Encyclopedia of World Theatre ed. by Martin Esslin (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 435 The extensive collation of other materials, historical and bibliographical, into comprehensive and usable groupings makes of these volumes a convenient reference edition. An oversight in the list of collected editions of English translations is the second volume of the Eva Le Gallienne translations, The Wild Duck and Other Plays (New York: Modern Library, 1961). Should one desire a survey of lbsen's pronouncements on the play, of the contemporary reception, of the principal London productions from 1889 to ]974, of B. B. C. radio and B. B. C. and I. T. V. television productions; or should one wish a list of bibliographies, of biographies in English, of translations, of works of criticism; one would find this wealth of information as part of the masterly collection of The Oxford Ibsen. Professor McFarlane has rendered to the English-speaking scholarly world a distinguished and invaluable service with his editorship of and translations for The Oxford Jbsen. Appropriate accolades have been conferred by Norway in the form of the Commander's Cross of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olaf. SANDRA E. SAARI Eisenhower College ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WORLD TI-lEATRE. by Martin Esslin, gen. ed. New York: Scribner, 1977. 320 pp. $25. The core for this work was the Theatre Lexikon, published in Germany by Karl Graning and Werner K. Friedrichs. Translated into English and amplified under the general editorship of the well-known critic Martin Esslin, this international encyclopedia includes, from earliest records to present times, entries on dramatists, actors, directors, designers, companies. literary schools and national or regional theatre, as well as a large number of technical terms related to acting and its devices. The book is arranged into alphabetical listings and closes with an index of play titles. The editor focuses on the theatre of some key areas, such as Western Europe, above aU, and the United States, Canada, Russia, India, Japan and Imperial China. It is here where the stronger points of the book are to be found. Much interesting and well-researched information, and nearly all the illustrations comprised in the text belong to the theatre of these geographical areas. Dramatists have quite often all their works listed and correctly dated. The data supplied about actors and directors is so impressive that it appears to outweigh that concerning the dramatists themselves. It must not have been easy in a work of such vast scope as this one to discern between what should have been included and what should have been left out. National theatre per geographical areas is extremely well-covered as far as the countries mentioned above are concerned. But, as one begins to move out of their periphery, information becomes scant. The Latin American theatre, as an example, receives in all as much treatment as the less important theatre of Albania or Israel. Even when the book deals with the outer parts of Western Europe, this trend is noticeable. An expert on, say. the drama of Spain, will undoubtedly resent the omission of Antonio Buero Vallejo, the 436 BOOK REVIEWS more so when be sees the negligible plays of France's Cyrano de Bergerac included. Theatre of Imperial China is well covered, but the vigorous, albeit highly propagandistic drama of Communist China is not treated at all. Puppet or marionette theatre, and drama journals and reviews (some several decades old and therefore frrmly established) wefe omitted altogether. The book's flaws are then mainly those of omission, the result of the general editor's efforts to carry out single-handedly an immense task that could have well been shared with several experts on the theatre in the areas less familiar to him. This is an ambitious book, which at times does not live up to the standards of its own ambitious title. But the flaws reviewed above should not detract us from the overall very good impression it commands. Much useful and interesting information is packed within its 300-odd pages, and the 421 black and white illustrations that complement the text are well-chosen and very well-reproduced. This book can be described, above all, as a pleasant book to own, both for consultation as well as for an occasional perusal that...