Book Description

During her lifetime, playwright and novelist Susan Glaspell (1876-1948) was regarded as highly as Eugene O'Neill and Edith Wharton. Winner of the 1931 Pulitzer Prize for drama (for Alison's House), she was cofounder of the Provincetown Players, the little theater that "discovered" O'Neill. Later, Glaspell was instrumental in introducing American drama to English audiences when her play The Verge was produced in London. Yet despite her many accomplishments, Glaspell is often overlooked in the standard histories of American theater. Now, Barbara Ozieblo returns this intriguing and important figure to the spotlight.

Ozieblo combines an engaging narrative of Glaspell's life with insightful analysis of her creative works. Rebelling early against the expectations imposed on women of her era, Glaspell grappled with the conflict between Victorian mores and feminist aspirations throughout her life. In Trifles, now recognized as a groundbreaking feminist drama, she explored the reasons for a woman's extreme response to her husband's demanding, authoritarian stance. Ozieblo also investigates Glaspell's relationship with dramatist George Cram Cook, exploring the scandal that surrounded their courtship and marriage as well as the life they led among the bohemians of Greenwich Village. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A Necessary Voice in American Theatre
This book is especially recommended for theatre lovers and constitutes an essential contribution to the history of women in the US during the twentieth-century. Following Virginia Woolf, Barbara Ozieblo has as her goal to "capture" Glaspell's personality, but the results go far beyond this original purpose. Seduced by a brilliantly polished, engaging narrative, the reader is presented with a new perspective on the development of American theatre in the first half of the twentieth century by means of a smooth movement between identification with Glaspell and a fine and suggestive analysis of her writings.

For the theatre critic / lover, the most relevant dimension of Susan Glaspell's life is her involvement in the creation of the Provincetown Players, either as promoter, actress or playwright. In this regard, a new focus on her standpoint is worth considering, being both protagonist and witness in the development of George Cram Cook's visionary efforts. No doubt, her point of view enables a more accurate, fresher account of the true nature and evolution of Cook's relationship with Eugene O'Neill.

The reader becomes Glaspell herself while witnessing this crucial part in twentieth-century American drama. The implication is that, from her position between external spectator and measured participant, we can reach a more suitable evaluation of the Provincetown Players' contribution to US theatre. This fact is accounted for by the author's decisiveness at drawing consistent conclusions at the right time within the narrative.

An outstanding student and vocational writer, Glaspell also offers an invaluable personal story of abnegation and endurance. The chapter devoted to Cook's final days in Greece does justice to her position as committed wife and sacrificed woman. Here we have an example of a woman's ambivalent role regarding the rules imposed by the society of the time. The main question is whether Glaspell would have utilized her talents in a better way without the burdens imposed by marriage. However, the narrative efficiently locates us within Glaspell's persona, and her constant sufferings caused by her true love for Cook, indeed a demanding and dependent dreamer.

Finally, Glaspell's life as a widow back in the US becomes an example of the unrewarding, sometimes miserable life of twentieth-century women involved in the artistic sphere. Recognized writer, Pulitzer-prize winner and generous mentor, Glaspell keeps on being "too" generous, especially in her relationships with men, and for most of her life remains a solitary individual whose loneliness is only alleviated by the company of her friends and animals and, ultimately, her love for the theatre.

It is precisely this love for the theatre that this excellent biography transfers to the reader, no matter what background, interests or motivations he or she have. Bored with annoying biographies trying to make up silly stories about the hollow lives of any writer or celebrity, this book becomes a fresh, invigorating breeze for both the critic and the general reader. ... Read more

Book Description

The son of a former slave, Paul Robeson (1898-1976) rose to become an All-American athlete, Phi Beta Kappa student, internationally celebrated singer and actor, and champion of racial equality. Yet despite his courage and many accomplishments, he could not overcome the combined effects of racism and McCarthyism. He was forced to live his last years in internal exile under FBI surveillance, a broken man.

Over twenty years in preparation, this massively researched biography takes Robeson from his humble beginnings in rural New Jersey to international fame on the eve of World War II. Drawing on a variety of new sources, the book presents a fully rounded picture-a portrait that corrects, supplements, and revises previous work on Robeson and his circle. ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description

One of the most influential acting teachers in Europe, Jacques Lecoq's work remains relatively obscure to American actors. In this book, Murray explains how Lecoq came to acting from sports, which caused emphasis and exploration focused on the physical rather than the psychological.He explains his techniques and looks at the work of companies created by Lecoq-trained actors, the most famous of which are Theatre de Complicite and Mummenschanz. ... Read more

Reviews (6)

Wonderful
This is a great book. It is easy to read and it is interesting. Mr. Wilson does not just write about Shakespear and give his theories, he provides reasoned arguments about those theories. Mr. Wilson also provides alternative arguments and alternative theories regarding Shakespear.

My only complaint? I'd like to see a list of the main people that are discussed with some clue as to their context. I say this because you will be introduced to someone on page 10 and not read about him again until page 87. A quick reference page would be very helpful in keeping everyone straight.

Otherwise, this is a great book.
Enjoy.

Behold the Man!
Books on Shakespeare roughly seem to fall into two categories: Standard scholarly books that downplay the man and focus on the plays and ingenious, entertianing books by frequently learned amateurs of anti-stratfordian theories of authorship. Anti-stratfordians have an advantage with the popular reading public; whereas academics are content to deal with texts as if they have no referents, laypeople necessarily have to ask (as William Paley said in his "natural theology) what kind of man wrote these plays. Anti-stratfordians are all too willing to oblige.

Furthermore the field is fairly well uncontested as practically all academics consider anti-stratfordian theories as beneath their contempt. This is a shame because generally they are entirely worthy of contempt. Ian Wilson is educated amateur, with the sort of background one associates with anti-stratfordians. He summarizes and interprets the available evidence and comes to some remarkable conclusions.

