Customer Reviews

Living Theatre: A History

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is an excellent book that is interesting, very well organized and extremely well written.

Then World War II ends and the book fails to remain interesting or well organized. Basically it falls apart. I believe that what happened is that without historical concensus to determine what is important and less important, the book bogs down as it delivers raw facts about present day theater without a framework or context to organize the message.

Never the less, I am keeping the book at 5 stars because if you are looking to read a book on Theater History, this is the one to get. It's a first class read through WWII.

True, this book is full of great information. If that's your only basis for analysis, then fine, it's good.

But it tries to be so politically correct that at some points it can't speak at all. Many of the paragraphs are phrased quite redundantly, + there are entire sections of expository text that are a waste of time.

I'm just glad I had a good professor to teach me this, or I would have absolutely hated this book.

This is a [must have] for anyone who desires to study theater outside of high school and into college. Throughout my studies in college, I constantly referred back to this piece for references. It is an expensive book, but trust me. You will get your money's worth out of this one.

Thit book was great for my thearte class. I even kept it for two years and was able to sale it.

I've been using this book for about a year now and it's starting to drive me nuts. It has a lot of good information, but the authors write about it in such a roundabout way that it's exhausting to read. Many sentences are unnecessarily long and wordy. It feels like the author was trying to up the word count and just started adding in random adjectives to try to spice up the writing. I would never recommend this book to anyone. Not even close to being worth the price.

I'm required to use this text for the theatre history sequence I teach at a state university. I frequently have to refer to Brockett to fill in the missing historical information. On many occasions I've found information in the text that is simply not well-researched and out-of-line with even the most conservative theatre scholarship. Wilson & Goldfarb also need a decent editor. There is considerable repetition of information, and the structure of the text leaves much to be desired. In an attempt to make theatre history non-threatening, the book only succeeds in being inconsistently informative. Had I been required to buy this text as an undergraduate, I would have sold it as soon as possible. I still have my Brocket text from the 1990s--and it's still a useful reference...

This has been the only textbook I have enjoyed in 4 years of university. Great pics. Very well done.

Just what the professor ordered! My son is quite pleased with this purchase. He needed the text for his theatre class in college. Thanks for the speedy delivery.

My book came in excellent condition and I recieved it promptly. I will certainly deal with this bookshop again and again!!!!!!!