Marathi Theatre Today:An Interview with Shanta Gokhale Shirley Huston-Findley (bio) Often called the "Grande Dame" of Marathi theatre, Shanta Gokhale is a novelist, journalist, translator, and cultural/theatre critic in Mumbai, India.1 She graduated with a degree in English language and literature from the University of Bristol, UK. In addition to a variety of films and documentaries, Gokhale has published a number of books, including Playwright at the Center: Marathi Drama from 1843 to the Present (2000), Satyadev Dubey: A Fifty-year Journey through Theatre (2011), Veenapani Chawla: Theory, Practice and Performance (2014), and The Scenes We Made: An Oral History of Experimental Theatre in Mumbai (2015), as well as her translation of Lakshmibai Tilak's Smritichtre: The Memoir of a Spirited Wife (2017). The Engaged Observer: The Selected Writings of Shanta Gokhale, edited by Jerry Pinto, was released in 2018, and her autobiography, One Foot on the Ground: A Life Told through the Body, was published in 2019. I met Shanta at her home in Shivaji Park, Mumbai on April 18, 2014. She was one of the twenty-eight female Indian artists I chose to interview during my Fulbright that year. I was primarily interested in Indian women playwrights, but as we drank tea and munched on cookies, Shanta shared with me her stories of the rich history in Marathi Theatre and culture, as well as her perspective on the current state of the art, which confirmed much of what I had been hearing from the broad range of interviewees I encountered in Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Pondicherry, and Calcutta. Familiar with the history of classical Indian dance/drama, its origins in Sanskrit, and its primary influence from Hinduism as depicted in The Ramayana and The Mahabharata, I set out with a series of questions regarding contemporary Indian women playwrights based on that knowledge, as well as my awareness of the significant role that feminism has played in the history of India as a nation. What I discovered, however, was the remarkably diverse array of artistic challenges the artists encounter, many of which are discussed in the following interview (for example, the lack of education in playwriting throughout the country, the prevalence of censorship, and the limitations caused by the diverse languages spoken throughout the country). The playwrights also spoke of an absence of copyright protection/unionization for artists and minimal funding, which caused many of the women to look toward the UK for opportunities in training and financial support, as well as the ongoing trials of being female in a male-dominated profession and culture.2 Shirley Huston-Findley: I'm curious about why you titled your 2000 book Playwright at the Center. Shanta Gokhale: Because it focuses on four famous playwrights from Maharashtra: Vijay Tendulkar, Mahesh Elkunchwar, Satish Alekar, and G. P. Deshpande.3 Their plays were translated long ago. SHF: Did they all make a living as writers? SG: One [partly] did—Tendulkar, because he was a journalist as well. SHF: Has playwriting ever been a viable profession in India? [End Page E-1] Click for larger view View full resolution Fig 1. Cover of Jerry Pinto's edited volume The Engaged Observer: The Selected Writings of Shanta Gokhale (2018). SG: In Maharashtra, the situation is different [from other regions in India], because we have a very strong professional theatre. These are people who belong to the so-called experimental theatre. Experimental not in terms of avant-garde, but not doing the commercially sellable things. SHF: So the people doing the commercial stuff are making a living? SG: Yes, there are periods in Marathi theatre where some pretty important experiments have been carried out, but by and large it is theatre for entertainment and it tends to fall into certain formulas. SHF: It's like our Broadway. SG: It's like your Broadway, exactly. Without all the jazz. We can't afford that. SHF: And so historically, [playwriting] has not been a profession? SG: Historically, it has been … this tradition of playwriting started with people who were actually living off theatre and that has continued. That's where mainstream theatre comes from, in Maharashtra. People began experimenting [with...