Best of all, his is not an "anti-anti-stratfordian rant" he concentrates on considering the "stratford man" not knocking other candidates. But the position of there being an "authorship problem" is made untenable. Particularly when read in conjuction with Matus' SHAKESPEARE IN FACT which addresses subsequent assessments of shakespeare (culminating in romantic "bardolatry") as well as a dissection of the claims for Oxford. This even though there are plenty of "arguably"'s, "almost certian"'s, "likely"'s that stud the text which the loyal opposition will make much of.

The one substantian objection is that Wilson argues for the likelihood of a position (for example the identity of the "dark lady") and then frequently treats it as establish fact. This is a chief vice of anti-strafordians A few more qualifiers would have enhanced the book's credibility.

Flawed
This is a fascinating book, but I was dismayed by Wilson's anti-Elizabeth bias. He refers to her as a "hideous old woman" responsible for the death of "many worthy young people" like Mary Queen of Scots and the Earl of Essex. Worthy young people...those two? Mary Stuart was singularly lacking in common sense, and, after catching Mary red-handed plotting against her numerous times, Elizabeth had little choice politically but to execute her. As for Essex, he was a spoiled egomaniac who bit the hand that fed him. Wilson also does himself no service by referring to Robert Cecil as "the little secretary Cecil" or by repeating without caveat a discredited story about how Essex's ring was not given to Elizabeth.

Finally a page turning biography
Being a Shakespearean actor, I am very interested in consuming any information concerning the bard from critiques of the plays and sonnets to varied information about his life. Usually though its a chore to ponder through overblown scholarly disertaions on the works that totally ignore the dimension of the presentation and performance. Even more so with dull biographers who grapple with sparse facts on Shakespeare's life and who eventually draw a very incomplete view of the man. That all changed in reading this book! Ian Wilson paints the most complete portrait of the bard that I have ever read. Piecing together bits of direct and surrounding evidence, selections of the plays and political intriques of the time Wilson writes an exciting narrative that reads more like a screenplay then a dissertation. I found myself dieing to know what happend next as his life unfolded. Here Shakespeare appears as a true Human being and not the stuff of half baked legend and places emotion and motivation behind the writing of the plays. It describes in detail his dealings with the high members of the court of England, rising through the ranks of the theatrical world and gives a poignant glimpse into the man himself and dispels any allusion to the authorship question, especially from Edward De Vere. Given the success of "Shakespeare in Love", Hollywood should take this book and fashion a mini-series on his life. There is more than enough drama and mystery in these pages for three films. Definitely a great read for any scholar or Shakespearean actor that seek to relish the rich legacy that Will left to our culture.

Great look at Shakespeare.
This is very well written account of what we know of Shakespeare's Life. Wilson makes a very persuasive case for Shakespeare as the author of the plays and sonnets. At times his reasoning becomes a little convoluted, but almost all books on subjects like this have some twistings in their reasoning. After reading this I would stand behind Shakespeare on the authorship debate, partly because there is no reason to believe that he did not write the plays. Jeff Anderson ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (2)

Pause for reflection on Pinter
A thoughtful and admirably complete survey of Pinter's life and career so far, even if it betrays the signs of being an "authorized" biography. I say so far because the author makes it very plain that Pinter is far from a spent force, either creatively or politically. Given the tiresome and almost ritualistic bollocking (a very Pinteresque word) he receives in the British press every time he signs a petition or attends a protest, the book comes on like a stern corrective, exposing the thoughtless double standard for what it is. Far from being a relatively recent fashionable pose taken by a celebrity intellectual, Billington makes clear that Pinter's political outspokenness is an organic consequence of his work in the theatre, which was essentially political from the start. Pinter's plays have followed a slow arc since the late fifties from the domestic to the more specifically political, but the overriding concern has been the same - the potential for language to conceal rather than to reveal meaning, even to corrupt our need to hope that transparency between people is attainable. Hope for Pinter lies in the potential for resistance to this process through imaginative identification with the sufferings of others.

If I have a criticism, it is the author's tendency to overstatement in sometimes irritating contrast to his subject's famous economy. Also, that the equivalence between personal intimate action and political reality comes a little too easy. I mean what does the phrase "sexual Fascism" (p. 377) really mean? I suspect that a victim of actual political Fascism wouldn't find that glib metaphor so easy to digest. Such phrases, which appear here and there in the book, would seem to be an example of the verbal laziness that Pinter himself spends so much time fighting. However, thanks are due to this author for constant emphasis on the actual performance of Pinter's texts, whether written for the screen or the theatre. Billington's comment and analysis of the performances are always insightful and interesting.

Making Sense of Pinter
Having nearly walked out of "The Room" at the Almeida theatre in London, I determined to find out more about Pinter. This book sets the context and is a must for anyone new to Pinter or - like me - too young to have grown up with his work. The account of his early life in London's East End, and subsequent years as an actor in repertory theatre, are especially interesting. The Grocers school in Hackney was outstandingly successful in bringing out the best in its pupils - educationalists today can learn so much from it. And in turn we can learn so much from Pinnter about what it's like to be the "outsider" in a closed society. And his plays are so evocative of their vintage - it's hard to believe for example that as recently as the mid-1950s in England it was perfectly legal for a landlord to place a sign outside a house saying "To let - no blacks or Irish". The book also reveals Pinter's huge courage and passion in arguing for causes in which he believes. A wonderful book about a man who can justifiably claim to be one of the world's leading playrights. ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (1)

Playwrights make for good dialogue. Who knew?
I want to recommend a book I just read, Tony Kushner In Conversation, to those who liked Angels In America or just like reading the spoken thoughts of an eloquent, witty gay playwright. The book was first published about five years ago so some of the references are dated, but that doesn't matter (much) when we're talking about convictions. Which is what a lot of this book is about, being a selection of interviews in which Kushner speaks his mind with sometimes frightening--both to the reader and the playwright, in retrospect--candor. ... Read more

Book Description

John Lahr is one of the most celebrated critics of the performingarts. Winner of Britain's 1992 Roger Machell Award for the best writing aboutpublic performance, Dame Edna Everage and the Rise of WesternCivilisation is an insider's account of a great clown and a great act. Ittakes us backstage at London's Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, with BarryHumphries, and into the weird and wonderful world of his show-stopping creation- -Dame Edna Everage.

