THEATRE JOURNAL最新文献

{"title":"\"Stitching Korea Back Together\": Jogakbo Aesthetics of Care in Peace Advocacy","authors":"Elizabeth W. Son","doi":"10.1353/tj.2024.a950298","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tj.2024.a950298","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p>This article examines the peace advocacy of Women Cross DMZ, a Korean diasporicled collective of feminist activists who are calling for a formal end to the Korean War and the centering of women in peacebuilding processes. During peace symposia in North Korea and South Korea and walks in 2015, Women Cross DMZ utilized objects—scarves, banners, and quilts—inspired by <i>jogakbo</i>, a Korean patchwork-style cloth that originated during the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). As technologies of care, jogakbo cloth objects serve as a means through which people practice care and embody ideals for peace. Looking at the multiple crossings of Women Cross DMZ through jogakbo as an object and process attunes us to the temporal and scalar aspects of varied practices of peace advocacy.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":46247,"journal":{"name":"THEATRE JOURNAL","volume":"45 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143054813","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"How To Defend Yourself by Liliana Padilla (review)","authors":"Dan Venning","doi":"10.1353/tj.2024.a950306","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tj.2024.a950306","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;Reviewed by:&lt;/span&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt; &lt;!-- html_title --&gt; &lt;em&gt;How To Defend Yourself&lt;/em&gt;by Liliana Padilla &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt; &lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Dan Venning &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; &lt;em&gt;HOW TO DEFEND YOURSELF&lt;/em&gt;. By Liliana Padilla. Codirected by Rachel Chavkin, Liliana Padilla, and Steph Paul. New York Theatre Workshop, New York. 03 &lt;day&gt;21&lt;/day&gt;, 2023. &lt;p&gt;Sexual assault continues to plague college campuses despite the #MeToo movement, consent workshops, and protective measures put in place by college administrations, friend groups, and individual students. The Association of American Universities' statistic from their 2020 &lt;em&gt;Report on the AAU Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct&lt;/em&gt;—that 26.4% of undergraduate women surveyed at twenty-one schools in the United States had experienced some form of nonconsensual sexual contact—seems to ring true still. It is a rare year when I don't need to make at least one mandated report to my college's Title IX Officer after learning about a student's traumatic experiences. So when I saw Liliana Padilla's &lt;em&gt;How to Defend Yourself&lt;/em&gt;at New York Theatre Workshop in March 2023, I immediately knew that I would have to teach the play in my Contemporary American Theatre and Drama &lt;strong&gt;[End Page 564]&lt;/strong&gt;course in the upcoming trimester—and that this was a play that should be taught and staged at colleges and universities across the US. Indeed, reading Padilla's text and describing the action as I had seen it just a few months earlier led one student to travel to New York to see the production before it closed and several others to write about the various ways it resonated with them personally. One student wrote: \"This is a play I didn't know the theatre community needed until I read it myself. … I believe this play will make a difference in many students' lives[.] I know if I had found it a few years ago it would have made a difference in mine.\"&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Padilla's play takes place in the wake of a violent sexual assault on a small predominantly white liberal arts college campus with an active fraternity and sorority social culture. (The playwright is specific about the racial identity of each character in her script, so these are noted here as well.) The perpetrators of the assault—students in a fraternity—have been arrested and do not appear in the play, and the victim Susannah is in the hospital. The entire play takes place in a gym where Brandi, the victim's white \"big\" (an already initiated sister who serves as a mentor to a younger sister) in a sorority, is leading a self-defense workshop along with Kara, a BIPOC sorority sister who is Susannah's best friend and their sorority's social chair. They are supported by Andy, a white member of the fraternity who is \"earnestly eager to end rape culture and unpack the man box,\" and Eggo, one of only a few BIPOC members of the fraternity, who uses humor to hid","PeriodicalId":46247,"journal":{"name":"THEATRE JOURNAL","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143054814","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Fixing