New Opportunities, New Challenges: Graduate Studies in the Context of a New Institutional Paradigm for the Arts and Sciences in Chile Milena Grass Kleiner (bio), Andrés Kalawski (bio), Cristián Opazo (bio), and Alexei Vergara (bio) Theatre Factories for a New Country At the end of 2012, the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (UC) established the first Chilean PhD program in Theatre Studies. In March of 2013, this program welcomed its first intake of PhD students in the context of a broader interdisciplinary initiative that also brings together music and visual arts. The fact that Chilean theatre-makers and artists have been trained for more than seventy-five years in specialized academic departments embedded in the university system led to this new graduate program offering both practice-led and theoretical models for students’ research projects.1 Our essay explores the leading role that this graduate program and its institutional background plays in nurturing a new context for artistic practice and research in the local cultural landscape. And, as Marvin Carlson might put it, today this landscape is haunted by hopes and fears, anxieties and misunderstandings (96) induced both by history and by the establishment of two new ministries as part of the Chilean government: the Ministry of Cultures, Arts and Heritage (2017), and the Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge, and Innovation (2018). When the country’s elite increasingly promotes the creative industries discourse replacing the arts and humanities as autonomous disciplines with an end in themselves, what role could a PhD program in theatre studies play? What clashes could there be between the public policies generated by these ministries and the Chilean tradition developed by university theatre companies embedded in university departments? Or, following Shannon Jackson’s argument in Professing Performance, how can we honor our history? (40). With the following piece we wish to articulate these questions further. A Nation Is Born (and Theatre Has a Role to Play) To understand the role universities have played as artistic agents in Chilean history, let us look back before we move forward. In 1818, the Chilean founding father, Bernardo O’Higgins, commissioned the first theatre production ever performed in the recently established Chilean republic. According to national mythology, the opening night of this play celebrated two events: the proclamation of Chilean independence from the Spanish Crown and—above all—O’Higgins’ birthday. At around the same time, Fray Camilo Henríquez, editor of the first Chilean newspaper—La Aurora de Chile [Chile’s Dawn], established in 1812—published Camila o la patriota de Sud-América [Camilla or the South-American Patriot (1818)], a play which expressed Henríquez’s liberal ideas and his own understanding of the theatre as a political tool. Whether or not we believe in these mythologies, both anecdotes illuminate the location of theatre in modern Chile: at that time, politicians and public [End Page E-1] intellectuals perceived the notion of culture as an essential element for the growth of the republic. In the eighteenth century, Spanish authorities in Chile transformed the theatre into “the most defended public entertainment, encouraged by the rulers and Enlightenment philosophers” (Grass, Hausdorf, and Nicholls n.p.). Then, “theatre seemed an efficient means for civilizing and educating citizens” (Viqueira 53, qtd. in Grass, Hausdorf, and Nicholls n.p.; our translation). The collaboration between the nation-state and the theatre scene remained active during the first decades of the twentieth century. In 1910, to celebrate the centenary of national independence, president Pedro Montt ordered the publication of an edited volume of Chilean plays (Anthology of Chilean Theatre: 1810–1910). Additionally, Adolfo Urzúa—a dentist, playwright and pioneer of the local entertainment industry—invented an innovative educational strategy: a model for the study of rhetoric which was to become very influential in Chile. Inspired in dramatic training skills, Urzúa imagined his model as a vehicle to the propagation of civic values in the public sphere, such as, for instance, in state schools (Kalawski n.p.). The Origins: A Conservatoire within a University? In the 1930s, several Chilean universities—de Chile, Católica, and Concepción, among others—saw the birth of many amateur theatre companies, mostly influenced by European troupes...

Reviewed by: Performed Ethnography and Communication: Improvisation and Embodied Experience by D. Soyini Madison Kasey Lynch Performed Ethnography and Communication: Improvisation and Embodied Experience. By D. Soyini Madison. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2018; pp. 202. In her recent publication Performed Ethnography and Communication: Improvisation and Embodied Experience, D. Soyini Madison, a pioneer in the field, crafts a narrative that beautifully intertwines the often-partitioned worlds of communication, performance studies, and critical cultural studies. Through an engagement with experience, example, interview, case study, application, and photograph, Madison provides readers a diverse and multiperspective glimpse into the performance ethnographer’s embodied exploration of the human condition. The introduction offers an explanation of the practice of performed ethnography and poses the larger questions explored throughout the book: “Why and how do we do performed ethnography? What are the theories and debates about it and what are the methods and techniques to create it?” (xix). The reader is asked to consider how oral history and performed ethnography function within “community.” This idea of community becomes vital to Madison’s conversation with the reader. It is worth noting that the text reads like an academic conversation, in which readers are asked to be present and continually add their own insights to those on the page. Madison seems to assume her readers have a certain level of familiarity with performance ethnography, so this particular book may not serve as the ideal introduction to the topic. That being said, the accessibility and focus on community and the human experience allows even the most junior performance and communication scholars to join in the conversation. The text is organized into two major parts of four and six chapters, respectively. Part 1 encompasses embodied technique and practice. Madison distinguishes between technique and practice in the first chapter, which includes scintillating interviews with both esteemed academic Ben Spatz and performance ethnographer Reneé Alexander Craft. Chapter 2 introduces improvisation to the process of creation, adding the body to the conversation of practice and technique. The discussion of the body in improv expressly elucidates the importance of paying attention to one’s own body