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PHILTHER AS A HISTORIOGRAPHIC MODEL
Greenblatts poetics of culture, among others. As a result, the traditional
European model of history, as "the imaginary place of homogeneous and
ever-evolving time”,® has lost its integrating power, and the “grands récits”
organized by the principle of progress (such as our two-volume Marxist
history of world theatre, first published in 1972),° have increasingly lost
their validity. Philther is not concerned with the issue of periodization, yet
it does not assume the post-1949 period as a homogeneous one and does not
describe processes in it in a homogeneous way. Its analyses do not render
the aspirations discussed into a metanarrative, as they sometimes reveal
radically different conceptions of reality, art and theatre: for example, the
works of Endre Marton (whose four mises-en-scéne are studied in this
book) and Péter Halász (mostly known for his Squat Theatre in New York
for English-speaking researchers) have little to do with each other. Philther
creates micro-stories with each performance reconstruction, detecting the
specific processes and specific cases of signification and interpretation rather
than describing general characteristics. While the idea of reconstruction may
seem like a foolish illusion now from the perspective of post-structuralist
theories and cultural practices of writing history influenced by them, Philther
does not cherish the positivist ideal of reconstruction at all.
It is well known that reconstruction of past performances, having
disappeared due to the transient nature of their materiality (yet not without
a trace), was already a key issue a century ago, during the period of the
theoretical legitimation and methodological foundation of theatre science.
Max Hermann, who cultivated Iheaterwissenschaft as an independent
discipline and did research in the performances of the mastersingers of St.
Marthas Church in Nuremberg, advocated performance reconstruction in
light of the restoration of artworks and the restitution of artistic attempts
completely lost. In the spirit of positivism, Hermann relied on philology and
art history in trying to paint a vivid picture of Hans Sachs’s works performed
from the 1550s on the basis of dramatic texts as well as illustrations from the
printed editions of dramas.
Philther does not follow this historiographic attempt of Ur-theatre studies.
Firstly, since the examined period is closer to us, and the “norms” of theatre
science have considerably changed in the past hundred years, Philther relies
on a generally accepted order of performance analysis (far from starting with
the drama), the theories of performativity and various insights of cultural
and media studies. Secondly, Philther aims at a vivid description in order
to make present the analytically important moments of productions under
examination, yet it does not chase the rainbow of immediacy, as Hermann’s
8 Ibid., 346.
° Ferenc Hont — Géza Staud — Gyérgy Székely (eds.): A színház világtörténete, Vols. 1-2.,
Budapest, Gondolat, 1972.
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