Reviewed by:

• Mnemodrama in Action: An Introduction to the Theatre of Alessandro Fersen by John C. Green
• Scott Venters

Mnemodrama in Action draws Polish-Italian theatrical anthropologist Alessandro Fersen (1911–2001) out from the shadow of his younger contemporary Grotowski. Fersen is best known for his unique stage adaptations beginning in the 1940s at Teatro Stabile in Genoa and the foundation of his Roman acting studio where, over the course of several decades, he transformed Stanislavskian protocols into an idiosyncratic experimental form called Mnemodrama. In brief, Mnemodrama is “the actualization in dramatic-oneiric form, of an event or trauma that emerges from the unconscious of the performer and which is expressed scenically” (6). Green’s book makes a convincing argument for the vital place of Fersen’s laboratory practice, which anticipated most of the notoriously radical experiments of the 1960s. To accomplish this, Green historically incarnates several lines of thought. First, he posits Fersen as a continuation and development of early avant-gardist anti-literary critique and aesthetic politicization. Second, Green situates Fersen’s Mnemodramatic discoveries in the long-running occidental conversation concerning the application of anthropological research to performance practices. Third, he translates and introduces Fersen’s crucial tracts rife with empirical discoveries, multicultural musings on origins, and polemical jabs. The result of Green’s efforts is the revivification of one who speaks uncynically of experience in the first-person plural, who ponders sincerely, not skeptically, shared provenance and intercultural transmission, and who believes in the incantatory, ecstatic power of dramatic praxis.

For those looking for the familiar, unobstructed path followed in the argumentative monograph, Green’s Mnemodrama in Action will prove frustrating. That frustration is undoubtedly intentional, caused by a disjunct between disciplinary preconceptions and a text that alluringly mimics the exploratory mechanics of Fersen’s studio work. Green structures his book into two main sections: 1. an artistic biography and studio development of Mnemodrama; 2. selected writings of Fersen on Mnemodrama and the cultural responsibilities of performance. Part one adumbrates a definitional apparatus for Mnemodrama and then moves through a chronology of its consummate realization. The ensuing chronology of this actualization is a turbid one, functioning as a dialectical process with Mnemodrama’s ontogenetic embodiment oscillating between intercultural frictions and studio refinements.

According to Green (chapter 2), Fersen’s inchoate formula for Mnemodrama occurred in the crucible of Nietzschean thought, the anthropology of Lucien Levy-Bruhl, and Luigi Pirandello’s emphasis on social role playing. Influenced by this menagerie of thinkers, Fersen, in his dissertation The Universe as a Game, argued for a return to “creative abandonment” via mythopoesis and spontaneous play. Subsequent work with Charles Dullin in Paris bolstered Fersen’s anti-statist “nostalgia for the ‘primitive’” increasingly shaped into collective ritual forms and given polemical thrust in three manifestos published in the wake of WWII (14). Like Artaud before him, Fersen attacked the literary proclivities and industrial inclinations of modern theatre. His critique eventually materialized in a surrealist cabaret created in collaboration with Emanuelle Luzzati, Nottambuli, an event that simultaneously brought Fersen into conflict with authorities and served as a model for the establishment of his laboratory, The Fersen Studio of Scenic Arts, in Rome in 1957.

In chapter 3, Green cites three phases of Fersen’s laboratory experiments following a general arc moving away from individuated role playing and spoken dialogue associated with realistic methods of actor training toward gestural group dramas performed with abstract props granting passage to the manumitted unconscious. From 1957 to 1961 Fersen led [End Page 109] investigations from the starting point of Stanislavski’s psychophysical training with stress placed on scenic improvisations, but that starting point soon proved insufficient in accessing unconscious states. Exposure to Carnivale and Condomble cults in Bahia actuated Fersen not to abandon occidental mimetic practices, but rather, in the vein of Nietzsche, to place them in a binaristic agon with forms of ritual while hoping to discover those contact points in the struggle “when Ritual becomes Theatre” (41). This, Fersen, was coming to believe could be done only by releasing the...