Humphries is a prodigious comic talent. His copresence in Edna-- acharacter so real to the public that her autobiography, My Gorgeous Life,appeared on the nonfiction list--actively invites speculation about reality andfantasy, male and female. With her "natural wisteria" hair and her harlequineyeglasses, Dame Edna was the first solo performer to sell out the most famoustheater in England, and she also took the United States by storm, fillingtheaters from coast to coast. Hilarious and malign, polite and rude, highbrowand very low, the character Barry Humphries inhabits is a bundle ofcontradictions.

John Lahr, the son of another comic genius, takes us behind the scenes toinvestigate how a provincial dandy from Melbourne transformed himself into oneof the most unlikely megastars of today. In showing the connection betweenHumphries's comedy and the life it parodies, Dame Edna Everage and the Riseof Western Civilisation goes beyond reportage to an exploration of thenature of comedy, a subject that Lahr has pursued over the years in hisacclaimed biographies of Bert Lahr, Nol Coward, and Joe Orton. Richlyentertaining and engagingly written, this book is an anecdotal treatise on thenature of comedy and an absorbing inquiry into what makes us laugh. ... Read more

Reviews (6)

Great book but still can't do justice to the live show
Barry Humphries is a genius. No book is ever going to do justice to seeing him perform live, but John Lahr has come close. If you're a Dame Edna fan, you don't want to miss this book.

Beyond creating an indelible character, Humphries is a master improv comedian. In November 2003, I saw 'Dame Edna' live at a Dallas, Texas appearance. (S)he balanced five or six active storylines that were conjured up in conversations with various audience members. How the evening went totally depended on what Edna pulled out of those people. The results had the audience rolling in laughter and shocked at how much wonderful material could get mined out of what didn't appear to be much to work with.

If I had 10% of Barry Humphries talent, I would be very happy.

Dame Edna: National icon
Put the words "Barry Humphries: Living National Treasure" before the title above this review and you will have my full intended heading. Thank you.

For anyone who is a fan of Humphries and his characters this book provides a detailed insight into the creative force and intellect that has produced the best comedy theatre in the world.

For any of the new American fans of Dame Edna, this book may go some way towards filling in what you have been missing out on since Edna Everage made her quiet and unassuming debut in Australia nearly 50 years ago.

Humphries' heavy touring schedule in the US is your gain, and our loss. If you haven't seen the show, do whatever it takes to see this man and his characters on stage. I have never seen theatre which could have an entire audience bent over in laughter, tears pouring down their faces, at the mere sight of a character walking across the stage - Sir Les Patterson - and then reduced to total silence, shedding noiseless tears as Sandy Stone quietly mourned the loss of a treasured lemon tree.

This book has opened my eyes to so many other reasons why we find Barry Humphries' characters funny. It is as incisive an examination of the man and the art as one could hope to find.

Nothing worth reading
If you're looking for an intelligent, open-minded book, look elsewhere. This book is an utter failure.

Save your time
Absolutely nothing of merit here.

There's nothing like her...or him!
This book is an amazing tale of an amazing man. If you've ever seen Dame Edna live or on T.V. you know she's a hoot. This well-written bio of her creator, Barry Humpheries, is truly fascinating. It actually had me laughing out loud time after time. He's a brilliant man who's carved a truly unique place for himself in the world of clowns. ... Read more

Book Description

The first full-scale biography of the “Prince of Broadway,” the brilliant playwright and director Moss Hart.
No one loomed larger in Broadway’s golden age. Hart’s memoir, Act One, which told of a youth lived in poverty and his early success on Broadway, became the most successful and most loved book ever published about the lure of the theater. But it ended at the beginning—when Hart was only twenty-five—and at times embroidered or skirted the facts. Now, at last, we have the full and far richer story.

Hart exemplified wit, urbanity, and grace. He knew everybody, from the Algonquin Round Table crowd
to the Gershwins, Irving Berlin, Noël Coward, Cole Porter, and the Hollywood moguls. His passion for the theater gave wings to his long playwriting collaboration with George S. Kaufman; together they gave us such classic comedies as You Can’t Take It With You and The Man Who Came to Dinner. On his own Hart wrote the stunning Lady in the Dark and Light Up the Sky. His screenplays include Gentleman’s Agreement, Hans Christian Andersen, and the Judy Garland version of A Star Is Born. His career as a director was crowned by the creation of My Fair Lady and Camelot, his last two shows. They were still on Broadway when he died in 1961 at the age of fifty-seven.

But Hart’s life was not always golden, in spite of a Pulitzer Prize, Tony Awards, and Oscar nominations. His successes were shadowed by the unpredictable and often debilitating mood swings of manic depression. And he struggled with issues of sexual identity—documented here for the first time—finally marrying and fathering children in his forties.