and the bodies of others. Madison’s clear and concise discussion of key terms helps the reader understand the communal nature of improv and one’s ability to discover and de-mechanize the body and “socially embedded techniques” in the process (25). The third chapter considers devised theatre, suggesting processes, stages, and exercises in the interest of devising performance from ethnographic data through collaborative and improvisational techniques. Madison lays out a clear path for the creator, even providing workshop exercises for interested readers. Her interview with Honey Pot Performance expounds upon the process of this collective and embodied storytelling. Invoking the writings of Augusto Boal and citing his work in image, forum, and newspaper theatre, Madison offers the reader exercises in her fourth chapter aimed at exploring and uncovering the body to create space for discovery. Bringing Boal, Laban, Barteneiff, and Roth into the conversation, Madison weaves an intricate discussion of the ways in which we “perform body,” maintaining that these explorations aid in the approach to considering and sharing ethnographic data. In the second part of the text, the discussions of improvisation and embodied technique are seamlessly integrated and applied to an exploration of oral history and personal narrative performance. Part 2 begins with chapter 5, arguably the most important chapter in the book, in which Madison brilliantly illuminates the value and the crucial ethical considerations of telling people’s stories. She strategically positions her claims within a politically and historically relevant context. Madison also discusses the plaguing question of ownership: Who owns the story? Is it the interlocutor? Is it the performer? She settles on “both/and/but,” a diplomatic and ethical approach, emphasizing again the collective and collaborative nature of performed ethnography (122). An interview with E. Patrick Johnson helps highlight this approach. Chapter 6 brings readers into dialogue with the emotional and sensory experience of the narrative event, or [End Page 179] the “how” of telling a story, providing a jarring case study consisting of a digital-live ethnographic performance about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Through this historical example, Madison positions the reader to reflect on...

From the Periphery to the Mainstream:An Argument for and a Blueprint to Teaching Indian Performance Arnab Banerji (bio) At the end of my first year of teaching a course on Indian performance in 2016, I attended a conference session on theatre history textbooks. The conversation that ensued reminded me of discussions led by Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei and Steve Tillis about "desperately seeking Asia" in theatre history curriculums and the need to revisit and reorient the eurocentrism of theatre history syllabi in North American universities respectively (Sorgenfrei; Tillis 2007). Nearly a decade since the publication of Tillis's arguments, a colleague remarked how Indian and Asian theatre forms were topics in his ancient theatre course, where they belonged. It seemed as if this colleague was completely oblivious of my presence just two seats down from him as a fellow panelist and a living, breathing Indian man specializing in contemporary Indian theatre, before relegating all of Asian theatre under the heading of "ancient theatre." This exchange made me think about the significance of not only devising, but also sharing a curriculum that drove home the point that India as well as other Asian countries were not frozen, foreign, archaic cultures, but complex, modern nations. In a separate though related instance, a senior colleague, also an Asianist, advised me that despite our specializations, it was important to prove our ability to teach about Greeks, Romans, and Shakespeare—subjects that would get us hired. Another colleague, this time not an Asianist, insisted that I choose a Western subject matter for my teaching demonstration rather than "the Asian stuff." It is assumed, that no matter what we specialize in or excitedly write about, the academy will follow a straightjacketed approach that brackets off our lived experiences as Other and not part of the mainstream. As an educator, we are often expected to push our own expertise as Asianists to the back burner and cater to an erroneously organized partial historical narrative as a euphemism for "comprehensive historical overview." This is equally true of specialists in specific Euro-American theatre traditions; however, the difference lies in the extent of representation that those traditions command in a general curriculum, even if the luxury of delving in-depth into each individually is understandably absent. Additionally, instructors may be wary of teaching Asian theatre due to the (supposed) cultural gap that separates domestic students from the course material. The curricular restrictions of covering a substantial spectrum of information compounds further the problem of teaching Asian material in non-Asian classrooms. This essay hopes to provide teachers of non-Western performance traditions a blueprint for teaching Asian performance in an American liberal-arts college setting. Being a theatre historian myself, the blueprint is drawn from my experience of leading/teaching histories, theories, and literatures rather than performance forms. It is also important to mention that my primary expertise is in contemporary Indian theatre. I possess a working vocabulary of enough Indian performance forms that I can curate a sixteen-week syllabus of classical, traditional, and contemporary Indian performance. The road map demonstrated herein, therefore, is based on my experience teaching Indian performance specifically, including feedback from student interactions and evaluations. Based on this course's success, as well as years of sitting in, taking, discussing, and teaching Asian performance beyond India; however, I contend that the strategies I adopted for this [End Page 211] class could be applied to most non-Western curricula. As I will demonstrate throughout the essay, the content of the course described here (and other non-Western material) could very easily be incorporated into a conventional theatre history class. Doing so diversifies the curriculum, exposing students to a larger spectrum of performance practices from across the globe. For those who are not already converts to having a more diverse curriculum, the essay should serve as an introduction to other (and I daresay more interesting) forms of performance to introduce to existing syllabi. And the essay does so not only by introducing genres, but also by presenting them within contexts that are not confined to curricular boundaries, but are global in their application. And for those that are already teaching non-Western performance, the essay is...

