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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. + ]1 +