审核人：

• 行动中的记忆剧：约翰·C·格林 ( Alessandro Fersen) 的戏剧介绍
• 斯科特文特斯

行动中的记忆剧将波兰-意大利戏剧人类学家亚历山德罗·费尔森（Alessandro Fersen，1911-2001）从他年轻的同时代人格洛托夫斯基的阴影中拉出来。费尔森最出名的是他于 1940 年代在热那亚的 Teatro Stabile 开始的独特舞台改编和他的罗马表演工作室的基础，在几十年的时间里，他将斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基的协议转变为一种特殊的实验形式，称为 Mnemodrama。简而言之，记忆剧是“从表演者的无意识中出现的事件或创伤以戏剧性的梦幻形式实现，并以优美的方式表达”（6）。格林的书为费森的实验室实践的重要地位提供了令人信服的论据，它预见了 1960 年代大多数臭名昭著的激进实验。为了实现这一点，格林在历史上体现了几种思路。首先，他将费尔森定位为早期先锋派反文学批判和审美政治化的延续和发展。其次，Green 将 Fersen 的记忆戏剧学发现置于西方长期以来关于将人类学研究应用于表演实践的对话中。第三，他翻译并介绍了费尔森的重要文章，其中充斥着实证发现、多元文化对起源的沉思以及争论不休的刺戳。格林努力的结果是一个人的复兴，他以第一人称的复数形式冷嘲热讽地谈论经验，真诚地而不是怀疑地思考共同的出处和跨文化传播，并且相信戏剧实践的魔力和狂喜的力量。他将费尔森视为早期先锋派反文学批评和审美政治化的延续和发展。其次，Green 将 Fersen 的记忆戏剧学发现置于西方长期以来关于将人类学研究应用于表演实践的对话中。第三，他翻译并介绍了费尔森的重要文章，其中充斥着实证发现、多元文化对起源的沉思以及争论不休的刺戳。格林努力的结果是一个人的复兴，他以第一人称的复数形式冷嘲热讽地谈论经验，真诚地而不是怀疑地思考共同的出处和跨文化传播，并且相信戏剧实践的魔力和狂喜的力量。他将费尔森视为早期先锋派反文学批评和审美政治化的延续和发展。其次，Green 将 Fersen 的记忆戏剧学发现置于西方长期以来关于将人类学研究应用于表演实践的对话中。第三，他翻译并介绍了费尔森的重要文章，其中充斥着实证发现、多元文化对起源的沉思以及争论不休的刺戳。格林努力的结果是一个人的复兴，他以第一人称的复数形式冷嘲热讽地谈论经验，真诚地而不是怀疑地思考共同的出处和跨文化传播，并且相信戏剧实践的魔力和狂喜的力量。Green 将 Fersen 的记忆戏剧性发现置于西方长期以来关于将人类学研究应用于表演实践的对话中。第三，他翻译并介绍了费尔森的重要文章，其中充斥着实证发现、多元文化对起源的沉思以及争论不休的刺戳。格林努力的结果是一个人的复兴，他以第一人称的复数形式冷嘲热讽地谈论经验，真诚地而不是怀疑地思考共同的出处和跨文化传播，并且相信戏剧实践的魔力和狂喜的力量。Green 将 Fersen 的记忆戏剧性发现置于西方长期以来关于将人类学研究应用于表演实践的对话中。第三，他翻译并介绍了费尔森的重要文章，其中充斥着实证发现、多元文化对起源的沉思以及争论不休的刺戳。格林努力的结果是一个人的复兴，他以第一人称的复数形式冷嘲热讽地谈论经验，真诚地而不是怀疑地思考共同的出处和跨文化传播，并且相信戏剧实践的魔力和狂喜的力量。

对于那些在争论的专着中寻找熟悉的、畅通无阻的路径的人，格林的行动中的记忆剧会令人沮丧。这种挫败感无疑是有意为之的，是由于学科先入之见与诱人地模仿费森工作室作品的探索机制的文本之间的脱节造成的。Green 将他的书分为两个主要部分：1. Mnemodrama 的艺术传记和工作室发展；2. 费森关于记忆剧和表演的文化责任的文选。第一部分预示了记忆剧的定义工具，然后通过其完美实现的时间顺序移动。随之而来的这种实现的时间顺序是一个混浊的时间顺序，作为一个辩证过程起作用，音乐剧的个体发生体现在跨文化摩擦和工作室改进之间摇摆不定。

根据格林（第 2 章）的说法，费尔森对记忆剧的早期公式出现在尼采思想、吕西安列维布鲁尔的人类学和路易吉皮兰德娄对社会角色扮演的强调的熔炉中。受这些思想家的影响，费尔森在他的论文《作为游戏的宇宙》中，主张通过神话创作和自发游戏回归“创造性的放弃”。随后在巴黎与查尔斯·杜林 (Charles Dullin) 的合作加强了费尔森的反中央集权主义者“对‘原始’的怀旧”，越来越多地形成集体仪式形式，并在二战后发表的三份宣言中给出了论战性的推力 (14)。像他之前的阿尔托一样，费尔森攻击了现代戏剧的文学倾向和工业倾向。他的批评最终体现在与Nottambuli的 Emanuelle Luzzati 合作创建的超现实主义歌舞表演中，这一事件同时使 Fersen 与当局发生冲突，并作为 1957 年在罗马建立他的实验室 Fersen 布景艺术工作室的模型.

在第 3 章中，Green 引用了 Fersen 实验室实验的三个阶段，沿着一条大弧线从个体化的角色扮演和与演员训练的现实方法相关的口头对话转向使用抽象道具表演的手势群戏，从而获得释放无意识的通道。从 1957 年到 1961 年，Fersen 领导[End Page 109]从斯坦尼斯拉夫斯基的心理物理训练的起点开始进行调查，重点放在场景即兴创作上，但很快证明该起点不足以进入无意识状态。对巴伊亚狂欢节和 Condomble 崇拜的接触促使 Fersen 没有放弃西方的模仿实践，而是按照尼采的思路，将它们置于仪式形式的二元论斗争中，同时希望在斗争中发现这些接触点“当仪式成为剧院”（41）。Fersen 开始相信，只有释放……才能做到这一点。