Dazzler is the story of the seen and unseen struggles that beset Hart in a life crowded with friends, glamour, and achievements, a life that seemed to be one triumph and delight after another. But it was actually a life tormented in ways we didn’t know, and thus, heroic. It isn’t just that Hart rose from humble beginnings to fame and fortune. It’s that he rose above his private demons to achieve a kind of happiness that survives him still. He used to say, even in the face of failure, “Well, we aspired.” Aspiration was a key to his life, and the key to this superb biography.
... Read more

Reviews (11)

Marvelous chronicle of an ultimately minor talent
Bach has written a tight, sparkling biography of a man who lived and worked in a fascinating milieu, Broadway's Golden Age. I had a hard time putting the book down, and I am NOT even one of the people who became fascinated by Hart from his autobiography ACT ONE, which I have not read.

Yet at the end of the day, one has a hard time quite seeing just why so many people considered Hart such a "dazzler", and on the contrary, it would appear that overall, Moss Hart was not -- as much as I hate to say this -- a major creative figure.

The kind of "theatre" that Hart was so honored to be a part of was the equivalent to the space filled today by well-written sitcoms; we must remember that before the 1950s, one could not access light comedy of this kind every night in one's living room (old radio was only aural and was usually more jocular than witty). Thus people were still willing to pay top dollar to see such material acted out before them. As much as I love plays like YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU and THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER, I also have a hard time seeing any major difference in craft or depth between them and, for example, FRASIER, ALL IN THE FAMILY, CHEERS or FRIENDS.

This is the kind of material Hart excelled at, and it is indicative that when he strayed beyond it, he regularly failed. Hart was not up to writing plays of substance, and if he had lived longer, he would surely have come a cropper in the 1960s and 1970s trying to light the fires again with the kind of material that theatregoers swooned to in the 30s and 40s. Moreover, so very much of his best work was done in collaboration, which dilutes his achievement further.

Of course he also made his mark directing -- but let's face it, rendering trifles like JUNIOR MISS and THE ANNIVERSARY WALTZ is not exactly the kind of thing one goes down in history for, no matter how well you do it; it was the writing and performances that put these things over (who directed episodes of MARY TYLER MOORE?). Even his MY FAIR LADY triumph: okay, but then thousands of productions of this piece have gone over wonderfully since. Hart was not the "auteur" here in the same way as Hal Prince has been for so many of his shows.

I hardly mean to "diss" Hart here; he was clearly a solid craftsman. But that's really more or less it -- which means that one does not exactly come away from this book feeling that one has been in the presence of a "dazzler". Instead, one has been "dazzled" more by the times he lived in and the people he knew and worked with. As some print reviews have noted, for all we hear about what a cocktail wit Hart was, we get oddly few memorable bon mots or piquant anecdotes -- and Bach is a great researcher, providing quite a bit of this sort of thing re other people. Hart seems to largely have just "been there", apparently flamboyantly dressed.

One reason Hart winds up a bit of a cipher here is because a great deal of his more intense social experiences would appear to have been homosexual ones. Typically of his time, Hart apparently kept all of the specifics under wraps, and despite having unearthed some facts via interview, Bach is rather discrete about the matter, and much is surely lost to the ages. While we would hardly need a blow-by-blow chronicle of Hart's sex life, the fact remains that the resulting hole in the story leaves a question mark as to what is a central aspect of any human being's psychological terrain. We see a Hart spending his 20s rising in the show business firmament apparently beyond any kind of love life beyond "dating" the occasional woman briefly and now and then bemoaning his inability to love. Certainly there was more going on than that for our "Dazzler", and whatever it was would have meant a great deal to Hart, "love" or not. Who was his first affair? When did he start having sex? What was he like to be in a relationship with? We are not prurient to wonder about such things; to not have any idea of them is to have missed a central part of our subject.

That is not really Bach's fault, nor is it his fault that Hart was ultimately a kind of Golden Age Neil Simon. And the book is a real page-turner if you love the period. But Hart comes off more as a kind of toastmaster than as a driving force. Nevertheless, to truly understand a period, one must know the state of the art as well as one knows the geniuses.

The Charming Mr. Hart
He was a thoroughly delightful man. Most of us met him in “Act One” his best-selling autobiography published in the late ‘50’s. Apparently, he tidied up his life a mite in that story. But that’s what playwrights do; give us the best story possible.

“Dazzler” is a well-done biography that is a treasure trove of show business history as well as a deep and compelling study of Moss Hart. I would call this a “definitive” biography except for some reason Mr. Hart’s widow, the charming Kitty Carlisle, did not cooperative with the author. Therefore, there are probably many papers that still can be brought to light.

I was a little put off by Mr. Bach’s tone at the beginning of the book, it seemed lightly touched with superiority toward his subject. Yes, Moss Hart was extravagant, a bit of a dandy..., and sometimes—very rarely—forgot to credit the people who helped him on the way up. When the author hits his stride, this tone disappears, and we see Moss Hart clearly as the energetic, generous, brilliant man that he was. He left whatever he touched more colorful and replaced the humdrum with magic.

The description of the complete, astounding success of “My Fair Lady’s” opening night, which Hart directed, is the stuff of which movies are made. This was a pinnacle of life experience for everyone who participated. Reading about the making of “My Fair Lady” alone is worth the price of the book.

When the book was over, I wished there were more triumphs to reveal, and that Mr. Hart lived to write “Act II.” A highly readable book with a dazzling subject.

Thorough, but somewhat disappointing
I was greatly looking forward to reading this book, but, like another reviewer, found it rather slow going. Bach gives a very thorough chronicle of Hart's life, including details about every production, but somehow the essence of Hart didn't come through for me until the last few chapters. Despite Bach's repeated statements that Hart was charming, amusing, full of joie de vivre, etc., I didn't find much to illustrate that. I guess I was hoping for more examples from his work, more quotes from people who knew him personally, etc. I suspect that Kitty Carlisle Hart's refusal to cooperate meant that several of the people closest to the Harts also declined to be interviewed.
The book does pick up steam in the final quarter,when Bach discusses Hart's involvement with "My Fair Lady" and "Camelot." Even so, I thought that Alan Jay Lerner's 10-odd pages on Hart in his memoir ("The Street Where I Live")did more to really bring the man alive.

