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The Theatre of the Real Yeats, Beckett, and Sondheim

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The Theatre of the Real Yeats, Beckett, and Sondheim The Theatre of the Real MMackenzie_final4print.indbackenzie_final4print.indb i 99/16/2008/16/2008 55:40:32:40:32 PPMM MMackenzie_final4print.indbackenzie_final4print.indb iiii 99/16/2008/16/2008 55:40:50:40:50 PPMM The Theatre of the Real Yeats, Beckett, and Sondheim G INA MASUCCI MACK ENZIE THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS • COLUMBUS MMackenzie_final4print.indbackenzie_final4print.indb iiiiii 99/16/2008/16/2008 55:40:50:40:50 PPMM Copyright © 2008 by Th e Ohio State University. All rights reserved. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data MacKenzie, Gina Masucci. Th e theatre of the real : Yeats, Beckett, and Sondheim / Gina Masucci MacKenzie. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–8142–1096–3 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 978–0–8142–9176–4 (cd-rom) 1. English drama—Irish authors—History and criticism—Th eory, etc. 2. Yeats, W. B. (William Butler), 1865–1939—Dramatic works. 3. Beckett, Samuel, 1906–1989—Dramatic works. 4. Sondheim, Stephen—Criticism and interpretation. 5. Th eater—United States—History— 20th century. 6. Th eater—Great Britain—History—20th century. 7. Ireland—Intellectual life—20th century. 8. United States—Intellectual life—20th century. I. Title. PR8789.M35 2008 822.009—dc22 2008024450 Th is book is available in the following editions: Cloth (ISBN 978–0–8142–1096–3) CD-ROM (ISBN 978–0–8142–9176–4) Cover design by Jason Moore. Text design by Jennifer Forsythe. Typeset in Adobe Minion Pro. Printed by Th omson-Shore, Inc. Th e paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. ANSI Z39.48–1992. 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 MMackenzie_final4print.indbackenzie_final4print.indb iivv 99/16/2008/16/2008 55:40:54:40:54 PPMM To Daniel T. O’Hara Teacher Mentor Friend MMackenzie_final4print.indbackenzie_final4print.indb v 99/16/2008/16/2008 55:40:54:40:54 PPMM MMackenzie_final4print.indbackenzie_final4print.indb vvii 99/16/2008/16/2008 55:40:54:40:54 PPMM ❬ contents ❭ acknowledgments ix one What Is the Theatre of the Real? 1 two W. B. Yeats: Th e Missed Steps of Salome’s Daughters 40 three Beckett: Th e Missing Link 77 four Stephen Sondheim’s “Many Possibilities”: Th eater of the Manifest 114 bibliography 163 index 171 MMackenzie_final4print.indbackenzie_final4print.indb vviiii 99/16/2008/16/2008 55:40:54:40:54 PPMM MMackenzie_final4print.indbackenzie_final4print.indb vviiiiii 99/16/2008/16/2008 55:40:57:40:57 PPMM ❬ acknowledgments ❭ Without the wisdom and support of so many people, this book would not have been possible. First, my mom, Frances Masucci MacKenzie, who taught me “do re mi” along with the alphabet and instilled in me her love for musical theatre. Without her, I wouldn’t be the woman I am. Anna Marie Pulaski let an awkward thirteen-year-old me on her stage at St. Hubert; thirteen years later, she trusted me to direct that theatre program. Th e young women and men of St. Hubert’s drama program prove to me every day that theatre lives, so I thank them and our school. Vanessa and Alana Turchi remind me of the fearlessness that theatre requires. I am forever indebted to my teachers at Temple University: Sheldon Brivic, Rachel Blau-DuPlessis, Gabrielle Bernard-Jackson, Joan Mellon, Miles Orvell, and especially Alan Singer, who guided me through graduate school. Professor Robert Storey shared with me his passion for theatre, challenged me to question my penchant for psychoanalysis, and became my good friend. Daniel T. O’Hara’s willingness to share with me his knowl- edge, time, and energy was and still is a constant inspiration. Donald E. Pease of Dartmouth College and Eric Savoy of the University of Montreal are wonderful mentors; our conversations and their insights were invalu- able. It was a pleasure to work with Malcolm Litchfi eld, Maggie Diehl, and the other staff members of Th e Ohio State University Press, who made the process of a fi rst book virtually stress-free. Th ank you to my colleagues at CCP, who have shown me that theatre is always magical and certainly a place for madmen only, and our administration who eased the process of writing while teaching a 4/4 load. Finally, for Richard, who kissed me backstage when we were seventeen, and is still backstage for every performance. I love you. < ix > MMackenzie_final4print.indbackenzie_final4print.indb iixx 99/16/2008/16/2008 55:40:57:40:57 PPMM < x > Acknowledgments “Look at all the things you’ve done for me. / Let me give to you / some- thing in return / I would be so pleased” (“Move On,” Sunday in the Park with