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Allen Woll Black Musical Theatre: from Coontown to Dreamgirls Baton Rouge and
London: Louisiana State University Press, 1989. 301 p. \$29.95 (hbk). ISBN
0-8071-1469-3.
James Fisher
New Theatre Quarterly / Volume 6 / Issue 23 / August 1990, pp 302 - 303
DOI: 10.1017/S0266464X00004796, Published online: 15 January 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0266464X00004796

How to cite this article:
James Fisher (1990). New Theatre Quarterly, 6, pp 302-303 doi:10.1017/S0266464X00004796
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might be accessible both to practical workers in that field

and to the general public of drama in all its forms'.
'Accessible' is the key word here: the book is at its
strongest when demystifying (and de-jargonizing) semiological discourse, and providing clear examples from a
wide range of material familiar to students and serious
audiences everywhere.
It is perhaps a little less convincing in its comparative
analyses of stage and screen, and in its hope that
practitioners will find it more than generally useful. But
any work of this scope and declared intention will
inevitably have its readers occasionally crying, 'yes,
but...', and that is perhaps part of its value. Professor
Esslin is never less than illuminating and provocative, and
his book thoroughly deserves a place both on the private
bookshelf and in the course bibliography.
RICHARD BOON

Anthony B. Dawson
Watching Shakespeare
London: Macmillan, 1988. 260 p. 10.95 (pbk).
ISBN 0-333-43816-7.
A somewhat unsatisfactory cover design in white and
mint-green suggests this book is about students acting
Shakespeare - the design depicts actors in tee-shirts and
trousers wearing paper masks and crowns. The book is,
however, a collection of essays, the result of the author's
many years of watching professional Shakespeare productions. Eighteen of the plays are covered, and detailed
reference is made to recent productions on both sides of
the Atlantic. The essays are therefore firmly related to the
theatre, and it is the plays' performance-life that conditions
their interpretation and understanding.
I found the book of absorbing interest. The writing is
fluent, the comments illuminating. Perhaps its full value
will only be apparent to those who know the plays well,
but nonetheless, the consideration of both the acting and
the directorial approaches in the various plays will engage
the general reader, the playgoer, and the student of
Shakespeare.
p. s. COOK

Leslie Catherine Sanders

The Development of Black Theater in America:
from Shadows to Selves
Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989.
252 p. $9.95 (pbk).
ISBN 0-8071-1328-X.
This book raises the question of whether a people without
an identity can have a theatre. Intellectual, readable,
accessible to a broad audience, this excellent study gives
historical perspective to the blossoming of black theatre
by describing the movement which gave blacks their own
theatrical voice to articulate the black experience.
Fully treated, however, the 'development' of black
theatre must include amateur theatre, particularly the work
fostered by DuBois and Charles S. Johnson. Instead, the
author concentrates upon the development of professional

black theatre. Her thesis is that black playwrights first had

to discard black stereotypes established by white theatre
before a black aesthetic could be developed.
The work of five men comprise the substance of her
study: that of Willis Richardson, Randolph Edmonds,
Langston Hughes, LeRoi Jones, and Ed Bullins. Each, in
Sanders's view, moved black theatre closer to a mature,
independent voice for the black community, ultimately
creating a theatre which gives the stage-ground to the
reality of the black world. Sanders critiques many plays by
these playwrights, making this book a valuable reference,
a narrow history, and a fullish critical assessment.
ALLEN RAMSEY

Allen Woll
Black Musical Theatre:
from 'Coontown' to 'Dreamgirls'
Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University
Press, 1989. 301 p. $29.95 (hbk).
ISBN 0-8071-1469-3.
In fifteen concise chapters and an epilogue, Allen Woll's
book chronicles the diverse contributions of black
performing artists, composers, lyricists, and directors to
the American musical theatre. Woll notes that before the
late 1890s, minstrel shows and melodramas offered
audiences 'only the image of the Afro-American and
rarely the reality'. So this well-written history truly begins
with an examination of Will Marion Cook's Clorindy, the
Origin of the Cakewalk and Bob Cole's A Trip to Coontown,
both produced in 1898.
Influenced by the Harlem Renaissance and the great
popularity of individual performers and songwriters, the
era between the two World Wars offered diverse evidence
of a burgeoning black musical stage, from the precariously
financed and problem-ridden production of Sissle and
Blake's Shuffle Along (1921), which is given a whole
chapter, to 'white black musicals' like Gershwin's Porgy
and Bess (1935). Ironically, the visibility and significance of
Porgy and Bess helped make the road smoother for black
musicals. Beginning in the 1940s, Langston Hughes and
others attempted with some success to move the black
musical stage toward more ambitious works, but it was the
civil rights movements of the 1960s that prompted a
revival of the popularity of black musicals that continues,
despite the drastically declining number of new musicals
of any kind produced on Broadway.
Woll not only reconstructs the mostly obscure history
of black musicals and their artists, correcting many errors
and misconceptions about what has been written: he also
sets the black musical stage into the broader social, moral,
and political environment of America. As he himself
writes, black musical theatre, which began as 'a separate
and unequal stepchild of American musical theatre', was
integrated into the white Broadway musical, but instead
of losing its identity, became a major influence on the
modernization of musicals.
Most importantly, since the 1960s the black musical
theatre has brought 'important political issues to an art
form that had hitherto been dismissed as "escapist"'. This

