Worth a Read: Theatre Books Round-up – May 2010

Laura Silverman
Book reviewer

Different Drummer by Jann Parry
Faber & Faber, £30

Kenneth Macmillan’s 70 works, including Valley of Shadows,
based on Bassani’s Holocaust novel The Garden of the
Finzi-Continis, reveal an obsession with victims, outsiders and
extreme psychological states that reflected the late choreographers’
own mental states and pushed ballet into new territory.
Dance critic
Jann Parry was given full access to the British choreographer’s
diaries, letters and notes in researching this impressive biography
and it’s paid off, winning this year’s Society for Theatre Research
book prize. This study is both an exhaustively detailed history of a
man and a perceptive deconstruction of his work, showing Macmillian as
a depressive, tormented by self-doubt, as well as an affectionate
husband and loyal friend. Fascinating.

Opera for Everybody by Susie Gilbert
Faber & Faber, £25

Subtitled The Story of the English National Opera, this
700-page tome serves as a chronicle of operatic life in England over
the past 150 years. Jeremy Sams, the British translator for the
modern-day ENO, has said opera once appealed to the British precisely
because it was exotic, but from Emma Cons and Lilian Baylis’s ideal in
the 1890s to the business-model of the ENO today, the ENO has always
been based on the belief that opera can reach out to everyone. In its
earliest incarnation, in the slums of The Cut, opera was even seen as
a mode of social reform. Reports from ENO board meetings and political
and financial negotiations that make up large sections of this book
don’t always make for the easiest of reads, but this is an impressive
work nonetheless – and a strong contender for the Society of Theatre
Research prize, even if it was a runner-up.

The Cambridge Introduction to Theatre Historiography by
Thomas Postlewait
Cambridge University Press, £45

What principles should theatre historians follow in their research,
analysis, interpretation and writing, and what pitfalls should they
avoid? Starting with case studies on Shakespearean theatre and
avant-garde theatre, Postlewait’s intelligent book, nominated for the
Society of Theatre Research prize, examines the methods and aims of
historical study in the performing arts. Aimed at students and
teachers, this is not a light read, but it is an intelligent,
questioning work to train a bright and active mind.

The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Theatre edited by
Richard Dutton
Oxford University Press, £89

Nominated for the Society of Theatre Research prize, this collection
of 36 scholarly essays explores the social, economic and political
pressures on players in Tudor-Stuart England. Contributions look at
how companies met the opposition of City of London authorities,
examine the role of entrepreneurs and financiers, construct the role
of women and boy actors and detail the use of lighting, props music. A
doorstop of a book, this is one for the shelves of the serious
student, and for anyone else to seek out at the library.

The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi by Andrew McConnell Stott
Canongate, £20

It’s a surprise for a stand-up comic to admit he’s scared of clowns,
but Andrew McConnell Stott has done his research. The most celebrated
English clown, Joey Grimaldi invented their part-child, part-nightmare
persona. Creating the make-up and clown costume, he impressed even the
severe lord chancellor Lord Eldon with his part-ballet,
part-slapstick, part-variety show. His first big hit, Mother
Goose in 1806, sold 300,000 tickets – the equivalent of a third of
London’s population.

Even so, Grimaldi’s comedic act had a dark side. It was a way to deal
with his traumatic childhood – his father, also a clown, often beat
Grimaldi’s mother and tormented his family with his obsession with
death. Joey also lost his adored wife in childhood and his only son to
drink. He suffered depression. McConnell Stott’s biography is packed
with vivid details of both Grimaldi’s family life and the context of
the Georgian theatre, making an enthralling if tragic read. Will being
nominated for the Society for Theatre Research Book Prize and winning
the Sheridan Morley Prize for Theatre Biography should at least make
the author feel more comfortable and confident in the presence of
clowns – as long as they don’t take offence at exposure and exact
revenge.

Talking Theatre by Richard Eyre
Nick Hern, £20

Reviewed on this site in September, this nominee for the Sheridan
Morley Prize consists of interviews by the former director of the
National with just about everyone in the theatre world. From Judi
Dench to Steven Berkoff, the question is which chapter to read
first…

Diaghilev: A Life by Sjeng Scheijen
Profile, £25

As a man of inexhaustible energy and a consuming desire to be in
control, the founder and director of the Ballets Russes makes a
fertile subject for a biography. Drawing on little-known Russian
archives, Sjeng Scheijen presents Diaghilev’s story in lucid, measured
prose, even when describing his passionate love affairs and his
collaborations with Picasso, Debussy, Rimsky-Korsakov, ­Matisse and
Coco Chanel, to name a few. Focusing on Diaghilev’s character above
descriptions of his work, Scheijen examines his adoraton for his
stepmother and the effect of his father’s bankruptcy on his life. For
as arrogant as Diaghilev could be, he could also be generous: he
helped pay for a doctor for a dancer’s sick child and campaigned for
the release of his brother Valentin, who had been captured by the NKVD
in ­Russia. Nominated for the Sheridan Morley Prize, this biography is
a valuable addition to the shelves of ballet fans.

London Assurance by Boucicault
Nick Hern, £3.99

If you’re off to see the revival of this comedy of manners at the
National, starring Simon Russell Beale, you might like to invest in
this pocket-size paperback. Beale plays ageing dandy Sir Harcourt
Courtly, who goes to a country house in Gloucestershire to marry
18-year-old Grace. Unfortunately, his son has also turned up – in
disguise – and fallen for her. Sir Harcourt, however, is immediately
attracted to the feisty Lady Gay Spanker. The snag is she’s married.

Written when the Irish playwright was just 21, in 1841, London
Assurance isn’t generally regarded as his best work taken as a
whole, but its characters are hilarious. From the short introduction
to this edition, it seems Boucicault was a colourful character
himself, with Trevor Griffiths, a professor at the University of
Exeter, describing Boucicault as ‘a playwright, actor, manager,
copyright campaigner, entrepreneur, theatrical innovator,
self-plagiarist, self-publicist, serial adulterer, bigamist and a
bankrupt.’ The production at the National, which has received
acclaimed reviews, runs until 2 June.

Theatre and the Mind by Mick Gordon
Oberon, £9.99

In this fascinating and slim hardback, bound in refreshing lilac, the
director and actor Mick Gordon argues that theatre has much to learn
from neuroscience (the study of the brain and central nervous system)
and neuropsychology (the study of the relationship between behaviour,
emotion and cognition on the one hand and brain function on the
other). In eight short chapters, Gordon digests vital concepts, such
as empathy, narrative and morality, in his lively, lucid way. It’s an
astonishing read that will have you thinking as much about how we
process thoughts at all as it will about how plays work.