The Musical: How Technologies Shaped The Broadway Repertory by Douglas L. Reside (review)","authors":"Bradley Rogers","doi":"10.1353/tj.2024.a950318","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tj.2024.a950318","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;span&gt;Reviewed by:&lt;/span&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; &lt;em&gt;Fixing The Musical: How Technologies Shaped The Broadway Repertory&lt;/em&gt; by Douglas L. Reside &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Bradley Rogers &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; &lt;em&gt;FIXING THE MUSICAL: HOW TECHNOLOGIES SHAPED THE BROADWAY REPERTORY&lt;/em&gt;. By Douglas L. Reside. New York: Oxford University Press, 2023; pp. 165. &lt;p&gt;Douglas L. Reside's &lt;em&gt;Fixing the Musical: How Technologies Shaped the Broadway Repertory&lt;/em&gt; explores the technologies—printed, photographic, audiovisual, and digital among them—that have \"fixed\" the Broadway musical and thus influenced or enabled its circulation and reception. In Reside's terms, \"fixing\" refers to the process whereby an element of a theatrical property is fixed by another medium, with the fixed element becoming a meaningful part of the musical's ongoing identity or life. For example, he writes that his second chapter \"will explore how the technologies used to create promotional imagery for musicals fixed audience expectations of the visual elements of titles in the musical repertory\" (35). In studying fixing, then, Reside shows the complex ways that musical theatre—individual titles as well as the genre more generally—is inextricably tied to technologies of all sorts.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Fixing the Musical&lt;/em&gt; explores an unbelievably wide range of intriguing topics. When Reside explains the process (and company) behind the iconic Studio Duplicating Service scripts—identifiable by their faux leather covers with titles embossed in gold—he uncovers the surprisingly fascinating story behind a ubiquitous element of Broadway that virtually every scholar will have encountered. He does this in case after case, revealing unexpected insights on topics as wide-ranging as the role of Linotype printing in making it commercially viable for libretti to be printed in short runs; the genesis of the mail-order Fireside Theatre Club; the emergence of souvenir companion books; the processes of producing and distributing early video recordings of stage musicals; the histories of major licensing companies; and the mechanics of Diazo music printing technology—among many others.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;While the study is arranged as a series of chapters, each focusing on a different medium, Reside's book persuasively demonstrates a broader set of overarching ideas about the relationships between technology and the musical. A central insight is that as technologies fix more elements of a production, artists in subsequent productions can have a more limited range of choices to make. He details, for example, how licensors have increasingly offered a range of supplementary materials for amateur productions: projection designs, recordings of music for rehearsals, orchestral accompaniments for performances, choreographic guides, and so forth. Reside notes that \"[a]s new technologies begin to make other elements of the musical more ","PeriodicalId":46247,"journal":{"name":"THEATRE JOURNAL","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143054821","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Choreographing Dirt: Movement, Performance, And Ecology In The Anthropocene by Angenette Spalink (review)","authors":"Diana Looser","doi":"10.1353/tj.2024.a950321","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tj.2024.a950321","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;span&gt;Reviewed by:&lt;/span&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; &lt;em&gt;Choreographing Dirt: Movement, Performance, And Ecology In The Anthropocene&lt;/em&gt; by Angenette Spalink &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Diana Looser &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; &lt;em&gt;CHOREOGRAPHING DIRT: MOVEMENT, PERFORMANCE, AND ECOLOGY IN THE ANTHROPOCENE&lt;/em&gt;. By Angenette Spalink. Studies in Theatre, Ecology, and Performance, no. 3. London: Routledge, 2024; pp. 104. &lt;p&gt;In her original and engaging monograph, &lt;em&gt;Choreographing Dirt: Movement, Performance, and Ecology in the Anthropocene&lt;/em&gt;, Angenette Spalink attunes us to the importance of dirt in artistic performance, highlighting our profound entwinement with such matter and the broader social and ecological significance of these interrelationships. For Spalink, \"dirt\" refers to earthly material such as