Stutter Steps
Hmmm...where to begin? I looked forward to reading Dazzler based on my love of history, the theatre, and New York in general. In those respects, the book doesn't disappoint. Steven Bach paints a terrific picture of early twentieth century Broadway that really brings it to life as he follows Moss Hart's life and career. It's very obvious that he's done his homework and he fills gaps in his narrative very nicely.

The problem lies in an area that can be very troublesome for biography and I'm afraid that Bach falls into the trap a bit much. First, the individual chapters, while well crafted, seem to lack a cohesiveness that would make the book flow well. It seemed difficult to read more than two or three chapters in a sitting. To give Bach the benefit of the doubt, I'll say that it's because there was so much information to digest.

Second, to echo some of the other reviews that have been posted, in the end Moss Hart is a big name that does not carry a corresponding talent. Yes, he was the co-author of some of the standards of twentieth century theater, but upon the closer scrutiny Mr. Bach provides he doesn't really seem to measure up to the level of greatness that Mr. Bach thinks he deserves (or wants him to deserve to merit this book). A quick sidebar, to label Moss Hart the Neil Simon of his day, as others have, is a disservice to Mr. Simon. Sitcoms may have made us more sensitive to fluff, but there is a distinct difference in the two men's careers.

Lastly, Mr. Bach goes to great lengths to bring Moss Hart's sexuality to light, providing anecdotes and evidence that, if not outright gay, he was at least bisexual. All well and good, except that in trying so hard to prove this particular thesis, Bach loses sight of one very important point, namely that an artist's sexuality (or for that matter their upbringing) does not automatically mean that every piece of work they do is colored by it. It may be true, but it isn't necessarily true. Bach interrupts too many interesting stories to go into this subject, which only applies toward making his point about one-third of the time.

Overall it helps to have some vague form of familiarity with the plays and, since some of them are such mainstays of high school and regional theaters across the country, it will provide some interesting insights. As Bach rightly points out, some of these plays have not held up well over the course of time but, taken for what they are, they are undeniable classics. To a lesser degree, so was Moss Hart.

UN-PUT-DOWNABLE
Moss Hart was not only a brilliant talent who wrote and/or directed some of the finest plays and musicals of the twentieth century, he also wrote, to my mind, the finest non-fiction book written about life in the theatre: ACT ONE. Unfortunately, he died before he could write the second and third acts. Stephen Bach has taken up the task of writing that book for Hart and he does it wonderfully--if, perhaps, a little more openly and honestly than Hart might have liked.

A successful, leading playwright on Broadway when still in his twenties, Hart could never really reconcile himself to his humble origins nor to his family members, including his parents, who never quite "got" what their son needed or wanted or deserved and who never really found out how to live comfortably in his own skin with decades of huge successes.

Mood swings of manic depression plagued him his entire life as did his confusion over his own sexual identity. He was also a man who could quite easily and conveniently "forget" some of those friends who had helped him when he was struggling, professionally and personally. Bach does not write a gossipy tell-all, but lets his readers know that Hart's life was not as sublime as it must have seemed by outsiders.

The book is filled with myriad examples of what Broadway and Hollywood was like in the first half of the last century: why plays like ONCE IN A LIFETIME were hits and why others like LIGHT UP THE SKY were not. Why Hart's sense of timing most always seemed to serve him well: i.e. YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU coming at just the right time for a celebration of the individuality and originality of the American spirit. Celebrity after celebrity worked with Hart: George S. Kaufman, of course, and Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and Lerner & Loewe, Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison, George M. Cohan and Richard Rodgers, Judy Garland and Richard Burton. The list is endless.

Bach writes imaginatively and with such great wit and force and strength that the reader is swept up in Hart's life, living it as fast and furiously as he must have. It is un-put-downable.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, especially for anyone with an interest in legitimate theatre as an art. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

SPLENDID AND SKILLED PORTRAIT OF AN ERA
Ann Blainey has done some remarkable, wonderful, and wholly original research to complete her excellent study, FANNY AND ADELAIDE. I found the book fascinating and wish I had Blainey's book in hard when I was preparing my own work on Fanny Kemble [FANNY KEMBLE'S JOURNALS AND FANNY KEMBLE'S CIVIL WARS]....I can vouch for Blainey's scholarly sensitivity and her vivid analysis: we may not agree with each other on every point, but I want to encourage those interested in this fascinating pair, those with an interest in 19th century women, and those looking for a smashing good read to buy Blainey's book!

Fanny and Adelaide
I found this book to be a disappointment. I have ready many other books about Fanny Kemble and her tremendous contributions to the Abolitionist Movement. This book was sorely lacking in information regarding her courage and determination to stand up to the Pro-slavery forces which included her husband and children.

The information about Adelaide's life was interesting. However, it seemed that Ms Blainey deliberately left out the inspiring political story of Fanny's life so as to keep the story of Adelaide's life on an even keel with Fanny's. To my mind, choosing to leave out information about Fanny so that Adelaide would not seem unexciting by comparison was a bad choice. Ms. Blainey's book would have been better had she included the truth about both sisters -- that Fanny fought against slavery at great personal sacrifice in addition to supporting herself financially as one of England's successful Shakespearean actresses while Adelaide chose to have a life primarily as a homemaker after resigning from her successful Operatic career.

