The Salopian no. 160 - Summer 2017

OLD SALOPIAN NEWS 87
Michael Wood (M 2000-05)
Heiner Müller’s Democratic Theater: The politics of
making the audience work
Boydell & Brewer
ISBN-13: 978-1571139986
Heiner Müller’s Democratic Theater is the outcome
of the research Michael Wood conducted for his
PhD, albeit revised and repackaged to no small
degree. In it, he studies a selection of works by the
German playwright Heiner Müller (1929-95), who is
widely acknowledged as one of the most important
playwrights of the latter part of the twentieth
century and certainly one of the most influential
since Bertolt Brecht; indeed, Müller’s 1977 text The
Hamletmachine, consisting of eight pages of almost
utterly unstageable carnage, remains a firm favourite
on university syllabuses in English, modern languages,
drama, theatre, history, and politics departments
across the world (and, like Müller’s other ‘plays’, is
well worth a read!).
Heiner Müller’s work takes the baton from Brecht in
looking for ways in which to make theatre audiences
active, thinking participants that might change their
own political, social and economic reality. With one
eye on the historical contexts in which Müller’s plays
were written and staged and another on the details
of the texts and the audiences for whom they were
written, this book hopes to demonstrate that Müller’s
works point to how theatre can be a productive
political force in times of historical upheaval.
Heiner Müller’s Democratic Theater is also written to
be readable for and of interest to people who aren’t
academics or university students. So, the author
hopes, it might just tickle the fancy of the general
reader with an interest in European history, politics,
literature, and/or theatre…
Hardback copies can be ordered online from the
publisher Boydell & Brewer and via Amazon. Old Salopians
are warmly invited to order their copy through the publisher’s
website (www.boydellandbrewer.com) and quote BB130 at
the checkout. Doing so shaves a tidy 30% off the price.
Selby Martin (Master 1973-93)
From Communism to Community
YouCaxton Publications
Review by Martin Knox
Selby Martin came late to teaching and such as has been his
modesty over the years that his many friends in the Salopian
community know little of his earlier career in the Diplomatic
Service. No-one could be less given to name-dropping or the
pursuit of reflected glory. Seldom indeed did we hear the
intervention, “When I was in the Foreign Office…” though
given that he was serving in the Moscow embassy at the
height of the Cold War, at a time when the Iron Curtain was
about to take physical shape, the temptation must have been
strong. It is not that Selby was secretive about his past, for he
would answer questions to satisfy curiosity, but only now,
well into his eighties, does he step into the limelight with a
comprehensive account of his life and times.
The cover of this splendid volume might mislead the casual
observer. Where does Communism come in? Could this be
the story of a double agent, another Cambridge spy? Nothing
could be further removed, for the author is the very type of
an English gentleman, who, for all his scholarly curiosity,
is never in the least danger of “going native”, still less of
changing sides. In his account of the Moscow years and of a
later posting to Bulgaria, Selby depicts a world of frustrating,
and at times frightening, suspicion and tension. That he does
so in a matter-of-fact narrative, rather than a rhetorical rant is
all the more telling. In this and other sections, he combines
personal experience with history, geography, and a very wellinformed
presentation of the social and political context. He
is helped in his researches by the fact that his mother kept
his letters home (he was an assiduous correspondent), added
to which is the full diary of record that he kept, no mere
jottings, but a literate and lucid narrative, in keeping with the
rest of the text. It is clear that he responded sensitively to his
surroundings and, starting with an affectionate description of
the family home, he is always alert to his environment, with a
strong preference for the outdoor life.
With that in mind, it emerges that war-time evacuation to
Scotland proved to be more congenial to him than it would
have been to a confirmed city-dweller. We also discovery
early on his passion for fishing, a hobby which he practises