Mini Reviews

MINI REVIEWS Gautam Dasgupta, Michael Earley, John Howell, James Leverett, Bonnie Marranca Theater Design. George C. Izenour. McGraw-Hill, 631 pp., $45.50 (cloth). On first viewing, George C. Izenour's massive tome on theatre design is bound to appear intimidating to the layman. But gradually, the mesmerizing quality of the numerous graphs, sectional drawings, and transverse projections, beautifully executed by the author for the most part, create a world of such elegance andgrandeur that one is irresistibly drawn into it. Page after page of lucid text, engineered by amind of vast intelligence and deep insight into the evolutionary nature of theatre design from 300 B.C. to 1975, lends to the first half of the book a theatre artist's sensibility coupled with an architect's delight in comparative analyses of shapes, sizes, and construction materials. References to architects andtheir theories, and applications of theory to practice, are always discussed with a keen understanding of the nature of performance. The second half of the book first sets out to define Izenour's penchant for and expertise at multiple-use design, and then moves into the important area ofacoustical design for multiple-use auditoria. Aware that multiple-use design has yet to find many more adherents, Izenour buffets his arguments convincingly by relating suchpractices to the needs of the community. An elaborate bibliography, budget analyses, and some useful appendices bring this exquisitely designed book to a close. TheaterDesign is a labor of immense love and admiration for the performing arts, and although prohibitive in price, it is not only a must for libraries, scholars, and the bibliophile, but for whoever is open to the hidden mysteries of the auditorium in which, thanks to the genius of Izenour and his colleagues, we have enjoyed countless evenings. GD 88 The Theatre of Orson Welles. Richard France. Bucknell University Press, 212 pp., $18.00 (cloth). This is a finely executed and scrupulously researched study of Orson Welles's preHollywood theatrical career. It is France's thesis that the stage provided Welles with the vision and stature he would later transfer to the screen. It was in European modernism-especially expressionism-that he found a form which he successfully translated into both media. And France's effort is to find merit in what film critics normally find faulty in Welles's oeuvre: the sacrifice of content for form. The narrative traces the major Welles productions from schoolboy Shakespeare to the radio "War of the Worlds." In between we see the steady ascendancy of Welles through his work with the Dublin Gate Theatre (the true story), Katharine Cornell's company, summer stock where he made his first film, HeartsofAge, and, of course, the Mercury Theatre years with John Houseman. Although the book leaps from production to production without the slightest transition, the author makes itclear that he is interested in only the productions. His Welles is a legendary one with few faults. And while France had every opportunity to write the necessary biography (he was close to the sources), one never senses the true personality of Welles but only the stage persona we see in the numerous fine illustrations throughout the book. Houseman's Run-Through is deeper with psychological insights. But France excels in placing us at the center of productions, particularly in the chapter on the "Voodoo" Macbeth. And the strategy of the writer to narrate this material all in the present tense gives the text the immediacy of a staged event. France engages us in his own kind of narrative performance. An appendix of productions follows along with an extensive bibliography. But the price tag of $18.00 for 180 pages of text will, unfortunately, limit this very worthwhile study to just the shelves of libraries. ME Georg Buchner: The Complete Collected Works. Translations and Commentary by Henry J. Schmidt. Avon/Bard, 417 pp., $2.95 (paperback). The three plays, one novella, and one political tract that comprise Buchner's entire oeuvre are accompanied here by thorough introductions which draw liberally from letters, reminiscences, essays, etc., in order clearly to place this writer in a social, political and artistic context, both with his contemporaries and with subsequent developments. The hitherto difficult to...