Reviewed by: Digital Costume Design and Collaboration: Applications in Academia, Theatre, and Film by Rafael Jaen La Beene Digital Costume Design and Collaboration: Applications in Academia, Theatre, and Film. By Rafael Jaen. New York: Routledge/Focal Press, 2017; pp. 208. Designing in an increasingly digital world with tech-savvy students presents a new set of challenges to an old art form. Students obtain and disseminate information and communicate primarily by digital means. Adapting theatre classes to a digital world is not difficult, but finding a text to suit the needs of a costume design course that still addresses some of the more elementary but critical skills needed of costume designers has not existed. Many costume-design faculty use Liz Covey and Rosemary Ingham’s incredible resource, The Costume Designers Handbook, in their classes. Other foundational texts might be Rebecca Cunningham’s The Magic Garment and Melissa Merz’s The Art and Practice of Costume Design. However, none address the growing need to digitize research, paperwork, and designs not only for practical reasons, but as a way to attract and retain the interest of students. In Digital Costume Design and Collaboration Rafael Jaen addresses many of the same practical approaches to design as these textbooks, but he reveals how to use the digital world to organize, present, and share design basics. Jaen organizes his book into three parts. In the first, “Foundations,” he lays out design principles with the essential “nuts and bolts” of each story and character, as well as where to start researching and how to create a concept. He includes additional aids to young designers engaged in the process, such as how to talk to actors, the importance of a dramaturg, and how to have a conversation with a director. Jaen shifts from this traditional introduction to design by outlining how to compile the initial research, notes, and measurements, and how to show information digitally in Google (docs, slides, and sheets), Pinterest, and Dropbox. Importantly, he explains in detail how to use each format and share it with others. This form of communication may be the most important part of the digitization of a costume designer’s work, and Jaen is convincing in his argument to adopt it. In chapter 2, “Preparing Your Digital Costume Bible and Design Studio,” he discusses some of the most practical parts of design: the paperwork. Jaen thoroughly explains a costume plot, piece list, and how to budget for a production, but again argues in favor of creating, storing, and tracking all of this digitally. Especially impressive is the suggestion to take photos of each actor during fittings, and to organize these into a shareable file that is accessible to everyone on the production team from virtually anywhere. No more forgetting measurements when you are out shopping—it is right on your smartphone! Want to share how a fitting went with the director? Send her the file link! Google docs also updates immediately so there are no lost files, and files shared among multiple participants are always the most current. Jaen also discusses what equipment and software a designer would need to work digitally. This book successfully explains the ease of using such platforms for almost any designer, but particularly for those who may be nervous about changing old habits. In part 2, “Applications,” Jaen presents five chapters focused on the practical skills from researching to rendering to archiving. The primary tool he introduces here is Photoshop, and for designers new to the world of Photoshop, he presents an incredibly easy path for using this multifaceted tool. He sticks to the basics—layers, brushes, color swatching, and creating fabric, and then goes through them step by step. Jaen’s instructions are very clear when discussing basic applications. This is particularly helpful for student and faculty designers who are not familiar with using digital rendering applications, or who are intimidated by the idea of using such a tool. He also provides links to his YouTube channel, which presents the same instructions visually—an important asset for many learners. The final part of the book, “Digital Design Practice,” presents testimonials from experts about using digital platforms for design. Jaen interviews theatrical directors, designers, and educators...

