Review by Choice Review
The material Collins (Wimbledon College of Art, London, UK) and Nisbet (Northbrook College, UK) have assembled creates an interdisciplinary framework for the analysis and study of scenography. The contributors include not only theater designers, directors, and scholars but also philosophers, cultural theorists, social scientists, and visual and literary artists, historians and critics--all of whom examine traditional and contemporary performance through the lens of theatrical spectacle. The volume includes work emanating from the canon of Western aesthetic civilization (e.g., essays by Plato, Bertrand Russell) and also new essays by contemporary designers and theorists, thus advancing the discussion into current practice. The editors organized the commentaries into five thematic sections: "Looking: The Experience of Seeing," "Space and Place," "The Designer: The Scenographic," "Bodies in Space," and "Making Meaning." Intended not as a "how-to" book on design or a definition of "scenography," this book provides important historical and theoretical scaffolding on which to build the discussion on scenography. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals. R. A. Naversen Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
