Actor Training in Anglophone Countries: Past, Present, and Future By Peter Zazzali. Routledge Advances in Theatre and Performance Studies. London: Routledge, 2022; pp. xxii + 229, 34 illustrations. $160 cloth, $48.95 e-book.

Abstract

dated; it recalls “postcolonial” analyses that attempt to validate the worth of othered artists through inaccessible accounts of their work. The postcoloniality of this volume—including its wielding of the contentious term “intercultural”—not only discounts a dominant local trend of fiery, urgent, culturally specific work on regional decolonization, but also takes away what it means—or at least, what it feels like—to embody Oceania. A lack of engagement in this book with contemporary Indigenous conceptions of family, gender, sexuality, and Pasifika youth identities —perhaps an effect of writing from outside our region—overlooks other exciting recent works, such as that of FAFSWAG, the queer, Indigenous, interdisciplinary arts collective based in Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland, Aotearoa. If transpasifika performance needs a poster child, FAFSWAG should be it. As Looser reinforces, allyship remains important and vital to ensuring the international dissemination of our work. But there is folly in writing about us without us: If we can’t see ourselves, are we really there? In short, we are not in this waka together, and though our courses might intersect, our destinations remain distinct.