Annotating Vegas: Mapping Performance Interventions at ATHE 2017 Michelle Liu Carriger (bio) and Eero Laine (bio) Introduction In August 2017, the annual ATHE conference was held in Las Vegas at the Planet Hollywood Hotel and Casino. As the co-organizers of the Performance Studies Focus Group’s (PSFG) fourteenth annual pre-conference, we had hoped to arrange a backstage tour of one of the many spectacular entertainments on offer in Vegas. We had imagined the theoretical thrills of taking a few dozen performance scholars backstage at Cirque du Soleil or Blue Man Group or Thunder from Down Under. We thought we might offer multiple plenary sessions addressing Las Vegas and its myriad spectacular pleasures, along with its overt and aggressive embrace of fantasy, simulacra, and misogyny. It was obvious to us that the work should exist—perhaps too obvious. Indeed, we discovered in the process of planning that not many of the performance scholars that made up our constituency were researching Vegas, and (perhaps more importantly) neither did it seem that any really wanted to. We also found that most backstages were sealed against us unless we ponied up a significantly larger amount of money per person for tour tickets than PSFG typically spends on pre-conferences. The “backstage” was not actually backstage—or maybe there was no backstage. In a sense we were stymied by the toughness and depth of Vegas’s veneer: it proved much harder to get into or behind the spectacle than we had initially anticipated. Vegas was Vegas all the way down. Yet, despite the corporate strength of the superficial, the backside of the glitz seems to be oozing out all over the city. As an alternative to staging a tour “behind” the spectacle, we created an activity for pre-conference participants to intellectually and performatively engage with the material fact of our conference location in Planet Hollywood: to burrow into or skate atop the spectacle, looking at its seams and margins, snooping for stage doors and ingresses, stopping to contemplate or find pleasure in the great interlocking machines and stages of Vegas capital and Vegas landscape. The Annotated Planet Hollywood project began on the morning of August 3, 2017. We sent approximately twenty participants out into the space with a short instruction sheet to see what they could find and how they would create, document, and represent our presence in Planet Hollywood. The participants ventured into the “hip, modern, dramatic” Planet Hollywood, where, as a Google search reminds us, “everyone is a celebrity.” Armed with internet-enabled digital devices and steeped in performance theory, participants encountered the performative spectacle of Planet Hollywood in all of its overwhelming obviousness and impenetrability. Simultaneously complicit with and critical of the technologies and companies (hardware from Apple mostly, and software primarily from Google) whose products (and their ubiquity) allowed us to create this project, participants created a multilayered map, available to anyone with the link to edit, add to, and alter. Our overarching goal, then, was to consciously bring the material conditions and ramifications of our national theatre conference’s presence in Vegas and our personal imbrications with digital technology, with all its promises and perils, into focus. [End Page E-1] The project that you can access here came together in three stages: an initial set-up and preparation period, including some example prompts and points marked, designed, and carried out by Michelle Liu Carriger and Eero Laine; the ninety-minute period of the activity, completed by approximately twenty PSFG pre-conference participants on August 3, 2017; the subsequent editing and alteration to add pictures and commentary that was not easy to get into the map application during the activity period; and the expanded and edited entries to better reflect our intellectual engagements and considerations. Contributors included James Ball, Taylor Black, Michelle Liu Carriger, Eero Laine, Steve Luber, Lindsay Hunter, Aileen Robinson, Megan Shea, and Stephanie Vella. Annotated Planet Hollywood Las Vegas is a major US theatre and performance center, and yet it also poses a major challenge to our field of theatre and performance academic study: it marks an edge where theatrical spectacle most strongly resists intellectualizing, arguments about the political efficacy of performance, and/or...