soil, peat, and fungi that has been removed from its original grounded context and has been culturally reshaped within the framework of performance, where it functions as a vital and agential co-performer along with human actors and dancers. Spalink undergirds her analysis of choreographic dirt with two key concepts. The first is her compound neologism &lt;em&gt;biogeocultography&lt;/em&gt;, which denotes \"the structured movement of ecological matter through geographic, biological, and cultural spaces\" (2) and the meanings such movements create. The second concept, &lt;em&gt;performative taphonomy&lt;/em&gt; (derived from the processes whereby material remains decompose and become part of the environment), expresses the notion that \"the presence of exhumed ecological matter on page and stage—e.g., dirt—'does' something\" (16). By exploring the many ways in which humans and dirt affect one another, Spalink encourages a more nuanced apprehension of our material entanglement with more-than-human worlds and reveals how dance and performance can provide a productive arena for thinking through the complex problems of the Anthropocene.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Choreographing Dirt&lt;/em&gt; brings together a diverse array of late twentieth-century and early twenty-first-century works from North and Central America and Europe: Suzan-Lori Parks's &lt;em&gt;The America Play&lt;/em&gt; (1994), Pina Bausch's &lt;em&gt;The Rite of Spring&lt;/em&gt; (1975), Eveoke Dance Theatre's &lt;em&gt;Las Mariposas&lt;/em&gt; (2010), and Iván-Daniel Espinosa's &lt;em&gt;Messengers Divinos&lt;/em&gt; (2018). The author presents a series of absorbing and richly contextualized close readings buttressed by Indigenous and non-Indigenous critical perspectives. She shows how these performances engage dirt as a vital choreographic element to address environmental racism, extractive capitalism, the interplay of human and more-than-human bodies, and an eco-ethics of care.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Chapter 1 takes up the trope of digging and disinterment as a mode of African American revisionist historiography in &lt;em&gt;The America Play&lt;/em&gt;, extending it to a taphonomical reading by focusing on the Foundlin","PeriodicalId":46247,"journal":{"name":"THEATRE JOURNAL","volume":"26 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143054822","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Remapping Relations: Contract Riders, Care, and Indigenous Performance","authors":"Bethany Hughes","doi":"10.1353/tj.2024.a950294","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tj.2024.a950294","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p>Drawing on Indigenous feminist theories of futurity and care, interviews with Indigenous theatre artists, and a case study on decolonial acts of relational care refused, this article explores how carework in theatre production contracts reveals the labor of Indigenous artists to sustain and expand their communities. It explores the informal challenges Larissa FastHorse issues to producing companies, the contract riders about casting and consultation used by Mary Kathryn Nagle, an accountability rider Madeline Sayet created for the national tour of her solo show, and the conflict between Emily Johnson and her one-time commissioning organization Peak Performances.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":46247,"journal":{"name":"THEATRE JOURNAL","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143054800","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Leaning into the Sky: Gestures of Grief and Futurity in Operation Babylift","authors":"Sung-Min Kim","doi":"10.1353/tj.2024.a950297","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tj.2024.a950297","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p>This essay tends to the continued lives and potential futures of Operation Babylift refugees as subjects born from \"militarized care,' a framework that resists the binary between violence and care to instead denote the affective and sensorial manifestation of <i>both</i> violence and care. By pairing Heidi Bub's story of reunion in the documentary <i>Daughter from Danang</i> with a reparative reading of Operation Babylift photographs, this essay suggests that tire Babylift refugees' gesture of looking out tire airplane window leans into vulnerability and uprootedness in order to dream of alternative futures \"up there\" and \"out there\" in the sky.