George). MMackenzie_final4print.indbackenzie_final4print.indb x 99/16/2008/16/2008 55:41:01:41:01 PPMM ❬ one ❭ What Is the Theater of the Real? shriek from the stage pierces the consciousness of a quiet Broadway audience. It is visceral, tangible almost, and absolutely terrifying, yet it is also an echo. Th is scream belongs to Giorgio and is uttered near the end of Sondheim’s Passion, his brilliant aexploration of the Real experience of love. Th e play, Sondheim’s most recent work for the Broadway stage, is the perfect example of the theatre of the Real. Th eatre of the Real, the concept to which this book is devoted to developing, is a new way of examining works of Modern drama whose presentations exemplify the Lacanian concept of the Real, or the psychic position of complete break with both one’s ties to Symbolic convention, and Imaginary phantasy. Th e experience is simultaneously liberating and crippling, and can only be achieved under very unique circumstances, as Passion demonstrates. Th e plot of the play, recounted in mostly epistolary fashion,1 begins as Giorgio, a dashing soldier, is transferred away from his beautiful mistress, Clara. At his new post, he meets Fosca, the colonel’s hideous and hyster- ical cousin. She falls in love with him, and aft er some resistance, he grows to feel passionately about her. Th eir aff air is inexplicable in conventional 1. Th e epistolary structure is obvious in the play’s staging, but credit for this terminology must be given to Raymond Knapp in Th e American Musical and the Performance of Personal Identity. < 1 > MMackenzie_final4print.indbackenzie_final4print.indb 1 99/16/2008/16/2008 55:41:01:41:01 PPMM < 2 > Chapter One terms. He is almost a caricature, a soldier/lover equally skilled in war and romance, a symbol of society’s ultimate man, both hard and sensitive. She is nightmarish, sallow, and moribund, breaking all expectations of usual feminine beauty. Her demeanor is eerie and certainly antisocial. Th eir rela- tionship is conventionally inexplicable. Aft er their love aff air is consum- mated, she dies, ostensibly of the physical exertion of their love making; he is forced to fi ght a duel with the colonel for her honor. During the duel, Giorgio suff ers a breakdown, embodied by the scream. Th is is not, however, the fi rst time Passion’s audience has heard that scream. It is the same one that Fosca sounds early in the play, while reading alone in her room on the fi rst night of Giorgio’s new assignment. Th at scream acts as Giorgio’s introduction to the concept of Fosca, but at that point, he does not actually meet her. Th e scream is an evocation of the vocative drive, which gives expression to the process of abjection, or expul- sion of Symbolic convention that must occur before these two characters can create a partnership in the Real and help Sondheim’s work exemplify the theatre of the Real, as defi ned by this text. Giorgio makes love to Fosca, but not until he screams, experiencing a pain and longing similar to what she has known, is their partnership Real. Th is instance in Sondheim’s work perfectly parallels Lacanian theory. Fosca screams fi rst to rid herself of the pain of the Symbolic order, or soci- ety’s refuse that has been dumped on her as a woman, because she is a woman and thus already on the fringe of society’s rules. At the beginning of the play, Giorgio is so fully enmeshed in society’s rules that he must undergo a longer journey to the Real, and he can do so only with Fosca’s help. Her scream, however, can never be his, and thus, they must experi- ence similar conditions but must reach those points isolated from each other. Th eir partnership can only exist in the Real and must not be con- doned or accepted by the Symbolic. Th e scream is much more than a blood-curdling awakening for the audience. It is the mark of the theatre of the Real. Th e scream is a sinthome, or the material embodiment of a relationship which has had the experi- ence of jouissance. Very few couples in Modern theatre experience such a relationship, but Giorgio and Fosca do, making Sondheim’s most recent Broadway venture the most Real example of Western theatre to date. Th is scream is not independent of theatre tradition. It can be linked in spirit to Yeats’s dancer fi gures, such as the Woman of the Well in At the Hawk’s Well, who screams to announce the coming of the warrior women of the Sidhe. Th e Woman of the Well does not achieve her own Real because she does not scream for herself, but for an Other. Beckett’s tragic-comedic MMackenzie_final4print.indbackenzie_final4print.indb 2 99/16/2008/16/2008 55:41:04:41:04 PPMM What Is the Theatre of the Real? < 3 > couples are so mired in their abject wastelands that they cannot scream.
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