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particular angle is Woll's most significant insight in a book

that should come to be regarded as a definitive history of
the black musical stage.
JAMES FISHER

David L. Haberman
Acting as a Way of Salvation
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. 224 p. 24.
ISBN 0-19-505321-4.
This book is a study of Raganuga Bhakti Sadhana, which
the author describes as a religio-dramatic technique of the
Gudiya Vaishnava people in Bengal. An unusual combination of interests in theatre and religion, together with
a genuinely detached viewpoint, have enabled the author
to produce a study that is unique in its approach.
In India, religion has always been at the centre of life,
and theatre too an inherent part of life. Common to both
is ritual. Rituals in India are not only an integral part of
religion and the origin of different traditional forms of
theatre, but they also function as coded information,
leading to the achievement of moksha or salvation.
The ritual shows the way of life. It has a philosophy of
its own kind. In this book the author's approach to the
philosophy which lies behind Raganuga Bhakti Sadhana is
both interesting and helpful. He first discusses religion and
drama in South Asia, and refers especially to Bharatmuni's
Natyashastra - one of the oldest books on theatre in India,
which dates back to between 200 BC and AD 200. He then
considers some major theories and issues relevant to an
understanding of the approach of the Hindu theologian of
the sixteenth century, Rupa Goswamin, who established
the technique of Raganuga Bhakti Sadhana 'a way of
salvation conceptually based on acting' that would 'enable
Bhakta [devotees] to enter and participate in the dramatic
world of the 'Vraja-lila', thereby generating the essential
Sthayi-bhava of love for Krishna, the foundation of the
ultimately meaningful experience
The rest of the book is devoted to the analytical study
of Raganuga Bhakti Sadhana, describing the whole
technique in detail. This not only reveals the author's
scholarship in theatre - the Rasa Theory of Sanskrit drama
in particular - but also shows his deep understanding of
religion. His reference to the work of Stanislavski is
certainly helpful to a foreign readership wishing to
understand the concept of Raganuga Bhakti Sadhana. This
book stimulates readers to know more about Indian
theatre, religion, and culture from a different perspective.
SHASHIKANT BAHRANPURKAR

]ames Redmond, ed.

Themes in Drama, 1 1 : Women in Theatre
Cambridge University Press, 1989. 297p. 18.
ISBN: 0-521-37033-7.
Judging the book by its cover, one might deduce that
Women in Theatre was about wide-eyed, tentative females
in a gymnasium. Fortunately most of the essays in this
book offer a more interesting, informed, and robust view.
The range is, like that of other volumes in this series, wide,

from essays on women in Greek and Roman classical

drama to essays on contemporary theatre practice and
debate. Most of the contemporary material relates to
Britain or America, though there are welcome pieces on
European and non-Occidental theatre from Allen Kuharski
(on an important Polish play from the 1970s), Catherine
Boyle (on women in Chilean theatre), and Diane Speakman
(on the Magdalena project). There is no through line to the
essays, no 'feminist' theoretical consensus, which on first
reading is frustrating because the volume appears
fragmented, but later can be seen as its strength. Each of
these 19 essays is worth further examination, and the book
illustrates the breadth of study available under the heading
'Women in Theatre'.
VIV GARDNER

Martin Gasman and Hub. Hermans, eds.

Espana, Teatro y Mujeres
Amsterdam and Atlanta: Editions Rodopi, 1989. Dfl. 75.
ISBN 90-5183-100-5.
This volume was assembled as a festschrift for Prof. Henk
Oostendorp of the University of Groningen. The editors
state that they have allowed considerable freedom to their
contributors, and this has resulted in a fascinating collection
of articles dealing with a wide range of topics. The Golden
Age of Spanish drama is strongly represented, with other
articles dealing with social and cultural issues in Latin
America.
The essays are arranged chronologically within three
sections - Theatre and Society, Theatre and Women, and
a general section - and there is a strongly historical focus
throughout. Particularly enjoyable were Tomas Calvo
Bueza's article on women and family as themes in Mexican
popular culture and Ben Teensman's piece on North
Eastern Brazil. This volume contains many minutely
focused and scholarly essays, of interest to specialists, but
it is theoretical, historical, and literary rather than practical.
As only three of the essays are in English, and one in
French, its appeal must remain limited to the Spanish
speaker in the UK.
JAN SHEPHERD

Gestos: Teoria y practica del teatro hispanico

Quarterly from the University of California, No. 7:
April 1989. 198 p. (pbk). Subscriptions $18 (individual),
$30 (institutional), plus $4 European surcharge.
ISSN 1040-483-X.
This journal presents us with a broad-ranging view of
Hispanic theatrical issues, paying attention to both Spain
and Latin America. The emphasis is more on Spain than
Latin America, with three out of the five major articles
dealing with Spanish themes. The balance is redressed in
its 'Notices and Reviews' and by the inclusion of a
Mexican comedy thriller, Nadie sabe nada - but I wanted
to know more about Vicente Linero, the author, and felt
strongly the lack of biographical details throughout.
I was impressed both by the consistently high level of
scholarship and by the balance achieved between theor-

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