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":46247,"journal":{"name":"THEATRE JOURNAL","volume":"59 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143054812","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Hamlet's Hereditary Queen: Performing Shakespeare's Silent Female Power by Kerrie Roberts, and: Performing Restoration Shakespeare ed. by Amanda Eubanks Winkler (review)","authors":"Hugh K. Long","doi":"10.1353/tj.2024.a950319","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tj.2024.a950319","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;span&gt;Reviewed by:&lt;/span&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; &lt;em&gt;Hamlet's Hereditary Queen: Performing Shakespeare's Silent Female Power&lt;/em&gt; by Kerrie Roberts, and: &lt;em&gt;Performing Restoration Shakespeare&lt;/em&gt; ed. by Amanda Eubanks Winkler &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Hugh K. Long &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; &lt;em&gt;HAMLET'S HEREDITARY QUEEN: PERFORMING SHAKESPEARE'S SILENT FEMALE POWER&lt;/em&gt;. By Kerrie Roberts. Routledge Advances in Theatre &amp; Performance Studies Series. Oxon, UK: Routledge, 2023; pp. 210. &lt;em&gt;PERFORMING RESTORATION SHAKESPEARE&lt;/em&gt;. Edited by Amanda Eubanks Winkler, Claude Fretz, and Richard Schoch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023; pp. 220. &lt;p&gt;Recently, Shakespearean scholarship has embraced performance-based research approaches, which have invigorated academic inquiry into the physical, spatial, and collaborative elements of live theatrical events. This understanding of Shakespeare's works not as purely literary texts, but instead as pretexts toward performance, has afforded scholar-practitioners greater opportunities to contribute to scholarly writing. Two recent contributions to this field, &lt;em&gt;Hamlet's Hereditary Queen&lt;/em&gt; by Kerrie Roberts and &lt;em&gt;Performing Restoration Shakespeare&lt;/em&gt;, edited by Amanda Eubanks Winkler, Claude Fretz, and Richard Schoch, each provide compelling templates for engaging with Shakespeare's work as a living, breathing performance tradition rather than as static dramatic literature. Through their respective lenses, these books invite a reconsideration of how we study, stage, and experience Shakespeare, pushing the boundaries of what performance-based, or practice-based, research can achieve.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In Hamlet's Hereditary Queen&lt;/em&gt;, Kerrie Roberts presents a refreshing scholarly approach, combining feminist theory and her subjective acting experience to explore one of Shakespeare's often overlooked female characters, Queen Gertrude from &lt;em&gt;The Tragedy of Hamlet&lt;/em&gt;. In her chapter \"Not Representing Gertrude,\" Roberts notes, \"While Hamlet himself has been played white, black, straight, gay, male, and female, in my experience, most productions of the play still barely nod to Gertrude's existence, let alone address her as heroine of her own narrative\" (17). Roberts shares with readers how her curiosity about &lt;em&gt;Hamlet's&lt;/em&gt; Gertrude began after she was cast to play the role in several scenes for film students in Canberra, Australia, in 2007. She admitted to having a difficult time embracing the character, primarily because of assumptions made by directors, and conversely herself: that Gertrude was merely a minor character defined only by her new marriage to her former brother-in-law, Claudius, or in her relationship to her son, Hamlet. This latter relationship is often depicted as either a sexualized one or one marked by an understanding that her son is an insane murderer. Roberts expresses how &lt;strong&gt;[End","PeriodicalId":46247,"journal":{"name":"THEATRE JOURNAL","volume":"206 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143054820","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Broadway Goes To War: American Theater During World War II by Robert L. McLaughlin and Sally E. Parry (review)","authors":"Fonzie D. Geary II","doi":"10.1353/tj.2024.a950317","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tj.2024.a950317","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;span&gt;Reviewed by:&lt;/span&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; &lt;em&gt;Broadway Goes To War: American Theater During World War II&lt;/em&gt; by Robert L. McLaughlin and Sally E. Parry &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Fonzie D. Geary II &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; &lt;em&gt;BROADWAY GOES TO WAR: AMERICAN THEATER DURING WORLD WAR II&lt;/em&gt;. By Robert L. McLaughlin and Sally E. Parry. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2021; pp. x, 290. &lt;p&gt;In &lt;em&gt;Broadway Goes to War&lt;/em&gt;, Robert L. McLaughlin and Sally E. Parry immerse readers in an oft-neglected era of US American drama. Despite the subtitle's indication that the book focuses on the war years, the text actually covers a somewhat broader period, extending from 1933 to 1946. From a playwriting perspective, this era is often dismissed as an artistic desert, caught between the fertile periods of Eugene O'Neill's ascendance in the 1920s and the emergence of Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller in the late 1940s. Albert Wertheim's &lt;em&gt;Staging the War: American Drama and World War II&lt;/em&gt; (2004) represents one of the more recent efforts to reckon with the proliferation of drama in the US during the 1940s. But overall, there is a paucity of scholarship related to this era. In this regard, McLaughlin and Parry's book represents &lt;strong&gt;[End Page 585]&lt;/strong&gt; a welcome addition in extending our understanding of twentieth-century US American drama.