Vol. II. Issue. III September 2011 - The Criterion: An International ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

www.the-criterion.com The Criterion: An International Journal in English ISSN 0976-8165 and even conflicting discourses and its ultimate situatedness in the ideological matrix, thereby undermining the notion of a vantage perspective on history and the past. Malkin takes up Heiner Muller and Thomas Bernhard, the two German dramatists, to substantiate the argument that postmodern drama revisits history with irony in order to question its epistemological status. Muller’s Germania: Death in Berlin (1971) and The Battle (1974), and Bernhard’s Eve of Retirement (1979) are examples where history is presented in the form of a collage and mixed freely with purely imaginative elements. In a scene of Germania, for example, a rather grotesque version of the battle of Stalingard is presented, where the real historical figures as Napoleon, Caesar, and the Nibelungs engage in farcical acts. In yet another scene Frederick II appears as a vampire. This device of fiddling with history is a potent way to engage with it ironically. Bernhard’s Eve of Retirement too treats history with complicitous irony, conflating the realms of the past and the present, while simultaneously presenting a proliferation of perspectives, fragmentation and radical indeterminacies. Malkin sums up the manner in which postmodern dramatists engage with history in these terms: Postmodernism involves an explicit (and always “loaded”) utilization and reflection of the past, confounded by memory, by a destabilized perspective, or by other deconstructive tactics. Bernhard, like other postmodern dramatists---- Heiner Muller, Sam Shepard--- depends on the audiences’ knowledge of the past, of how the past is usually imaged, in order to shock and draw irony through multiple, or conflated perspectives. These are often provocations which challenge the usual representation of that past, or of the present in its light. (Malkin, “Pulling the Pants” 106) Moreover, postmodern drama inscribes a relation with the present as much as with the past. All representations, whether belonging to the past or the present, are shown by it to be constitutive of reality. This means blurring the traditional distinctions between reality and its representation and hence fact and fiction, an idea which is presented through the use of selfconscious theatrical devices such as the play-within-the-play. Postmodern drama, like other postmodern art forms, engages critically with reality. This is, however, done by simultaneously throwing its own representational status into question, confirming Hutcheon’s thesis that postmodernism is a paradoxical and self-contradictory enterprise. Nick Kaye substantiates this point in his analysis of postmodern performance: The postmodern [drama] indicates a calling into question of the languages, styles and figures through which it is seen…… It follows that the postmodern in art is subversive and transgressive, that is occurs as a critical and skeptical stepping beyond bounds, a disruption that purposefully upsets the terms by which the “work of art” would constitute itself. (Kaye 19) Postmodern drama, to use Barthes’s terminology, dedoxifies our modes of thought and perception which provokes a rethinking of these modes. A recognition of this fact enables us to dispel the notion that postmodernism implies an infinite regress into textuality with no referential value. Hutcheon’s thesis can be seen to be endorsed by Kaye who sees postmodern performance as an art form with a deconstructive potential. Kaye remarks that, “performance may be thought of as a primary postmodern mode,” (12) because it has the potential of “making visible [of] contingencies and instabilities,…. A disruption of the move toward containment and stability” (23). A similar view is expressed by Philip Auslander in his Presence and Resistance: Postmodernism and Cultural Politics in Contemporary American Performance (1992) where he sees postmodern performances as fraught with political implications for the contemporary postmodern commodification. Mark Forties describes Auslander’s position thus : “Auslander argues that although, all cultural production is politically compromised; postmodern performance restores critical distance which strategically allows us to reconsider the world we Vol. II. Issue. III 148 September 2011
www.the-criterion.com The Criterion: An International Journal in English ISSN 0976-8165 live in, thereby, performing a resistant political function” (Forties 123). It is this deconstructive impulse of postmodern drama that vindicates its value as a mode of critical engagement with the contemporary culture and politics and establishes it as a significant artistic category capable of both reflecting and commenting on the contemporary reality. Vol. II. Issue. III 149 September 2011
Page 1 and 2:
www.the-criterion.com The Criterion
Page 3 and 4:
Page 5 and 6:
Page 7 and 8:
Page 9 and 10:
Page 11 and 12:
Page 13 and 14:
Page 15 and 16:
Page 17 and 18:
Page 19 and 20:
Page 21 and 22:
Page 23 and 24:
Page 25 and 26:
Page 27 and 28:
Page 29 and 30:
Page 31 and 32:
Page 33 and 34:
Page 35 and 36:
Page 37 and 38:
Page 39 and 40:
Page 41 and 42:
Page 43 and 44:
Page 45 and 46:
Page 47 and 48:
Page 49 and 50:
Page 51 and 52:
Page 53 and 54:
Page 55 and 56:
Page 57 and 58:
Page 59 and 60:
Page 61 and 62:
Page 63 and 64:
Page 65 and 66:
Page 67 and 68:
Page 69 and 70:
Page 71 and 72:
Page 73 and 74:
Page 75 and 76:
www.the-criterion.com 6 The Criteri
Page 77 and 78:
Page 79 and 80:
Page 81 and 82:
Page 83 and 84:
Page 85 and 86:
Page 87 and 88:
Page 89 and 90:
Page 91 and 92:
Page 93 and 94:
Page 95 and 96:
Page 97 and 98: www.the-criterion.com The Criterion
Page 147: www.the-criterion.com The Criterion
Page 199 and 200:
Page 201 and 202:
Page 203 and 204:
Page 205 and 206:
Page 207 and 208:
Page 209 and 210:
Page 211 and 212:
Page 213 and 214:
Page 215 and 216:
Page 217 and 218:
Page 219 and 220:
Page 221 and 222:
Page 223 and 224:
Page 225 and 226:
Page 227 and 228:
Page 229 and 230:
Page 231 and 232:
Page 233 and 234:
Page 235 and 236:
Page 237 and 238:
Page 239 and 240:
Page 241 and 242:
Page 243 and 244:
Page 245 and 246:
Page 247 and 248:
Page 249 and 250:
Page 251 and 252:
Page 253 and 254:
Page 255 and 256:
Page 257 and 258:
Page 259 and 260:
Page 261 and 262:
Page 263 and 264:
Page 265 and 266:
Page 267 and 268:
Page 269 and 270:
Page 271 and 272:
Page 273 and 274:
Page 275 and 276:
Page 277 and 278:
Page 279 and 280:
Page 281 and 282:
Page 283 and 284:
Page 285 and 286:
Page 287 and 288:
Page 289 and 290:
Page 291 and 292:
Page 293 and 294:
Page 295 and 296:
Page 297 and 298:
Page 299 and 300:
Page 301 and 302:
Page 303 and 304:
Page 305 and 306:
Page 307 and 308:
Page 309 and 310:
Page 311 and 312:
Page 313:
show all

Vol. II. Issue. III September 2011 - The Criterion: An International ...

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?