Ms. Blainey also emphasized jealousies between the sisters a bit too much. One wonders if she did so to make her story more acceptable to Hollywood, hoping that her book would be made into a movie. I have read of no other jealousies between the sisters from any other source. If the jealousies had been as bad as Ms. Blainey writes I believe I would have read about it from other researchers and authors as well.

Based on exclusive access to hundreds of family letters
Ann Blainey's Fanny And Adelaide provides a biography of two sisters born in 1809 to a theatrical family in England, who became actively involved in opera and theater. The jealousies and relationships between the talented sisters and their complex friendship is based on exclusive access to hundreds of family letters. ... Read more

Book Description

Equal parts memoir, how-to and social satire, Mistress Ruby Ties it Together is a guided tour through New York's S underworld, where the author worked as a professional dominatrix to subsidize her writing career.As Mistress Ruby, this former Catholic school girl took confessions from some of the country's most powerful men.Within the sanctity of the dungeon, they revealed to her their darkest lusts, fears and frailties -- as well as their sincere desire to connect with the opposite sex.Each of these provocative essays provides an insider's view of human deviation; together, they present a startling portrait of our everyday selves.

Mistress Ruby is a striking, candid, and humorous look behind the dungeon doors to a darker -- and often unexplored -- side of human nature.

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Reviews (18)

Fly on the wall perpsective of the Sex underworld
What do you get when you cross a Catholic girl in a S&M dungeon? You get a great personal read that provides a healthy dose of humor and humanity towards an unsuspecting lot. Ms. Shamburg provides a unique tour of the underworld. Unlike other books of this topic, she becomes truly immersed in this culture, yet she keeps her wits enough to remain an observer. This book is witty, clever and approachable. Pick this book up, she won't let you down.

Exquisitely funny portrayal of professional domination
This book is essentially a memoir of the author's stint as a professional dominatrix in Manhattan. It is, at turns, humorous, strange, entertaining. "Mistress Ruby" started out as a journalist doing research on professional domination, and then later became involved in the scene herself. The book is interesting because it deals with many aspects of the lives of the women who practice professional domination -- practical and otherwise -- and from that perspective is somewhat voyeuristic.

Where the book fails, in my opinion, is in its lack of insight into the "BDSM" mindset. The author is not a dominant person and is not attracted herself to BDSM -- she does it initially out of curiosity and then, later, for money, but never because she likes it. This is probably the case for most, if not all, professional dominatrices, and that is fine. However, the author displays no insight into the mindset of the people she is dominating ... those are the folks who are into it, and she seems to be puzzled by them at best, freaked out by them at worst, but never really insightful as to what is going on with them. From that perspective, the book is pretty disappointing, because while it is a funny memoir it doesn't shed a lot of light on what attracts people to BDSM, which is quite interesting given the author's involvement with the BDSM scene.

It's like being a fly on the wall!
She has such a terrific attitude, and only shares the truly odd experiences- odd from her perspective is a bit more than the average LOL. It is a fascinating read. Also includes a great list of websites at the end. (...)

Funny and entertaining but somewhat disappointing
Robin Shamburg (f/k/a "Mistress Ruby") presents this book based on the essays she wrote for New York Press while she was a professional dominatrix in New York City in the mid-90s. Ms. Shamburg's writing style is witty, and she has a talent for bringing to light humorous anecdotes that shed some light on this otherwise mysterious line of work. The book is an easy and enjoyable read.

The book could have been better had Ms. Shamburg spent more time describing her feelings to the reader -- ie, what did it feel like to do the things that she did to her clients during her time in the dungeon? One gets the impression that it was largely a job for Ms. Shamburg, but it would have been a much more riveting book had the reader been allowed to understand what Ms. Shamburg really felt like when she was brandishing the whip over a client.

One final word -- this is not a book for those who are really into the BDSM lifestyle. Ms. Shamburg was a professional dominatrix for two years, but is not a lifestyle BDSM enthusiast or a natural S&M player -- for her, it was an interesting interlude in her life, and that is the vein in which this book must be read. Those who are interested in exploring the mind of a truly dominant personality -- a lifestyle Domme -- should look elsewhere. Having said that, this book does offer insights into the lifestyle of most of the professional Mistresses out there, who are neither lifestyle BDSMers or natural Dommes, but rather regular folks who have a somewhat unique line of work -- and for that reason, it is worthwhile reading.

If only there were more stars . . .
. . . I would give her all of them. This is a great read. I'm guessing that the very few people that don't like this book must be too slow for it's razor wit or stumped by all the multisyllabic words. Or perhaps they were looking for mindless smut and were disappointed to find a the memoirs of a dom that sees the humor in human sexual behavior. Ms. Shamburg could always dumb down her next book to appeal to the lowest common denominator, but I'm sure she'll just write another masterpiece and keep the rest of us entertained! ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Wishful Guess Work
Joy Leslie Gibson's handsome book is a strange mixture of useful fact and wishful guess work. Her early chapters are terrific - she summarises in an accesable and interesting way the work of early scholars and extends it by examining the sumptuary laws and dress standards of Elizabethan England.

I feel she is on less steady earth when applying her assertion that the breathing patterns of Shakespeare's major speeches for women were written with boy actors in mind. As a foundation she asks the reader to accept that all punctuation in the plays is unrepresentative of the authors intentions - including the 1623 First Folio (ignoring the fact that the two editors were actors who had worked with the author since 1593!) and then arbitairily replaces it with an assumption that the thought patterns of the speeches can be understood without them and breath points established. Essentially she removes one set of punctuation that does not fit her thesis and replaces it with one that does - of her own making.

She also makes some doubtful assertions about the women's roles always being shorter than their male counterparts, ignoring roles of such depth, range AND length as Juliet and Rosalind.

