theatre and memory

I was piqued by Jeb's mention of Marvin Carlson's book 'The Haunted Stage'. Carlson is my favourite theatre historian. Here are a few tidbits from the book (as well as a quote from the book jacket by my mentor, Joe Roach, that employs our favourite word--the uncanny.)



The Haunted Stage: The Theatre as Memory Machine
By Marvin Carlson (2001)

'The retelling of stories already told, the reenactments of events already enacted, the reexperience of emotions already experienced, these are and have always been central concerns of the theatre in all times and places, but closely allied to these concerns are the particular production dynamics of theatre: the stories it chooses to tell, the bodies and other physical materials it utilizes to tell them, and the places in which they are told. Each of thee production elements are also, to a striking degree, composed of material "that we have seen before," and the memory of that recycled material as it moves through new and different productions contributes in no small measure to the richness and density of the operations of theatre in general as a site of memory, both personal and cultural.' (3-4)

...' any theatrical production weaves a ghostly tapestry for its audience, playing in various degrees and combinations with that audience's collective and individual memories of previous experiences with this play, this director, these actors, this story, this theatrical space, even, on occasion, with this scenery, these costumes, these properties.' (165)


From the frontespiece:

For theatre is, in whatever revisionist, futurist, or self-dissolving form—or in the most proleptic desire to forget the theatre—a function of remembrance. Where memory is, theatre is. –Herbert Blau, 'The Audience'

Even in death actors’ roles tend to stay with them. They gather in the memory of audiences, like ghosts, as each new interpretation of a role sustains or upsets expectations derived from the previous ones. –Joseph Roach, 'Cities of the Dead'

What, has this thing appear’d again tonight? –Shakespeare, 'Hamlet'

From the book jacket:

“The theatre ghost—whether is takes the form of the celebrity-possessed dramatic character (as in Kelsey Grammar’s Macbeth), or the character-possessed celebrity (as in Rip Van Winkle’s Joseph Jefferson), or the fixed locality of the Noh stage or the periodically returning scene in Tate Wilkinson’s memoir—is an uncanny manifestation of the theatre’s role as the caretaker of cultural memory.” –Joseph Roach