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Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
This slim volume is a director's manifesto. It is not against contemporary theater or imaginative productions, but it is against directing as an occasion for making personal statements at the expense of the text. For McCabe, an award-winning director based in Chicago, great directing occurs only when the director's work becomes invisible. Working from an Aristotelian bias, McCabe argues that the audience should encounter only the play; the director should clarify plot, character, and thought and then stop. As part of his argument, McCabe presents a long diatribe against production dramaturgs, an extreme position to take in a climate of fevered competition for fewer jobs. McCabe is most compelling when he recounts war stories of successful or failed directing, including the battle between Elia Kazan and Tennessee Williams over Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. This book should roil the water a bit in "cutting edge" theater circles, but though readers may disagree with him, McCabe raises important and fundamental questions about theater practice that every director must answer. Recommended for all theater collections. Thomas E. Luddy, Salem State Coll., MA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Chicago-based director and teacher McCabe's book succeeds in being a helpful primer for young directors and a passionate polemic against the excesses of postmodern theater. McCabe contends that many directors insufficiently respect actors, playwrights, and plays. If things were otherwise, would they mar so many theatrical masterpieces with high-concept productions--setting Endgame in a subway, for example, and moving the action of Hamlet from Elsinor to New York City? In a series of carefully reasoned, interlocking essays, McCabe touches every aspect of the director's job, from first reading of the play to building a conception of the play to relating with actors and playwrights during rehearsals. At every turn, McCabe draws on extensive knowledge of contemporary theater and shows how glory-mad directors have gone wrong and how directors hoping to create theater of integrity and power can go right. McCabe has given a negative subtitle, however, to a book that would be more accurately characterized as an argument for better theater in the future. Jack Helbig
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
This slim volume is a director's manifesto. It is not against contemporary theater or imaginative productions, but it is against directing as an occasion for making personal statements at the expense of the text. For McCabe, an award-winning director based in Chicago, great directing occurs only when the director's work becomes invisible. Working from an Aristotelian bias, McCabe argues that the audience should encounter only the play; the director should clarify plot, character, and thought and then stop. As part of his argument, McCabe presents a long diatribe against production dramaturgs, an extreme position to take in a climate of fevered competition for fewer jobs. McCabe is most compelling when he recounts war stories of successful or failed directing, including the battle between Elia Kazan and Tennessee Williams over Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. This book should roil the water a bit in "cutting edge" theater circles, but though readers may disagree with him, McCabe raises important and fundamental questions about theater practice that every director must answer. Recommended for all theater collections. Thomas E. Luddy, Salem State Coll., MA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Chicago-based director and teacher McCabe's book succeeds in being a helpful primer for young directors and a passionate polemic against the excesses of postmodern theater. McCabe contends that many directors insufficiently respect actors, playwrights, and plays. If things were otherwise, would they mar so many theatrical masterpieces with high-concept productions--setting Endgame in a subway, for example, and moving the action of Hamlet from Elsinor to New York City? In a series of carefully reasoned, interlocking essays, McCabe touches every aspect of the director's job, from first reading of the play to building a conception of the play to relating with actors and playwrights during rehearsals. At every turn, McCabe draws on extensive knowledge of contemporary theater and shows how glory-mad directors have gone wrong and how directors hoping to create theater of integrity and power can go right. McCabe has given a negative subtitle, however, to a book that would be more accurately characterized as an argument for better theater in the future. Jack Helbig
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
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