Routledge Handbook of Asian Theatre ed. by Siyuan Liu (review)

Routledge Handbook of Asian Theatre is a prodigious volume offering a comprehensive overview of the field of Asian performance within South, East, and Southeast Asia. The book importantly fills a gap in resources on Asian theatre by providing a sophisticated introduction to the material that places traditional theatrical forms, from a wide range of Asian cultures, alongside substantive coverage of modern and contemporary movements and practices, while also giving focus to significant theoretical topics. Editor Siyuan Liu assembles established researchers and up-and-coming scholars for a combined expertise and depth of knowledge that allows this book impressively to summarize and define the vast terrain of material that constitutes the current scholarly understanding of the field of Asian theatre.

Liu divides the book into four parts: "Traditional Theatre in Asia," "Dimensions of Traditional Asian Theatre," "Modern Theatre in Asia," and "Perspectives of Modern and Contemporary Asian Theatre." Each part contains several chapters, with each chapter, in turn, comprised of a number of essays focusing on the chapter's given topic within a specific country. The essays within a single chapter are not always consistent in their approach, with some offering strong theoretical perspectives and others reading more as straightforward summaries of history, facts, and trends.

The first part covers territory familiar to anyone who has spent time in this field, with chapters focusing on traditional theatre forms in India, China, Japan, and Indonesia. Each offers historical context for understanding performance in the region, as well as detailed descriptions of significant traditional arts, such as kathakali, kunqu, noh, kabuki, and wayang wong. Forms that are less frequently addressed also find a place here, such as India's bhavai, a rural tradition primarily from Gujarat, consisting of short plays and skits; and ankiya nat, short dramas from Assam promoting Vishnu worship. Inclusion of these lesser-known arts expands the limited perspective often offered by introductory or summary texts. Colin Mackerras's chapter on "Traditional Chinese Theatre" and Jonah Salz's on "Traditional Japanese Theatre" are particularly strong, offering engaging, informative narratives and thematic views on the arts they describe. Mackerras, for example, has sections on "Ideology of Theatre: Purpose and Censorship" and "The Social Context" that steps away from strict history and description of performance practices to provide deeper insights into understanding Chinese performing arts, an approach that might have enriched some other chapters that predominantly detail specific traditions.

While the volume's first part introduces traditional Asian theatre geographically, the second part focuses on specific elements of traditional Asian arts: dance, music, masks, puppets, costume and makeup, and architecture and stage. This setup gives full attention to components that are prevalent within and central to Asian forms. Chapters devoted to dance and puppetry, for example, allow for many lesser known forms to find representation here and demonstrate how these arts both intersect with theatrical traditions and form their own significant realms of activity across Asia. However, this editorial decision has its disadvantages. Because the chapters in part 2 investigate elements of some of the traditions introduced in part 1, related materials are located in different sections of the book, and readers must search through different chapters to gain a full understanding of the topic. For example, while kabuki's history and general aesthetics are introduced in the first chapter on Japan, kabuki dance, costume, and stages are each explained in different chapters within part 2. While there are benefits to seeing these aspects of kabuki alongside those in other Asian forms, it renders each part's treatment of kabuki incomplete. Part 2 also contains sections on regions like Korea, Tibet, Uyghur, and parts of Southeast Asia not introduced in the first part. The authors for these sections, therefore, must not only focus on the particular element in question, but also provide comprehensive introductions to their regions. The dance section has essays on both Southeast Asia and Cambodia (in Southeast Asia), which the chapter introduction identifies as a "case study," although it is not clear how this section is different from others, and there...