 1955: Theater, p. 95.

Note 77 in page 290 See Hélène Leclerc, p. 304: “C'est en réaction contre cette forme et cette perte de contact que s'orientent toutes les recherches actuelles. Quand le genre du spectacle fait encore préférer la ‘scène encadrée,‘ tous les efforts des architectes tendent vers l'adoucissement de la liaison entre scène et salle.”

Note 78 in page 290 Melchinger, p. 110. Melchinger sees Widerspruch even as the primary impulse of all art.

Note 78 in page 290 Brecht, Schriften zum Theater, p. 8.

Note 80 in page 291 Thomas Mann, Entslehung des Dr. Faustus.

Note 81 in page 291 This concern was expressed directly by E. A. Winds, a German theater superintendent, in a Q and A discussion with Brecht. There, Winds calls attention to the de-emphasizing of the as if character of theater in Brecht's work as being important for modern theater since it rescued it in the eyes of the audience: “Denn es ist kein Zweifel, daß der Zuschauer und Zuhorer im Theater heutzutage der Illusion des ‘als ob,‘ die von ihm verlangt wird, nämlich Schauspieler und darzustellende Rolle in ihrer subjektiven Ausdeutung als identisch zu empfinden, nicht mehr in alien Teilen zu folgen bereit ist…. Es scheint mir… eine Frage der Existenz-berechtigung des Theaters unserer Zeit.” (Schriften zum Theater, p. 238.)