ment, and spaces of performance. The book is co-directed production of Marguerite Duras's accessibly written, if sometimes over-long, and India Song for Theatr Clwyd. impressively scholarly in its dedication to its pro- This is where the study both inspires and ject and, particularly, in its extensive research. frustrates. The 'hands-on-detail' of the working A crucial limit, however, is the book's failure to processes and the production commentaries are engage more fully with the political implications all too brief. I wanted to know much more about of its analysis. By Balme's own admission, his the particular exercises which the directors used emphasis is on 'the aesthetic implications and in their workshopping and would have liked processes' of syncretic mixing. But in the light of more in-depth study of particular productions the arguments other post-colonial critics such as (possibly developing key productions, like India Homi K. Bhabha have made about the profound Song, into case-study examples of directing-in- political possibilities of post-colonial mimicry and practice). Moreover, the eclecticism of the volume hybridity (similar, in many respects, to syncret- is both a strength (there is much pleasure to be ism), it is disappointing that Balme concentrates found in reading about the diversity of the work consistently on describing syncretism and stops discussed) and a weakness, since no clear 'direc- short of developing an analysis of its potential tion' emerges. political effects. The women in the study were selected on the JENNIFER HARVIE basis of who responded to the author's request for an interview rather than to a particular brief. That said, this is a book capable of inspiring Helen Manfull young would-be-directors (of either sex); but it is Taking Stage: Women Directors on Directing not so much a narrative about 'craft' as a story London: Methuen, 1999. £9.99. about the passion and commitment which each of ISBN 0-413-72790-4. these women directors brings to her work. ELAINE ASTON This volume joins a growing number of books dedicated to the study of contemporary women's and to the work of women directors in Gabriella Giannachi and Mary Luckhurst, eds. particular. Manfull's narrative is woven out of the On Directing: Interviews with Directors voices of thirteen directors: Sarah Pia Anderson, London: Faber and Faber, 1999. £9.99. Annabel Arden, Julia Bardsley, Annie Castledine, ISBN 0-571-19149-5. Garry Hynes, Jenny Killick, Brigid Larmour, , Sue Sutton Mayo, Nancy Meckler, This is a collection of interviews with twenty-one Katie Mitchell, Lynne Parker, and Di Trevis. The directors working predominantly in contempor- stated intention is to focus on the 'craft' of these ary British theatre and performance. An edited directors rather than their biographies - although extract from a talk given by in 1996 is the book does include some delightful behind- utilized as a forward, and a brief editors' intro- the-scenes anecdotes. One of the most memorable duction contextualizes 'the cult of the director' in of these is from Sue Sutton Mayo, who tells of British theatre practice via an expeditious journey writing to to tell him she just had through nineteenth- and twentieth-century Euro- to get out of domesticity and back into theatre: pean developments, emphasizing the 'challenges Nunn gave her a job on the Nicholas Nickkby tour to the orthodoxy of text-based theatre ... in the which she juggled with organizing care for her 1960s' as 'powerfully' influential on the crop of two young children. current practitioners. To unravel the 'craft' of directing, Manfull The interviews are arranged alphabetically, organizes her study into three parts: Part One which will at least assist the general or under- focuses on routes through to directing, working graduate reader - at whom this book is obviously with designers, and approaches to text; Part Two aimed - in forming their own connections as to looks at workshopping and rehearsal processes shared concerns, approaches to process, and so and at production contexts; and Part Three exam- forth. The editors are also to be commended for ines the material conditions for the directors, their including directors such as Ewan Marshall, Julia attitudes towards feminism, and their inspirations Pascal, and Jatinda Verma, emphasizing the im- and aspirations. The 'meat' of the volume comes portant developments in the continually under- in Part Two which has most to say about the work resourced work from marginalized and ethnic of the directors. There is no single methodology constituencies. Interviews of special note include which these women share, and all have different Annie Castledine's eloquent championship of approaches, although some common features do socialism and aesthetics, and John Fox on cultural emerge - most notably the emphasis on collabor- activism. ation. Processes are illustrated through reference The evident diversity is, however, undercut by to specific productions. Annabel Arden and an abundance of prosaic questions repeated in Annie Castledine both, for example, detail their interview after interview ('What is your principal

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