Some great material let down by some questionable use of information. ... Read more

Book Description

This lively, readable and challenging new biography, by the editor of the acclaimed Arden edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets, takes a fresh look at an enduring cultural icon, about whose life it is widely claimed that nothing is known.As a result Shakespeare has tended to be viewed in Romantic isolation: the Bard as lonely inspired singer enthroned on a mountain peak.The aim of this study is to replace the image of the lonely genius with one of Shakespeare as deeply involved, even enmired, in the geographical, social and literary context of his time.This Shakespeare is a man who lives in a congested city and has to deal with disease, debt and cut-throat competition; his manifest brilliance often makes him the object of envy and malice, rather than adulation.Much of his life and writing is seen as the result of accident and circumstance, rather than the product of artistic vision or a grand career plan.From his shotgun wedding at the age of 18 to the burning down of the Globe Theatre over 30 years later, he is beset by bad luck. His most brilliant works are seen as creative responses to external constraints, such as the plague outbreaks that frequently closed the public theatres during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Katherine Duncan-Jones also takes a fresh look at the tradition of Shakespeare's love for a 'Dark Lady' and concludes rather that he devoted his most personal and passionate writing to the service of young men. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Rattling the Bones
I enjoyed this highly original Shakespeare biography, if only because of its deliberate departure from mainstream Bardolatry. Biographers of Shakespeare are in a paradoxical situation: Shakespeare left behind reams of writings of genius, and many legal documents, but there is little solid indication of what sort of personality he was, or what made him tick. Would-be biographers therefore resort to supposition and fabrication to fill in the numerous blanks. Biographies of Shakespeare thus reflect more about the desires, needs, and personality of the biographer than Shakespeare himself. Duncan-Jones' book is no exception. She seems to be motivated by a rather adolescent resentment of Shakespeare because many fine Elizabethan or Jacobean writers, such as Sidney, Nashe, Webster, and Marston, are neglected at his expense. This leads her into the worst possible interpretation of Shakespeare's activities at every turn. Despite this, or because of it, Ungentle Shakespeare is compelling, provocative, and important, by forcing us to acknowledge the possibility that Shakespeare (gasp!) was a complex, flawed guy. It is well-written and generally well-argued. Occasionally, her animus against Shakespeare leads her into assertions which are plain silly: Why should Shakespeare's appropriation of Robert Greene's Pandosto for the plot of The Winter's Tale be seen as "settling scores"? More realistically, this is a probably a generous tribute to a departed rival.

Readers seeking a more favorable slant are advised to read Michael Wood's intriguing biography (another shocker: was Shakespeare Catholic?) or the very sober, but highly reliable biography by Park Honan.

Provocative and informative
The reviewer who dismissed this book as "fiction" was totally wrong. This is a highly original book, which shows us that the implications of the familiar evidence for Shakespeare's life have never been fully understood until now. The author is not afraid to challenge many of our most entrenched assumptions about Shakespeare -- not least the hope that he must have been "a nice person". Duncan-Jones uses her brilliant knowledge of original documents and sources to demonstrate that there is a great deal of evidence that Shakespeare behaved pretty badly in relation to the poor and towards his daughters, and that he wangled his way to getting a coat of arms. It's a refreshing picture, which hasn't been presented in ANY previous biography; perhaps it's no coincidence that this is the first Shakespeare biography written by a woman. But this is by no means simply a hatchet job. Duncan-Jones' account of Shakespeare's social climbing is balanced by some wonderfully sensitive accounts of the plays; she shows her capacity both for sharp psychological insight, and for appreciative literary criticism. Anyone interested in Shakespeare (and who isn't?) needs to buy this book.

Yawn
As with Duncan-Jones's biography of Sidney, her strength is her imagination. A book, like so many other 'Shakespeare biographries', that belongs on the 'fiction' shelf.

The Arden Shakespeare graced by a provocative new biography
Recent years have given us several fine new works on Shakespeare, among them Harold Bloom's prickly but masterful "The Invention of the Human" and Park Honan's well-researched, sober "Shakespeare - A Life". To these we must now add Katherine Duncan-Jones' "Ungentle Shakespeare". Where Bloom illuminates the works and marvels at the scope of Shakespeare's mind, and Honan relates the life based on the "facts", with as little speculation as possible, Ms. Duncan-Jones draws on what is clearly an encyclopedic knowledge of documents, history, and scholarship to consciously extract from the context of the times possible insights into the man and his craft.

The author (refreshingly) sets out with nothing special to prove and no incipient desire to deify or demonize the Bard. Even Honan seems to tend, if in doubt, to "find in the Bard's favour": the sum left Stratford's poor in Shakespeare's will, for example, is deemed a "generous bequest". Until, that is, it is viewed next to the bequests of other contemporary people of wealth, as Duncan-Jones does, revealing it as paltry by comparison - once we view it in a broader context.

This is the pattern for the entire book: intentionally not an exhaustive biography, "Scenes From His Life" (the book's sub-title) are used to illuminate the poet's achievement, hitherto unexplored but likely aspects of his personality, and his journey through his times in a way that nicely supplements more (and also far less) cautious biographys. In questioning certain aspects of received wisdom, Duncan-Jones invites us to envision Shakespeare the man, living and interacting in a complex, high-pressure reality, not as a Cultural Icon on a pedestal.