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;McLaughlin and Parry state two primary goals for their study: to understand \"the role theater had in the popular-culture representation of the Second World War/\" and to explore \"how the theater functioned differently from other popular-culture media\" (3). With these goals in mind, the authors position commercial theatre (defined strictly as Broadway) as unique in its dissemination of popular culture. Other mediums such as film, radio, and newspapers were often limited by censorship of one form or another, which was sometimes deemed necessary during wartime. Theatre, on the other hand, bore fewer such restrictions. Thus, the authors argue, it was able to offer more diverse, nuanced representations of the war and US attitudes toward it.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Following an introductory chapter wherein the authors lay out their purpose for the book, chapter 2 summarizes major theatrical fare related to European events prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. McLaughlin and Parry identify four themes under which the plays they consider cluster: 1) antiwar plays; 2) plays advocating for a strong defense; 3) plays depicting the US as a country under threat; and 4) plays centered on the existential crises of individual citizens. McLaughlin and Parry effectively demonstrate the nuance offered by Broadway theatre. For example, they juxtapose the cynicism of Robert E. Sherwood's 1936 play, &lt;em&gt;Idiot's Delight&lt;/em&gt;, which concludes with the two main characters sardonically singing a Christian hymn during a bombing raid, wit","PeriodicalId":46247,"journal":{"name":"THEATRE JOURNAL","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143054818","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Spectacular Theatre of Frank Joseph Galati: Reshaping American Theatre in Chicago, Illinois by Julie Jackson (review)","authors":"Stuart J. Hecht","doi":"10.1353/tj.2024.a950314","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tj.2024.a950314","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;span&gt;Reviewed by:&lt;/span&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; &lt;em&gt;The Spectacular Theatre of Frank Joseph Galati: Reshaping American Theatre in Chicago, Illinois&lt;/em&gt; by Julie Jackson &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Stuart J. Hecht &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; &lt;em&gt;THE SPECTACULAR THEATRE OF FRANK JOSEPH GALATI: RESHAPING AMERICAN THEATRE IN CHICAGO, ILLINOIS&lt;/em&gt;. By Julie Jackson. London: Methuen Drama, 2024; pp. 215. &lt;p&gt;Frank Galati died in early 2023 at age 79. On &lt;em&gt;The Late Show with Stephen Colbert&lt;/em&gt;, the usually sardonic host Colbert spent several minutes soberly marking his former teacher's passing, calling him \"an inspiration to all who worked with him and a brilliant director.\" I, too, knew Galati from my time in the 1970s and '80s as a graduate student and then through my work on the artistic staffs of two prominent Chicago &lt;strong&gt;[End Page 580]&lt;/strong&gt; theatres. Galati seemed to be everywhere, knew everyone, and was at the center of Chicago's thriving theatre scene. Although he remained a Chicagoan, Galati's reputation as an actor, adaptor, director and teacher grew to include Hollywood and Broadway. In &lt;em&gt;The Spectacular Theatre of Frank Joseph Galati&lt;/em&gt;, Julie Jackson charts the evolution of Galati's artistry and approach, arguing for the primacy of his particular brand of \"spectacular\" visual stagings with their rich poesy. His methods—original and collaborative and diverse—embodied Chicago's theatrical spirit and influenced well beyond their Midwestern roots.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Jackson's excellent study of Galati is a tribute to this extraordinary artist and teacher, but it considers him within the context of that time and place. Jackson spent hours interviewing and observing Galati at work. She approaches the book through the rich understanding of one who herself participated (sometimes with Galati) concurrently in the Chicago theatre scene as one of the city's leading costume designers. Fluent in stagecraft, sensitive to artistic choices, able to describe artistry with rigor, Jackson articulately explains how Chicago theatre in particular worked, both onstage and in its peculiar actor/audience dynamic. While her book offers an important biographical account of Galati's artistic career, Jackson's perspective also frames the unique utility of theatre scholarship developed out of close collaboration and relationships with one's subject.