The Cambridge companion to theatre history /

This collection assembled by Wiles and Dymkowski (both, Univ. of London) brings together 20 working theater scholars to explore the "Why?," "When?," "Where?," "What?," and "How?" (as the five sections are titled) of theater history. The contributors project a deepening multicultural sensibility in their essays on the 21st century and examine the range of tools, especially technological developments, available to researchers since the arrival of the personal computer and the Internet. Reflecting on ways that theater history has been understood and studied in the past, these essayists emphasize the ways that hard facts are linked to cultural and political agendas. The collection makes no attempt to be comprehensive, but contributors dig deeply into selected times, places, and persons to make clear why theater history matters. The "Where?" essays take readers to Liverpool, Finland, Egypt, and Japan, and distinguished scholar Marvin Carlson offers a defining essay on global theater history. Contributors to the "How?" section emphasize the strengths and limitations of various technologies in examining ways that historical evidence is defined and preserved and showing how visual evidence provides keys to reconstructing theatrical events. Seasoned scholars and students alike will find much of value in this diverse collection. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Undergraduates through faculty; general readers. J. Fisher University of North Carolina at Greensboro