2 comments about Mary's Wedding.

1. I read Mary's Wedding the first time while sitting in my bathtub (where I tend to do much of my reading), and I got so engrossed, the water got cold because I couldn't put it down. This is truly one of the most amazing plays I have ever read. Beautiful imagery, extremely touching story (I was also a sobbing mess by the end of it), challenging characters. I HIGHLY recommend this play. Words can't describe how much I like it.



2. This is not a very active or intense drama, mostly a memory play. Although it is well-written, unfortunately, it's not going down as one of my favorites.

No comments about The Circus in America.

4 comments about Pronouncing Shakespeare: The Globe Experiment.

1. The title of my review states clearly what I was looking for in this book, and what I had found difficult to extract from the standard scholarly works of Kökeritz, Dobson, and Cercignani. I award this book four stars because it (and it alone, as far as I know) contains (buried in its chatty commentary about the weather, how the author doesn't get nervous before giving lectures, etc.) this simple desideratum. If you've ever felt frustrated that you couldn't find the 2-5 pp. account for Shakespeare equivalent to such easy-to-find information (on a basic level) as "How to pronounce Chaucer" or "The sounds of Italian," this book is a decent remedy. It would have been better (both for usefulness and book sales) for Crystal & Cambridge to have brought out, instead of this diffuse and incomplete large-font-with-lots-of-white-space-between-the-lines book, an even slenderer (but far more detailed and thorough) volume entitled "Shakespeare's Original Pronunciation: A Practical Guide, With Transcriptions." (Perhaps Crystal, because he is not an expert, was too modest to go this route, but the experts have conspicuously failed to provide this for teachers, readers, and actors.) If you want the meat of the reconstruction, actual phonetic information is contained only on pp. 13, 37-41, 47-54, 60-92, 115, 175-181 (and could have been distilled into a five-page handout). The rest of the book will mainly interest theater people who want additional behind-the-scenes commentary on how the production happened (dealing with actors' personalities, what the audience thought, etc.).



2. Anyone interested in things Shakespearian will not be able to put this book down. I was astonished how interesting it was, and informative.



3. This book might not be the most inventive from a linguist's point of view, but for those, like myself, who are fascinated with modern Shakespeare performance and the Globe Theater, it is quite enjoyable. A welcome addition to any Shakespeare library.



4. I have enjoyed all of David Crystal's books that I have read. He is an excellent linguist, whom I greatly admire for his ability to communicate effectively to a wide audience of varying linguistic experiences. However, this book is a simple narrative description of a project, not much more than a diary. The linguistic impact of this issue would accommodate one article in some journal, certainly not a whole book. If linguistics is your interest, choose another book.

1 comments about Life Lessons from Melrose Pl..

1. For anyone who has watched from the beginning and loved every juicy, guilty moment, Life Lessons from Melrose Place is a laugh-out-loud keeper. If you sit there and yell at the screen, "Jane, you idiot!" or, "Don't trust Michael, the rat-bastard!", this book will bring you mirth for years to come.

No comments about The Actor With a Thousand Faces: Paperback Book (Applause Acting Series).

1 comments about Scriptwork: A Director's Approach to New Play Development.

1. I know David Kahn and when he gave me this book to read for my script analysis class, it opened my eyes one how a play writen and why the writer made the choices he made. This book helps you take new scripts and break them down so they can be produced for stage or film. This book is great for actors when they first pick up a script to their rehearsals. It helps for directors when they discover the event chain of the play and character chain of the play. For set desginers when they discover the world of the play of the character. Also it helps for writing because you can see examples of these things in the workings of a completed play. This great book because it's easy reading. Another great tool for those in theatre.

No comments about The Knight of the Burning Pestle (New Mermaids).

No comments about The People Have Never Stopped Dancing: Native American Modern Dance Histories.

3 comments about Rhubarb in the Catbird Seat.

1. THIS IS A GOOD SOLID YARN ABOUT ONE OF THE BEST RADIO MEN IN THE HISTORY OF BROADCASTING. RED BARBER WRITES ABOUT HIS LIFE AND BEHIND THE SCENES IN THE BROADCASTING INDUSTRY. HIS HONESTY AND DETAILED RENDITION MAKE THIS A GOOD READ. WISH HE WOULD HAVE WRITTEN MORE ABOUT THE GAMES HE COVERED BUT THAT IS THE ONLY REAL THING I DIDN'T LIKE ABOUT THIS. FOR ALL FANS OF BASEBALL AND BROADCASTING HISTORY BUFFS. RECOMMENDED.



2. Problem here is that it isn't Barber's book. Creamer, about as southern as Halifax, slicks matters. Skip this. Look at Barber's work without Creamer on 1947 or actual NPR broadcast transcripts, edited, but not intruded upon by Bob Edwards.



3. While you are reading this book you can feel the breeze coming through the open windows of a warm summer afternoon. The curtains are billowing and the radio is crackling with excitement. You can hear the crack of the bat, the sing of leather hitting wood. When on the road, going from city to city you are jostled by the motion of the train. Mr. Barber writes such a descriptive story, that you feel that you are right there as part of the story. This takes you back to a gentler time in life. I read this book at the start of every baseball season and never tire of it. I take it out of the library, I love the feel and the smell of the old yellowing pages, the black and white photographs. It puts me in the baseball mood. Sometimes, I feel as though Branch Rickey is going to join me for lunch.

No comments about Theatre.