“After Orlando” in the South Bronx: Creating Safe Space for Healing Natasha Lorca Yannacañedo (bio) It was exciting to host the official kickoff performance for the “After Orlando International Theatre Action,” which began exactly three months after the massacre. As an assistant professor who often directs plays, I initiated After Orlando at Eugenio María de Hostos Community College in the South Bronx because I wanted an opportunity for our community to come together, process, and mourn. Such a forum seemed critical, given that my college does not even have an LBGTQ club; moreover, the majority of our student body, like the Pulse victims, are Latinx. After Orlando was a labor of love, since I did not receive any payment or course release for producing, directing, and acting in it; nor did I have a budget, although I did have use of our black-box theatre on campus. Likewise, all of the actors and production team volunteered their talent. In addition to the student actors, I was able to cast another professional actor, besides myself, who was an alumnus from our college. While the performance was well-received, the most successful aspect of this show was how deeply and profoundly it affected my cast and production team. In both the selection of plays and the casting, I made conscious choices to enhance the connection between the material and our community. From the script compilations that NoPassport and Missing Bolts had assembled, I chose the plays that best fit our South Bronx campus. I wanted to highlight the talents of my actors and reflect our Latinx population, but I also wanted to showcase additional voices that are often not represented in our country. For example, I presented the Muslim American experience with Rohina Malik’s At the Store with my Daughter. After choosing a diverse ensemble, I cast each individual piece based on who had the acting chops to rise to the challenge of each scene, as well as who could accurately represent the characters. Among my diverse cast, three of the actors were of mixed heritage, so they could play many roles. For instance, the professional male actor whom I cast is Filipino and Chinese, but he also speaks fluent Spanish. I selected full ensemble pieces for both the beginning and end, and I ensured having a balance of comedic and dramatic scenes. This framing allowed for a feeling of inclusion for both the audience and my actors. Moreover, this approach was quite effective, since the audience laughed and cried, offering a balance of emotions. If I had only selected dramatic works, it would have been too emotionally overwhelming given the recentness of the massacre. The response to our work was so tremendous that we remounted it for two additional performances during Puerto Rican Heritage Month. These artistic decisions also directly impacted my cast and crew, all of whom identify as LGBTQ. The team was very grateful to have the opportunity to participate, because it helped them heal and mourn; as a group, they expressed how this production gave them a sense of purpose in the face of such a tragedy. One of them personally knew one of the victims and had been at Pulse only ten days before the shooting. Here are two reactions from participating adjunct professors I feel compelled to share (with their permission). Sergio Mauritz Ang, one of the actors, stated that as a gay man of color, working on After Orlando affected me in innumerable ways. It provided me a platform to give a voice, channel my sadness and pain into something beautiful and healing. I am grateful that as an actor, I had the privilege of illuminating a few of the many souls [End Page 183] affected by this tragedy. Because we had a wide spectrum of genres presented, the audience responses were a mix of laughter and tears. But I think they were all tinged with a similar melancholy, because of our collective understanding about the event that transpired. Ultimately, the audience also reveled in our attempt to celebrate the truths of those vibrant lives lost. The simple task of coming together, releasing words to make change has been the thing I...

Reviewed by: Rhythm in Acting and Performance: Embodied Approaches and Understandings by Eilon Morris J. Ariadne Calvano Rhythm in Acting and Performance: Embodied Approaches and Understandings. By Eilon Morris. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2017; pp. 296. To start, Eilon Morris informs the reader that they will not find a simple definition or universal concept of rhythm in this book. Instead, through a well-balanced dose of theory and practice as research from his years in rehearsal and training rooms as a theatre practitioner, percussionist, educator, and scholar, Morris adeptly unpacks the complex relationship with rhythm in training and performance. With risk of sounding overly effusive, as an acting instructor this is a book I have been wanting for years. Its value comes from Morris’s approach. While he may at times seem to prize an empirical rather than the rational interaction with rhythm, he does accept that analyzing rhythm for performance requires deconstruction of its use in performance both from embodied and logical experiences: “this book offers up a collection of ways in which rhythm is approached and worked with. This includes some of the ideas, metaphors and associations attributed to rhythm, as well as the practical means by which performers have looked to develop rhythmic qualities in their work” (24). “Part One—Establishing a Pulse” contains chapters 1–2. The first one begins with an etymology of rhythm from the ancient Greeks, and incorporates the term’s use by many European and Russian artists. Chapter 2 delves into the history of foundational studies in rhythm, especially from the twentieth century onward. Morris calls for an awareness of the Western lens in analysis of rhythm; yet, it is difficult to deny that influence and background in the featured practitioners. Both chapters serve as an introduction and at times feel ambitious and sporadic, jumping from rhythm in movement, to writing, to emotional inspiration, but they relay the density of the topic and its myriad of performance aspects. “Part Two—Stanislavski on Rhythm” consists of a single chapter focused on Constantin Stanislavski’s work, especially his focus on physical action. Here, Morris attempts to untangle the various ways that Stanislavski, and those who continued his work, defined