Customer Reviews

Rehearsing

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

 

 

This book is, by far, the most minimal in terms of story complexity and character development that I've read by this author. It is, however brief, a good and pleasant read that you don't have to invest a lot of time with. I read it in an afternoon and enjoyed it, but wasn't engaged by the characters or the simple-ish story arc as I have been with this author's other books. I'd recommend it - I've read a lot worse!

Michael Craft, author of the stellar Mark Manning mystery series, delivered this sharp book back in 1993. It centers on Claire Gray, who returns to her alma mater as a visiting professor, and becomes enmeshed in the life of George, a local actor who's gay and much younger than Claire. Each uses the other for her/his own purposes, ultimately ending in both ruin and success. This book is especially significant because Claire, in a slightly different form, has appeared in the Mark Manning series, and will soon be starring in her own.

As a dedicated fan of Craft's Mark Manning and (later) Claire Gray mysteries, I was curious when I heard that the author had actually premiered the Claire Gray charater in his first full-length novel, "Rehearsing," back in 1993, and was glad to see it was still in print.

Weighing in at just 120 pages, it's a far cry from his later full-length novels, but it was valuable to me mostly in providing an interesting background on Claire Gray, where she came from and what her life was like before relocating to Palm Springs, the situs of the later novels by Craft. It is also a fairly interesting novel unto itslef, not a mystery (like the rest of Craft's works) but more of a parable about how people "use" other people to achieve their goals in life.

Claire Gray is a fifty-year old renowned Broadway director, who takes a sabatical from New York City to teach a workshop in her alma mater, a small upstate college. She is also working on writing her first play, called "Traders," which she has barely conceptualized prior to her stay at the college. Her inspiration turns out to be George McBeth, a younger gay man in that town, who is an amateur actor with a dream that Claire could be his ticket to stardom. They begin an affair and friendship that spills over into the first local staging of her finished play, with results that change several lives along the way.

Not up to the quality of Craft's later works, in my opinion, but still recommended for fans of the Claire Gray series. Rate it 3 stars out of five.

As one who has read - and immensely enjoyed - all of Craft's Mark Manning series, I decided to return to the author's humble roots and picked up a copy of "Rehearsing".

Well, I am glad that I became familiar with him AFTER this one. Like its successors, the novel does feature Craft's attention to set detail, occasional sexual encounters, and affluent characters.

It is the latter, however, wherein the book is weak. None of the characters have redeemable qualities; they seem to be "pawns" for each other's use.

Perhaps, that is Craft's intention: to paint the theater world as one filled with cutthroats concerned only with their individual successes. Or maybe, he is trying to make a commentary on how we all play different roles as we go through our daily lives.

Nevertheless, I am glad that he found his "calling" in the mystery genre. For that, we can all be grateful.