BY ED FELIEN
But before I could write my dissertation, I had to pass my written prelim’s, a three- day ordeal that was more like a madcap game of Trivial Pursuit: What is a Dutch brush? (a six-inch wide paint brush). Frustrated at the banality of the questions, I perked up at one that asked what books would you recommend to teach beginning acting? Of course, the answer that was expected was Stanislavsky’s “An Actor Prepares” and “Building a Character.” But I was more inclined to a Brechtian style of acting so I recommended Jerzy Grotowski’s “Towards a Poor Theater” and Brecht’s “Practical Lessons for Actors,” which were outside the normal experience of the Stanislavsky method acting techniques. I was sure I had done well on all of the other questions, so I thought I could take some liberties with predictable expectations. The head of the department called me into his office a couple of weeks later. He tried to explain how the answer to the acting question was wrong. I said, “You and I disagree on an opinion about what is an acceptable acting style. If my references are good and the curriculum makes sense, then my opinion is as valid as yours.”
He got up from behind his desk, went outside the office and brought in two other professors from the department. There was an awkward silence. I said, “Doc and I disagree on an opinion, and I don’t want to appear pugnacious, but I don’t feel I have to capitulate on an opinion.”
The first of the two said, “Pugnacious? Pugnacious? I should say you’re being pugnacious.”
The second one chimed in, “Capitulate? Capitulate? you have to capitulate. You have to write a dissertation.”
“But I thought everyone had to write a dissertation,” I said.
They got up to leave and the first one said to me, “I want to see you in my office after this.”
After getting some reading assignments from Doc I went to see the other professor. He said, “What were you doing in there? You almost threw your Ph.D. out the window.”
“Well, it’s not worth that much to me,” I said.
“You have what I call a ‘Sibley complex.’ ” [Mulford Q. Sibley was a professor of political science, a socialist and Quaker pacifist.]
“Well, actually, I admire Sibley.”
“Besides, it wasn’t just that one question.”
“What other question? What else did I get wrong?”
“No, it wasn’t that. It was your attitude.”
“My attitude?”
“The department thinks you think we’re a bunch of idiots.”
“Well, I can’t be responsible for your mass paranoia,” and I stormed out of the office.
I went to see Doc a few weeks later. We talked about Stanislavsky and the contribution of the method school of acting, and the department agreed to pass me on my written prelims. But they got their revenge. The oral prelims are mostly perfunctory. The department will ask general questions to test your knowledge, but it’s really a test of collegiality—how well do you get along within the academic structure? And I failed that, and I knew it. They said I failed my orals but I could take them again in a year, and in the meantime I could write my dissertation—which seemed enough of an assurance that I would eventually pass that I accepted my chastisement cheerfully
They passed me on my second oral prelims, and I had one last major hurdle: my final oral exam where I defended my thesis. In the year that I was writing my dissertation three books came out that confirmed the basis of my thesis even if they didn’t quite take my approach: “The Flower and the Castle” by Maurice Valency was a thorough analysis of the plays of Ibsen and Strindberg, and Martin Esslin came out with “The Theater of the Absurd,” and in the same year, a thoroughly scholarly analysis of the plays of Brecht. At first I was devastated. A lot of what I thought was original in my writing was now already in print by these other scholars. But, then, I felt vindicated. I had begun work on my dissertation before these books came out. So, it was clear I wasn’t plagiarizing anyone else’s ideas. I credited them and noted them in my bibliography. But, more than that, I came to see that ideas cannot be owned by anyone. They are part of the social and cultural context. And in that sense they belong to everyone.
At my final orals, the professor who accused me of having a Sibley complex had, unfortunately, been given a copy of my dissertation that the typist had not corrected, so he gleefully pointed out typos for the better part of a half hour. But I felt he was working up to something. I apologized for the uncorrected proof, and the other readers assured him that their copies were without the offending errors. But, finally, he got to the object of his hunt, “And here you say that Dada was primarily French when everyone knows it was German.”
“Well, it probably begins in Switzerland and moves to Berlin, but it becomes a movement in Paris, ultimately influencing notions of surrealism and laying the foundation for the theater of the absurd. Isn’t that right, Professor Hurrell?” I said, turning for support to my thesis advisor from the English Department. “Mmmm, yes,” he muttered.
And there the matter ended. It ended not with a bang but with a mutter. Everyone got up and congratulated me, and I had earned my Ph.D.