tempo and rhythm. This chapter marks the inclusion of exercises to demonstrate ideas in practice; they continue through the fifth part, supporting Morris’s belief in the embodied approach to understanding rhythm. While including exercises in the book is vital to his pedagogical focus, they will be most useful for those familiar with rhythm work. For example, even being trained myself in a Grotowski-based approach, I am still unsure that I could recreate the plastique exercise (159) from his description, but others are more clearly fleshed-out and articulated. Parts 3–5 focus more concretely on current modes of working with rhythm in rehearsal and training rooms throughout Europe, Australia, and the United States. Morris pays particular attention to the ways in which these modes blend into one another, and how readers currently engaged in an explorative practice of rhythm, time, dynamism, and so on can approach practical work from complementary perspectives. “Part Three—Structure and Spontaneity” contains four chapters, each framing a conversation around a particular practitioner’s work: Suzanne Bing, Vsevolod Meyerhold, John Britton, and Anne Bogart and Tina Landau, respectively. Overall, this part examines the connections between “notions of risk-taking and liveness” with structure in both ensemble and individual sense of rhythm (135). A short introduction before each chapter situates the relationship to the overarching theme of the part. Morris’s detailed attention to structure and guidance through this multifarious conversation is admirable. I appreciate the inclusion of important female practitioners’ voices, especially Bing’s, whose work tends to lose focus to her artistic partner Jacques Copeau. “Part Four—The Ecstatic Performer” frames the conversation through the lenses of the works of various practitioners, with an additional chapter that considers work done in scientific and anthropological studies of rhythm’s effects on the psychological state. Chapters 9–11 discuss the work of Jerzy Grotowski, Nicolás Núñez, and Morris’s own work, respectively. The latter two’s past experiences with Grotowski’s work resonates strongly with “the unification of...

A Note from the Editor Lisa S. Brenner The week after the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States, I passed a sign on my commute to work that contained only one word: “Resist!” I couldn’t get that word out of my head, wondering what actions count as resistance and prompting me to focus the 2018 special issue for Theatre Topics on “Theatre and Protest.” The idea of protest certainly felt ripe: protests in the streets of my town with shouts of “This is what democracy looks like”; thousands of people flooding cites worldwide in women’s marches; and individuals gathering at airports to thwart the implementation of Trump’s travel ban. On the eve of his inauguration, theatre companies across the United States, from Broadway houses to community stages, participated in the Ghostlight Project “to stand for and protect the values of inclusion, participation, and compassion for everyone—regardless of race, class, religion, country of origin, immigration status, (dis)ability, age, gender identity, or sexual orientation” (Alick et al.). I noted as well that this special issue would mark fifty years since 1968, surely a revolutionary year. From the civil rights and feminist movements to opposition to the Vietnam War and consumerism, 1968 marked a worldwide escalation of social conflict and rebellion. The theatre of 1968 both reflected and fed such protests. To name but a select few: in the States, Hair premiered on Broadway; the Living Theatre returned to America with Paradise Now; Larry Neal published his celebrated essay “The Black Arts Movement”; and the Yippie movement enacted the “Festival” at the Chicago Democratic National Convention. In Paris, artists, students, and workers joined together to occupy the Odeon Theatre; in Czechoslovakia, playwright Václav Havel published a manifesto calling for liberalization; influenced by the Black Arts movement, South African theatre practitioners used their art in the struggle against apartheid; and Pilar Campesino’s Verano Negro premiered at the Teatro Estudiantil de la Universidad de México (foreshadowing the massacre of unarmed students by military police later that year). Pondering this history in conjunction with the current moment—anti-immigration sentiment, refugee crises, the dangers of global warming—and my position as both a theatre professor and practitioner, I wondered what kind of actions would occur as 2018 unfolded: Would theatres be shut down? Would students take over college campuses, like they did at Columbia University in ’68? But about six months after Trump’s inauguration the sign on my commute to work had changed. It still contained only one word, but the sign now read, “Persist!” And six months after that, as I worked on fine-tuning this special issue, the sign no longer contained any words at all, but only a peace sign. What had shifted for this protester to become a cheerleader, to then be rendered speechless? I am currently unaware of any artists shutting down theatres; antithetically, the lead actor of the upcoming Pretty Woman: The Musical lately commented, “I think with the state of the world that we’re in right now, art sometimes has to go to the other side. So, a great story like this—a fun, beautiful fairy tale—is just what we need at this time, when life is so heavy” (qtd. in Duboff). My students told me that they did not attend the Women’s March this year because they had rehearsal, feared crowds or their own safety, or could not afford to take the day off from work. I thought more about those signs. Clearly, protesters were still resisting and persisting, but in my daily interactions, people seemed anxious, fearful, and beaten down. Recently, however, I gained new inspiration about theatre’s capacity for resistance. My department produced Pia Wilson’s Down Neck, a family drama about the 1967 rebellions in Newark. To [End Page ix] provide context for our audiences, we organized a salon that featured scenes from various plays dealing with rebellion (Detroit ’67, Twilight: Los Angeles 1992), followed by remarks from Newark scholars and longtime married couple Junius Williams and Antoinette Ellis-Williams (fig. 1). The two spoke of four words connected with rebellion: anger, fear, hope, and vision. To...