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;In the 1970s, Chicago began a remarkable theatrical era. New companies cropped up seemingly over night, transforming the city's many empty shops into \"storefront theatres.\" Newcomers established ensembles, each dedicated to its own aesthetic. Theatremakers at the time were young, energetic, and enthusiastic. Since they were also ambitious, most demonstrated dedication, and imagination, each eager to establish their particular niche. Unlike New York's every-person-for-themselves approach, Chicago theatre favored the collective, ","PeriodicalId":46247,"journal":{"name":"THEATRE JOURNAL","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143054815","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Ron Vawter's Life In Performance by Theresa Smalec (review)","authors":"Sean F. Edgecomb","doi":"10.1353/tj.2024.a950320","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/tj.2024.a950320","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;span&gt;&lt;span&gt;In lieu of&lt;/span&gt; an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:&lt;/span&gt;\u0000&lt;p&gt; &lt;span&gt;Reviewed by:&lt;/span&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;!-- html_title --&gt; &lt;em&gt;Ron Vawter's Life In Performance&lt;/em&gt; by Theresa Smalec &lt;!-- /html_title --&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt; Sean F. Edgecomb &lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; &lt;em&gt;RON VAWTER'S LIFE IN PERFORMANCE&lt;/em&gt;. By Theresa Smalec. London: Seagull Books, 2020; pp. 222. &lt;p&gt;Relying on impressive archival research and original interviews to present \"a social history—and ensemble biography\" (3), author Theresa Smalec provides a dynamic new account of US actor Ron Vawter (1948-94) that deftly corrects the claims of previous scholarship. &lt;em&gt;Ron Vawter's Life in Performance&lt;/em&gt; decisively traces the career and personal life of the titular artist who rose to fame as a member of downtown New York theatre troupes, The Performance Group and The Wooster Group, from the 1970s to the early 1990s. Over a perhaps too economic &lt;strong&gt;[End Page 590]&lt;/strong&gt; introduction and eight subsequent chapters, Smalec's intervention corroborates Vawter's importance as a performer—one who has been eclipsed by his more famous collaborators like Willem Defoe, Spalding Gray, Elizabeth LeCompte, and Richard Schechner—and challenges the longstanding myth surrounding Vawter's life that he \"ostensibly came from nowhere\" (9). While the narrative presented is linear, Smalec expertly (and even queerly) writes across time, creating a complex constellation of Vawter's career rather than a chronological biography.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The opening chapter proves Smalec's research prowess, diving into Vawter's previously unrecorded history before he joined The Performance Group in 1972. Relying on original interviews, the author traces Vawter's origins in the theatre back to high school and the period he spent as an undergraduate at Siena College starting in 1967. Directing and acting in queer-themed plays such as Edward Albee's &lt;em&gt;The Zoo Story&lt;/em&gt; and John Herbert's &lt;em&gt;Fortune in Men's Eyes&lt;/em&gt;, Vawter developed an interest in queer performance, Smalec corroborates, that preceded his work in the Manhattan avant-garde theatre scene. While Smalec's account, like previous biographies, confirms that Vawter was enrolled in a Franciscan training program and commissioned into the National Guard, she argues these experiences have been overblown in other biographical accounts.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Chapters 2 and 3 continue to correct the narrative around Vawter's introduction to The Performance Group, his initial time with the group, and his work as the company's general manager. In addition to her archival research and interviews, Smalec describes her embodied methods in these chapters. For instance, to argue against the myth that Vawter stumbled upon a rehearsal when walking home from a military recruiting station at 80 Center Street in 1972, she takes to the streets in an attempt to recreate Vawter's commute, proving that it most likely never happened. She likewise offers a close reading of Vawter's \"stealth\" perform","PeriodicalId":46247,"journal":{"name":"THEATRE JOURNAL","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143054835","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}