Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1983 - 26

BOOK REVIEWS
The Garrick Stage: Theatre and
Audience in the Eighteenth Century
by Allardyce icoll. Athens: University of
Georgia Press, 1980. ISBN 0-8203-0510-3,
192 pp., ill., 525.00 cloth.
Allardyce icoll was for over 50 years
one of the major figures writing on the history of theatre and drama. His knowledge,
emhusiasm, and clear-sightedness are nowhere more visible than in The Garrick
Srage, his last vemure into a period of theatre
history which held for him a special imeresl.
Substamially completed before his death in
1976, the text has been edited by Sybil Rosenfeld, who was principally responsible for
selecting the hundred-odd illustrations which
fill these pages with rich and evocative images of the Garrick era.
Scholarship, the product of a lifetime's
research, is cenainly evidem here, bUl it is
lightly worn, and consequemly the book is
bmh an excellem imroduction to these four
decades of English theane as well as a desirable addition to the 18th-cemury scholar's
bookshelf. There is some duplication of
material to be found in existing theatre histories, yet even when icoll is traversing familiar ground, he is ne\'er doctrinaire, never
settles for the rehearsal of critical commonplaces, and in fact frequemly supplie a fresh
observation or a particularly unhackneyed
perspective.
What should be brought to the attemion
of TD& T readers is the fact that this is preeminemlya book about theatre, nm about
literature. This i as it should be, of course,
for the Garrick years constitUle a period of
great acting and often less than memorable
writing. The emphasis is appropriately on
Garrick as actor and manager, on the new
"natural" style he ushered in, and on the
playhouse where his popular stage characterizations came to life. icoll offer, as he
says, a journey "front-stage and back-stage
into the Georgian playhou e realm," and he
i a shrewd and ympathetic guide. The last
three chapters are particularly well-done:
"The Playhouse" (replete with ground plans,
section views, interiors, and exteriors of
theatres inside and outside London), "Lights
and Scenes," and "Co tumes Old and New."
Though he neatly amid tidy but implistic explanations of the many changes taking place during these years, Nicoll does suggest that inno\'ations in stage de ign commenced with the nO\'el use of the cunain as
an "act drop" in I 63, cominued \\ith the
ad\'ances in illumination of the ;tage introduced by Garrick in 1765 (the remo\'al of the
chandelier and increase in the number of
concealed stage candles), and finally cli2.1

Theatre Design &

Technolog~

maxed with the revolution in set construction
instigated by de Loutherbourg in the decade
of the 1770's. All of these elemems combined to give the "scene" a significance it
had nm possessed in the past.
There were no fewer changes in stage
coslllming. Greater demand for historical
accuracy, along with a desire for exmicism
and colorful novelty on the pan of the audience, led to a greater coordination of the acting team. No single person yet resembled the
modern director or producer, but de Loutherbourg's appoimmem as Theatrical Officer at Drury Lane, with authority over both
scenery and costuming, heralded an importam shift in thi direction. Even though
choice of dress remained, as icoll makes
clear, a matter "com rolled by privilege, protocol, and convemion," by 1772 Thomas
Jeffries could praise Garrick for the fact that
costumes were "no longer heterogeneous and
absurd 1vlixt ures of foreign and Ancient
J\lodes, which formerly debased our Tragedies, by represeming a Roman General in a
full-bottomed peruke, and the Sovereign of
an Eastern Empire in Trunk Hose."
This is a shon, compact survey, generously illustrated, and written in clear, flexible prose. Satisfyingly free of stale notions
and easy generalization, it give a keen sense
of a panicularly lively and fluid period in
theane history.
Thomas J. Campbell
Fon Hays State niversity

Stage Sound by David Collison. ew
York: Drama Book Publishers, 1982.
ISB 0-304-30987-7, 192 pp., illus., $20.00
paper.
Da\'id Collison begins hi imroduction
to the second edition of SIage SOl/lid with a
look back at the role that sound has played
in theatrical production O\'er the last thiny
years. Ha\'ing inherited the honorable and
ancient traditions of rumble cans and thunder runs, stage sound leaped cemuries with
the electronic revolution that ha occurred
since the mid-fifties. Collison has been totally caught up in this re\'olution as a technician, designer of soundscape and sound
system , and as an imernational consultam.
In hon, he knows whereof he speaks.
Although the ubject may seem daunting to those who do not knOll an ohm from
an 0 cilloscope, Colli on ha cut away the
mystical \"eils and ha produced a clearly
\Hitten, \\ell-illu>trated, and ea;~ to 1'0110\\
guided tour of the physics, technology, and
applicat ion of ,ound to theat rical purposes.
The book is both an excellent learning tool

USITT \\'illlcr 1983

for the neophyte and a handy, useful reference for the seasoned hand.
The book is divided imo two pans. In
the first, Collison describes what each piece
of equipment is and how it functions. He
covers ten subjects in sixty-four pages of
simple, direct prose with an abundance of
equally clear diagrams and photos. In the
second pan, Collison discusses the use of
sound for effects and reinforcemem and
here he provides anecdotal and emenaining
examples from his very wide experience.
He concludes with a technical glossary and
a list of terminology in four languages.
Srage Sound is an easy book to praise
because it covers its topic so well and because it is so obviously "user-friendly." It
has a place on everyone's book helf-director, designer, technical director, technician.
It may be said that if you haven't read Colli on, "You ain't heard nothin' yet!"
Brian Arnott
Toromo

Analytical Sourcebook of Concepts
in Dramatic Theory by Oscar Lee
Brownstein and Darlene M. Dauben. Westpon: Greenwood Press, 1981. ISBt 31321309-7, xxi 560 pp., 545.00 cloth.
In the imroduction to this sourcebook the
editors indicate that their purpose is "to
make easily available bmh the specific detail
of ideas and argumems and their place in the
larger comexts of the development of thought
about drama." They suggest the usefulness
of the book as a quotation finder, as a topical
index to the works surveyed, as a historical
dictionary, and a a thesaurus. A reader using this sourcebook will be able, for example,
to turn to the category "Character" and
trace the commemarie on the treatmem of
character in drama from Aristotle' Poerics,
Rheroric, and Sicholl/acheall £lhics through
the \\'orks of 2~ writers.
The 7~ categories in the sourcebook range
from "Action, Aesthetic, Affect, and Alienation" to "Uni\'ersality, Variety, Will, and
Wonder." Shon biographies and bibliographies follow with a useful index for each
author. plus a general index of names and
titles. and an index cO\'ering terms and
topics.
It is apparent that the sourcebook will indeed be \'aluable in the e terms. \\'hether the
book completely fulfills the expectations of
the title is another question. It \\ill be useful
as a tool in analysis, but there is \'ery little
analysis in the book it elf. The categories are
sometimes sketchily indicated ... Alicnat ion"
is defined in one sentence, and there is no

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1983