I Finally Saw the Greek Theatres: Impressions on Teaching Undergraduate Theatre History Ed Menta (bio) For thirty years, first on clunky, overheated metal slide projectors and then on unimaginatively designed PowerPoints on interminably slow laptops, I have been showing pictures of the theatres of Dionysus and Epidaurus in my unit on the Greeks in my undergraduate theatre history course. But I had never personally visited these landmarks. Even though I repeated anecdotes that I had only heard secondhand about the perfect acoustics and the tour guides dropping pennies, I had never actually been there myself and actually heard those tour guides and pennies. If only I could walk through these ancient orchestras and theatrons, wouldn’t the first theatre history course in our sequence (variously titled over the years Theatre History I, Theatre of Communion, and First Theatres) benefit from my firsthand experience? During the summer of 2014, thanks to the research funding generously provided by the James A. B. Stone College Professor Endowed Chair at Kalamazoo College, I finally got the chance to see six ancient Greek theatres: Dionysus, Delphi, Thorikos, Thera, Corinth, and Epidaurus. Although the research funds did not cover the expenses of my wife, Tina, thankfully she accompanied me anyway. Since I am the world’s worst photographer, Tina snapped all of the photos and did a tremendous job. (It was also wonderful having her as a companion on this endeavor—it was a delightful way to celebrate our thirty-fifth anniversary!) After being situated in our hotel in Athens and meeting with our guide, a thirty-year dream finally became a reality: I saw the theatre of Dionysus! It seemed much smaller than the impressions I had stored up all these years of looking at the slides. Walking all around the theatre and sitting in several different places in the theatron, I eventually settled in the very top row—about eighty meters away from the stage—and tried to imagine the very first performance of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex in around 430 bce with presumably an Athenian citizen sitting in this very spot (or something like this same spot; the theatre, of course, has been completely reconstructed a number of times since the fifth century bce, first by the Greeks and then the Romans). Despite my initial impression of intimacy, looking down, the stage seemed tiny, and the angle of the seats very steep. I tried to imagine actors in the orchestra in front of the skene: they would have been about an inch high in my perspective (fig. 1). Raised stage or not, there would have been no issues in viewing both the chorus and actors. Clearly, all performers would be visible from this height and distance. It was also an exceedingly hot day and all seemed dry and dusty, perhaps not unlike the conditions at the City Dionysia. Could the sounds and movement from the location down below on such a hot day, in a crowded theatre with 17,000 other Greek citizens, have really made such an impression that everyone knew immediately that they were watching an instant classic and destined to be the first Greek play collected in every anthology afterwards? Or did it not matter what happened on that “opening night” almost 2,500 years ago? Do we really have Aristotle’s Poetics to thank for Oedipus Rex’s staying power? I thought the same thing a few days later when we headed to Delphi through the mountains of Parnassus and passed the legendary spot where “three roads meet,” supposedly where Oedipus killed Laius (fig. 2). Again, I had the sensation of long-awaited completion, of finally seeing the actual [End Page E-11] Click for larger view View full resolution Fig. 1. The theatre of Dionysus, viewed from near the top of the theatron. The scaffolding at the upper left of the photo is presumably for lighting for construction or a recent event. (Photo: Tina Menta.) Click for larger view View full resolution Fig. 2. “Where three roads meet,” the legendary location where Oedipus killed Laius, in the mountains of Parnassos. (Photo: Tina Menta.) [End Page E-12] Click for larger view View full resolution Fig. 3. At the “center...