The Great European Stage Directors, Volume 1: Antoine, Stanislavski, Saint-Denis ed. by Peta Tait, and: The Great European Stage Directors, Volume 2: Meyerhold, Piscator, Brecht ed. by David Barnett, and: The Great European Stage Directors, Volume 3: Copeau, Komisarjevsky, Guthrie ed. by Jonathan Pitches, and: The Great European Stage Directors, Volume 4: Reinhardt, Jessner, Barker ed. by Michael Patterson (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Great European Stage Directors, Volume 1: Antoine, Stanislavski, Saint-Denis ed. by Peta Tait, and: The Great European Stage Directors, Volume 2: Meyerhold, Piscator, Brecht ed. by David Barnett, and: The Great European Stage Directors, Volume 3: Copeau, Komisarjevsky, Guthrie ed. by Jonathan Pitches, and: The Great European Stage Directors, Volume 4: Reinhardt, Jessner, Barker ed. by Michael Patterson Ryan M. Prendergast The Great European Stage Directors, Volume 1: Antoine, Stanislavski, Saint-Denis. Edited by Peta Tait. Great Stage Directors series. London: Methuen Drama, 2019; pp. xi + 225. The Great European Stage Directors, Volume 2: Meyerhold, Piscator, Brecht. Edited by David Barnett. Great Stage Directors series. London: Methuen Drama, 2019; pp. xi + 226. The Great European Stage Directors, Volume 3: Copeau, Komisarjevsky, Guthrie. Edited by Jonathan Pitches. Great Stage Directors series. London: Methuen Drama, 2019; pp. xii + 204. The Great European Stage Directors, Volume 4: Reinhardt, Jessner, Barker. Edited by Michael Patterson. Great Stage Directors series. London: Methuen Drama, 2019; pp. xiii + 203. "[W]ho would unite so many scattered elements? Who would give the signal?" (1:31). These queries of stage director André Antoine about his leadership of the Cercle Gaulois encapsulate the challenges facing those writing the history of stage direction. The role's malleable scope and evolving identity over time demand nuance and expertise with various disciplines, practices, and artists. Under the editorial guidance of Simon Shepherd, Methuen Drama's series The Great European Stage Directors answers these challenges by providing an essential and compact resource directed at students, academics, and practitioners. Although the blurb for the series hazards overstatement by deeming itself "authoritative" and "comprehensive," the series' overall ambit engenders a substantive engagement with the topic and associated fields. Rather than offer grand narratives, each volume in the series focuses on three specific directors whose lives, careers, and legacies span various practices, traditions, and chronologies. The complete series totals eight volumes, but Methuen Drama has released it evenly as two subseries, with the mid-twentieth century as a line of demarcation. [End Page 112] (Methuen Drama has also published a congruent series for North American stage directors.) The editorial selection of "great directors" may prompt questions about "canonic" status. Shepherd, however, states in the series introduction (reprinted in each volume) that "[c]elebrity is not in itself necessarily relevant to being important" (1:5). Individual volumes further complicate the reception of their subjects, and some authors decry any innocence in using the adjective "great." To borrow from Jonathan Pitches's introduction to Volume 3, the importance of the directors chosen for the series stems not only from their individual accomplishments "but because they speak to the development of the role itself, in all its instability and contentiousness" (3:13). The themes of instability and contention certainly manifest in all the contributions. The criticisms, debates, and juxtapositions within and across the volumes also illuminate the broader milieus in which these artists and their innumerable collaborators worked. Volumes 1 through 4 intertwine directors initially active in France (Antoine, Saint-Denis, and Copeau), Russia (Stanislavski, Meyerhold, Komisarjevsky), Germany (Piscator, Brecht, Reinhardt, and Jessner), and Britain (Guthrie and Barker), but whose careers and artistic legacies eventually reached across Europe and North America. The four editors of the individual volumes (three of whom are contributors themselves) provide valuable introductions that summarize methodology and aesthetic context. The sections for each director follow a general pattern of biographical summaries, case studies of key productions, and legacy assessments. Each section's internal structure and approach remain distinctive, reflecting the diverse critical and discursive aims of the twenty-five contributors (predominantly scholars based in the United Kingdom). Some challenge familiar assumptions about directors who already boast a substantial body of secondary literature, like Brecht and Stanislavski. Correspondingly, others offer stimulating evaluations of directors less familiar to anglophone readers, like Saint-Denis, Komisarjevsky, and Jessner. Volume 1 frames the careers of André Antoine (1858-1943), Konstantin Stanislavski (1863-1938), and Michel Saint-Denis (1897-1971) as mutually reflexive and transformative for the theatrical traditions of Naturalism and Realism. As editor Peta Tait explains in the introduction, their extensive experience as performers grounded their subsequent activity as directors, teachers, and administrators. Brian Singleton's...