For those of us who wish to "take him all in all", Duncan-Jones' "Ungentle Shakespeare" is a wonderful invitation to broaden our perspective on the Bard. Orchids to the Arden Series for publishing it, as it expands on and supplements information in the series' excellent introductions to specific plays. My bottom line: I've seldom put down a biography with such a sense of having gotten real insights about a famous historical figure about whom (ostensibly)"little is known". ... Read more

Book Description

A prominent star in both pre-Revolutionary Russia and New York, Lina Cavalieri, described as "the most beautiful woman in the world," was one of the most frequently photographed personalities of her time. The cabaret performer, courtesan, and international star is documented in this, her first English-language biography. Researched from Russian archive sources, the book details her career from her early experiences in café-chantant and variety theatre in Paris, London, and St. Petersburg, through a highly successful operatic career in which she sang in many of the world's leading opera houses with such celebrities as Caruso and Ruffo. In 1914, Cavalieri became the first great opera singer to appear in silent movies, making her debut in Manon Lescaut and continuing with a series of successful films. Her life was ended by an Allied air raid in World War II.

The book includes excerpts from period reviews, programmes, posters, and many previously unseen photographs. Appendices include a bibliography, filmography, discography, and chronology of stage performances (dates, venues, work, cast, conductor). ... Read more

Book Description

Stricken with guilt and grief when his father, mother, and brother died in quick succession, young playwright Eugene O'Neill mourned deeply for two decades. This enlightening critical biography presents a remarkable new understanding of the playwright's life, work, and slow grieving. Stephen A. Black argues that O'Neill's writing was a form of self-psychoanalysis and that his plays reflect his psychological and artistic growth. Selected by Choice as an outstanding academic title for 2000 ... Read more

Reviews (2)

O'Neill's long day's journey on Black's couch.
It has been nearly fifty years since Eugene O'Neill's death. Much has been written about him since that time. In his new biography, Stephen Black insightfully analyzes the Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winning dramatist and his work. Black is an English professor with training as a psychoanalytic therapist. The "thesis" of his biography, Black writes, "is that O'Neill spent most of his writing life in mourning" (p. xvi). O'Neill, he contends, used playwriting as a means of self-therapy.

Black's 543-page biography is filled with interesting information about his subject's troubled life. We learn, for instance, O'Neill was born in a hotel room in 1888, and died in a hotel room in 1953. In between, he lived "a life of earthly and psychic wandering" (p. 43). At the time of his birth, O'Neill's mother became addicted to morphine, for which he blamed himself. As a mother, Ella O'Neill was "lonely" and "inadequate" (pp. 48, 51). O'Neill's father, an actor, was "revered," though "distant" (p. 47). O'Neill's estranged daughter, Oona, married Charlie Chaplin when she was 17. Chaplin was 54, and two month's younger than O'Neill. We learn that O'Neill's life was plagued with, among other things (and the list is long), illness, depression, alcoholism, family tension, unhappy marriages, and one devastating death after another. Truly, it is a wonder O'Neill ever found his way through the obstacles in his life to write four Pulitzer Prize winning plays, and to win the Nobel Prize in literature in 1936.

Black's book also contains plenty of perceptive commentary about O'Neill's plays. It ends with an impressive bibliography. Although I occasionally found O'Neill spending too much time on Black's couch in this psychoanalytical biography, this is nevertheless a worthwhile book for anyone interested in the playwright or his writing.

G. Merritt

outstanding psychoanalytic interpretation
Stephen A. Black has assembled an extraordinary range of materials to provide the first comprehensive psychoanalysis of O'Neill. Others have offered fragmentary perspectives, or analyses based on a little reading in psychoanalytic theory, but Black brings his experience as a trained analyst (as well as a literary scholar) to a through review of the historical documents. It must have been harrowing work for him, but we all stand to benefit from his having gone into the very mouth of a hellish psyche. (Hmmm... not so sure about that metaphor.) Anyway, it's a terrific book. ... Read more

Book Description

Italian playwright Carlo Gozzi (1720-1806) is best known for his plays that have famously been adapted into opera librettos. Puccini's final opera, Turandot, was based on a play by Gozzi. Prokofiev's The Love of Three Oranges is also based on a Gozzi play. Richard Wagner's first opera, Die Feen, is based on Gozzi's La Donna Serpente. Mozart's The Magic Flute contains many elements that are similar to Gozzi's plays. Gozzi was the most successful playwright in 18th century Venice.This is the first full biography in English of this major figure in the history of world theater. He is well known for reviving commedia dell'arte, an ancient form of Italian improvisational theater that had fallen out of favor before Gozzi's time: In this way his plays soon became the most popular in Venice and other parts of Italy. ... Read more

Book Description

Molière's long-lost trunk of letters and manuscripts has yet to be found amidst the dust of some Parisian attic, but in spite of that, a story of his life can be told from documentary evidence, reminiscence, gossip and innuendo, and inferences from his plays. He was very much a man of his time and place, and this new biography, the first to be written in English since 1930, places the great actor/playwright in his historical context as the son of well-to-do bourgeois and student at the Jesuit College de Clermont in the 1630's, as one of a group of stage-struck hopefuls and as a vagabond actor in the provinces in the 1640's and 50's, and--from 1658 to his death in 1673--as a clever courtier, a faithful friend, a not-so-faithful lover, a successful and controversial playwright striking out against hypocrisy in religion and medicine, and a cynical survivor of the literary, cultural, and marital wars. Virginia Scott is Professor of Theater at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She has published numerous articles in Theater Survey, Theater Journal, and Theater Research International as well as writing the book The Commedia dellÀrte in Paris, which won the George Freedley Award for the best book in theater studies in 1991. ... Read more

Book Description

As an actor, manager, and playwright, Colley Cibber was among the most influential members of the London theater in the 18th century. In this book, he not only defended himself against personal attacks from such well-known figures as Johnson, Fielding, and Pope, but also produced one of the most important and indispensable accounts of a vital period in English theatrical history. Cibber accurately chronicles the plays, playwrights, and actors of the day in unstinting detail, affording theater lovers and historians an incomparable glimpse of the beginnings of modern theater.
... Read more