The Great Po Sein: A Chronicle of the Burmese Theatre by Kenneth Sein and Jospeh A. Withey (review)

452 MODERN DRAMA February plies the most detailed account given thus far. His book is vivid and well informed rather than reflective or critical but in the present stage of these studies there should be small quarrel with this point of view. The author, who is both playwright and director, is singularly well prepared to present a vital picture of a large number of the types of village theaters. He should be congratulated for his wide travels through his country and for the documentation of what hc has witnessed by a large collection of photographs, from which his book presents excellent specimens. Although many elements of this folk drama are of pre-historic origin, all its plays are modern in the sense that they are in a current repertory. The author rarely mentions printed books, indeed he even fails to provide a listing of them. He writes almost exclusively of what he has observed. The book possesses something of the liveliness of good presentational art. When, considered as literature , it is distinctly uneven. Its strength is owing more, it seems, to its subject than to its author as a writer, for some parts of it, notably the earlier chapters , that deal with the less exciting plays, lack the vigor or conviction found in later sections dealing with the major forms of folk theater, the festivals of a semireligious nature celebrating Rama, Krishna and the principal deities of the prolific Indian theogony. Gargi performs best when given a major role. The book supplies useful data on the nature of religiously inspired theater. It also gives stimulating evidence of the sources of strength in folk theater. It describes the amazing variety of forms assumed in tropical profusion by these traditional popular theaters, so stimulating to the imagination. Speech, song, instrumental music, dance, mime, clowning, ceremony, direct address to the spectators and various arrangements of simultaneous appeal to the audience are described with commendable clarity. A few paragraphs only are devoted to the influence thus far exercised by the Indian folk theater on the civic or commercial theater either in India or in the West. These are matters still to be explored, observed and described and obviously matters of considerable importance. This study offers the field-work and today no field of folk theater can be cultivated to more advantage than that of India. The Chinese popular stage is at present far from being a folk theater in the same sense of the word. It is primarily an example of a modern medium of mass communication and propaganda, directed not by the village but by the state. Conditions in India are virtually unique and eminently worth the thoughtful attention of students and theorists of drama throughout the world. This book provides an admirable introduction. Not the least valuable are its index and glossary of terms. HENRY W. WELLS Columbia University THE GREAT PO SEIN: A CHRONICLE OF THE BURMESE THEATRE, by Kenneth Sein and Jospeh A. Withey, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana, 1965, 169 pp. Price $4.95. Burma "is the perfect country, and one so agreeable in every way, that I have never heard a complaint about it. The closest one comes is a regret-regret that anyone visiting Burma after 1952 missed the great Po Sein, dancer-singer-actor par excellence. Now, in part at least, thanks to THE GREAT PO SEIN written by Po Sein's son, Kenneth (Maung Khe), and the genial professor of speech and 1967 BOOK REVIEWS 453 drama at Hanover College, Joseph Withey, this inevitability is rectified. Through careful documentation, skillful and evocative prose, and affection, these two able men have retraced a great and wonderful life and presented it to us in most amiable form. Po Sein's years-lS81 to 1952-span a remarkable and rapidly changing period of Burmese history. He himself made it the story of Burma's theater. When he was born, singers could be put to death for singing a "new" song before a king. A friend of Po Sein's father had been "executed" on innumerable occasions. No artist had recognized the fact that since his occupation had the dignity of being carved on temple walls, he himself shared...