Reviewed by:

• Witness Onstage: Documentary Theatre in Twenty-First-Century Russia by Molly Flynn
• Marc A. Robinson

The appearance of this book is a welcome addition to available literature in English about the dynamic theatre scene in Russia. Witness Onstage effectively contextualizes the rise of Russian verbatim theatre. Although the actual dates of detailed analysis range from 2008 to 2012, rendering Flynn’s title overly broad, her chosen period is nonetheless representative of the most significant developments in the Russian documentary movement, including the hugely important Teatr.doc. Flynn also provides excellent contextualization for both the decades preceding her study as well as major theatrical events that transpired after the 2012 cutoff. Her work is further enriched by her ability to consider her objects not only as a theatrical critic, but also as a performer in one of the works she analyzes.

Flynn’s detailed and readable introduction outlines her argument that documentary theatre in Russia responded to what she terms “four core cultural tensions”: namely, “questions about the evidentiary status of documents, the performance of justice, the sincerity of testimony, and the complexities of Russia’s difficult relationship to its twentieth-century past” (22). In addition to this main thesis, Flynn also raises the concept of anamnesis, defined as a form of commemorative practice. She considers how modern Russian documentary theatre functions as commemorative in three distinct ways: 1) as a means for personalized reflection on what has occurred, the way a doctor gains an oral history in order to prepare a diagnosis; 2) as a means by which actors (reenactors) and audience members can collectively remember and relearn about a momentous event; and 3) as a process of recreation through memory, [End Page 268] the way participants in a liturgy embody a remembered act in order to make it present. This tripartite framework is one of the most exciting aspects of the monograph.

After this intellectually rigorous introduction, which skillfully provides a broad context from the beginning of the twentieth century up to the present, chapter 1 places documentary theatre in Russia within both international and national contexts, and it outlines the book’s central arguments pertaining to the use of documents and the social function of memory. Flynn maps a trajectory from historical antecedents to contemporary theatrical movements such as New Russian Drama from the first decade of this century, demonstrating her deep familiarity with major theatre-makers of this time period. From the well-written and balanced introduction and contextualization of chapter 1, the author turns to individual productions. Here, the book loses a bit of focus as Flynn narrows in on five specific productions for in-depth analyses. The productions are representative of specific features relating to her opening thesis regarding the use of documents, memory, and anamnesis, but Flynn does not adequately justify the choice of these specific productions from among the range of possible examples that use documentary and verbatim techniques to varying degrees. The descriptions of the individual productions are detailed, but they often stray from the central arguments of their chapters, which are made more unwieldy by a surprising number of tangents. The result is an unresolved tension between survey and argument. That said, every one of Flynn’s analyses offers great insights into the plays and their production styles. Further, her thorough knowledge of the most prominent Russian theatre critics such as Pavel Rudnev and Marina Davydova ensures that her analysis is not hampered by an Anglocentric point of view.

Chapter 2 begins with a description and analysis of The Legacy of Silence (Gruz molchaniia), the production in which Flynn played the role of Gerda for a year and a half. This work focuses on how the children of Nazis dealt with their parents’ legacies. The description of the production is then linked to the work done by Memorial, an international NGO that preserves remembrances of the victims of Stalinist repression. A second play, Second Act. Grandchildren., looks at the way that Russian grandchildren thought about their grandparents working in the NKVD and the KGB. Flynn...

审核人：

• 见证舞台：莫莉·弗林 (Molly Flynn) 的二十一世纪俄罗斯纪录片剧院
• 马克·A·罗宾逊

这本书的出现是对有关俄罗斯动态戏剧场景的可用英文文献的一个受欢迎的补充。Witness Onstage有效地将俄罗斯逐字逐字剧院的兴起置于背景之中。尽管详细分析的实际日期从 2008 年到 2012 年，这使得弗林的标题过于宽泛，但她选择的时期仍然代表了俄罗斯纪录片运动最重要的发展，包括极其重要的 Teatr.doc。弗林还为她研究之前的几十年以及 2012 年截止后发生的重大戏剧事件提供了出色的背景。她不仅将自己的对象视为戏剧评论家，而且将其视为她分析的其中一部作品中的表演者，这进一步丰富了她的作品。

弗林详细而易读的介绍概述了她的论点，即俄罗斯的纪录片剧院回应了她所说的“四个核心文化张力”：即“关于文件的证据地位、正义的表现、证词的诚意和复杂性的问题”。俄罗斯与其 20 世纪过去的艰难关系”（22）。除了这个主论点，弗林还提出了病历的概念，定义为一种纪念性实践。她考虑了现代俄罗斯纪录片剧院如何以三种不同的方式发挥纪念作用：1）作为对所发生的事情进行个性化反思的手段，医生获得口述病史以准备诊断的方式；2）作为演员（reenactors）和观众成员可以集体记住和重新了解重大事件的一种方式；和 3) 作为通过记忆进行娱乐的过程，[结束第 268 页]礼仪参与者体现被记住的行为以使其呈现的方式。这个三方框架是专着中最令人兴奋的方面之一。

在这个智力严谨的介绍之后，它巧妙地提供了从 20 世纪初到现在的广泛背景，第 1 章将俄罗斯的纪录片剧院置于国际和国家背景下，并概述了本书关于使用戏剧的中心论点。文件和记忆的社会功能。弗林描绘了从历史前身到当代戏剧运动（例如本世纪头十年的新俄罗斯戏剧）的轨迹，展示了她对这一时期主要戏剧制作人的深入了解。从第 1 章的精心编写和平衡的介绍和语境化，作者转向了个人作品。在这里，这本书失去了一些重点，因为弗林缩小了五个具体的作品以进行深入分析。回忆录，但弗林没有充分证明从不同程度地使用纪录片和逐字记录技术的一系列可能的例子中选择这些特定作品是合理的。对个别作品的描述是详细的，但它们经常偏离章节的中心论点，因为数量惊人的切线使这些论点变得更加笨拙。结果是调查和论证之间存在未解决的紧张关系。也就是说，弗林的每一项分析都提供了对戏剧及其制作风格的深刻见解。此外，她对帕维尔·鲁德涅夫 (Pavel Rudnev) 和玛丽娜·达维多娃 (Marina Davydova) 等最著名的俄罗斯戏剧评论家的透彻了解确保了她的分析不会受到以英国为中心的观点的阻碍。

第 2 章以对《沉默的遗产》（Gruz molchaniia）的描述和分析开始，弗林在这部作品中扮演格尔达一年半的时间。这项工作的重点是纳粹的孩子如何处理他们父母的遗产。然后将制作的描述与 Memorial 所做的工作联系起来，Memorial 是一个国际非政府组织，用于保存对斯大林镇压受害者的纪念。第二幕，第二幕。孙子们，看看俄罗斯孙子们对在 NKVD 和克格勃工作的祖父母的看法。弗林...