Table Of ContentMemory in Play
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PALGRAVE STUDIESIN THEATREAND PERFORMANCE HISTORY is a series devoted to the best of
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Also in the series:
Undressed for Success by Brenda Foley
Theatre, Performance, and the Historical Avant-garde by Günter Berghaus
Theatre, Politics, and Markets in Fin-de-Siècle Paris by Sally Charnow
Ghosts of Theatre and Cinema in the Brain by Mark Pizzato
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Absence and Memory in Colonial American Theatre by Odai Johnson
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Representation and Identity from Versailles to the Present: The Performing Subject by Alan Sikes
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American Puppet Modernism: Essays on the Material World in Performance by John Bell
On the Uses of the Fantastic in Modern Theatre: Cocteau, Oedipus, and the Monster by
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Staging Stigma: A Critical Examination of the American Freak Show by Michael M. Chemers,
foreword by Jim Ferris
Performing Magic on the Western Stage: From the Eighteenth-Century to the Present edited by
Francesca Coppa, Larry Hass, and James Peck, foreword by Eugene Burger
Memory in Play: From Aeschylusto Sam Shepard by Attilio Favorini
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Memory in Play
From Aeschylus to Sam Shepard
Attilio Favorini
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MEMORY IN PLAY
Copyright © Attilio Favorini, 2008.
All rights reserved.
First published in 2008 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN-13: 978–0–230–60464–3
ISBN-10: 0–230–60464–1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Favorini, Attilio, 1943–
Memory in play : from Aeschylus to Sam Shepard / Attilio Favorini.
p. cm.—(Palgrave studies in theatre and performance)
ISBN 0–230–60464–1 (alk. paper)
1. Drama—History and criticism. 2. Memory in literature. I. Title.
PN1650.M435F38 2008
808.8(cid:2)0353—dc22 2008017504
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: December 2008
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America.
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In Memory of My Mother and Father
and
My Friend
Alfred Donargo
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“Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of
thorns or flowers that would have never bound you, but for the formation of the first link
on one memorable day.”
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
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Contents
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
1. Drama and the History of Memory 13
2. Drama and the Memory of History 47
3. Memory Plays before the “Memory Play” 87
4. The “Memory Play” and After: Narrative Paradigms 137
5. Drama of Mnemic Signs 179
6. Confrontation or Convergence: Staging the Encounter of History
and Memory 227
Notes 275
Works Cited 289
Index 309
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Acknowledgments
Almost anyone who picks up this book will know more about some aspect
of the topic than I do. I can only hope that, like the blind men and the
elephant, all its flaws may not be discernible by a single reader. Issues of
length have made this study selective and Eurocentric rather than global. There
are rich traditions of memory drama in India, Japan (from Noh to documentary
dramas of World War II), South Africa (apartheid), and Southeast Asia. The most
popular Chinese language play over the past twenty years, Stan Lai’s Secret Love in
Peach Blossom Land, constructs a utopia based on the absence of historical memory.
An ever-growing body of memory-driven drama is being created by indigenous and
diasporic populations almost everywhere in the world. Though my editors have
been generous with the length of my manuscript, my book will consequently be
open to such objections as “What about Chicano/Chicana plays?” or “Favorini for-
gets Follies.” The appropriate response, I think, is wonderment at the brave new
world of memory plays constantly unfolding before us.
I claim my book as a work of theatre history. As Martin Puchner recently editorial-
ized in Theatre Survey (November 2007), the examination of dramatic literature apart
from any individual realization of a play should be able to coexist as part of theatre
history alongside essays on other aspects of performance. In any case, because I have
considered memory as a system property of dramatic construction, the realities of the
stage have never been far from my mind.
I have strived to find a common language to discuss a field far more divided and
contested than Lear’s kingdom, while at the same time deploying and explaining spe-
cialized terms when they seemed to be particularly illuminating of the material at hand.
Neuroscientist readers do not need an explanation of parallel distributed processing any
more than students of the drama need as detailed an account of Beckett or Pinter as I
have provided. But true dialogue requires the patience to hear each other out.
Among those who heard me out was a bastion of graduate students from my
memory seminar, some of whom were also my keen research assistants, to all of
whom I am grateful. If I mention David Pellegrini at the beginning of my work and
Lofty Durham at the end, they stand as memoranda for all the others. My colleague
Bruce McConachie encouraged me at a crucial stage, as did Joe Donohue, Micki
Chi, and Kurt Van Lchn. Gary Williams read an early draft and offered invaluable
suggestions. Don Wilmeth read a later stage of the manuscript with care and wisdom,
and speeded it toward publication. Farideh Koohi-Kamali added her support when
crucial decisions on length had to be made. Joan Bowman both proofread and cor-
rected the manuscript with a keen eye for detail and clarity.
The farther afield I wandered in search of memory, the more I needed guidance.
I owe a debt of gratitude to colleagues from many disciplines, at the University of
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Description:Memory in Play makes evident that memory, though critically neglected, is as significant as race, gender, and class as a feature of dramatic character construction. Favorini skillfully argues that dramatic models of memory need to be reckoned along with the constructions of philosophy, psychology, a
