In Contact with the Gods?: Directors Talk Theatre; In Other Words: Women Directors Speak, and: In Other Words: Women Directors Speak (review)

These two volumes each fill a void in the scholarly canon by exploring the methods and theories of late twentieth-century stage directors. The difference here is structure, approach, and intended range; while Delgado and Heritage are highly readable and organized, Manfull uses a rather haphazard approach, listing information about female British directors without first adequately introducing the reader to her subjects’ theories and work. Nevertheless, both studies provide excellent new additions to existing scholarship and are worthy of perusal by anyone interested in the art of stage direction.

Delgado and Heritage divide their work into seventeen highly structured interviews, each featuring biographical material that introduces the reader to the director’s body of work, major productions, and major criticism. Although the interviews lapse into occasional repetition, this work is alive and highly readable. Divided into separate discussions and a final roundtable, In Contact With the Gods explores a variety of directors, from those known to any directing student (Peter Brook, Peter Sellars, Robert Wilson) to directors whose work is less chronicled than it should be (Maria Fornes, Robert Lepage, Jonathan Miller, and Britain’s Cheek by Jowl combination of Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod). The strength of this study is its attention to European and Asian directors whose works are often overlooked in the United States, but whose comments on the process are evidence of the universality of the theatrical experience. Ion Caramitru of Romania describes current Romanian theatre as “magical realism” with political overtones, as demonstrated in his twisting the texts of Macbeth and Ubu Roi to parody the Ceaucescu dictatorship. Russian Lev Dodin uses Chekhov to merge classics with a living theatre experience and trains his actors to relate themselves to the “time, present atmosphere, and present moment of life” (77). Argentina-born and Paris-based Jorge Lavelli presents a “theatre of spectacle,” insisting the mise en scène “means not just reciting a text, but presenting a view of what is written” (114), a rewriting that allows a director to break the text down to its basic components. In France, Ariane Mnouchkine’s Theatre du Soleil merges elements of Meyerholdian biomechanics with Japanese cinema in a reworking of classical texts. For Japanese director Yukio Ningawa, it is Ibsen’s Peer Gynt that provides the vehicle and inspiration for experimentation with form, combining written text with music culminating in a metatheatrical experience. Perhaps most interesting is an interview with Tanzanian-born British director Jatinder Verma, whose ethnic heritage and knowledge of middle-Eastern legend allows him to impose new interpretations of classical and traditional texts.

Delgado and Heritage focus on several recurring elements in the theoretical approaches of the seventeen directors: all are united in their use of classical texts as a tool for the creation of the living, breathing theatrical event. Each finds inspiration in a theme, image, symbol, or action inherent in these plays, thus expanding on their traditional interpretation. The most striking thing about this outstanding volume is the similarity of directorial insights around the world. Despite often conflicting approaches to the material, each director has an obsession with the theatrical event, which Peter Brook describes as being “as natural for all human beings as eating, breathing, and making love” (310). In their epilogue, Delgado and Heritage transcribe a conversation between Brook, Jonathan Miller, and Oliver Sacks, in which the directors ask each other pointed questions concerning personal method and career choices. Although some of their answers have been heard before, this epilogue helps tie the interviews together under one theme and purpose.

Manfull purposely constructs In Other Words as a series of digressions and “pop” interviews, which makes the book frustrating to read even though it provides an outstanding addition to scholarship on more canonical directors. The interviews themselves...