Speculative Enterprise: Public Theaters and Financial Markets in London, 1688–1763 By Mattie Burkert. Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2021; pp. ix + 284, 7 illustrations. $95.00 cloth, $39.50 paper, $29.50 e-book.

Abstract

and Arabophobia in the current nativist political climate, Najjar designates persecution plays in Chapter 3 as works that explore these issues in relation to governmental and societal persecutions. Back of the Throat (2005) by the playwright Yussef El Guindi is one such play produced in the post-9/11 era. In Chapter 4, Najjar specifies that diaspora plays, “[l]ike the previous persecution plays . . . deal with many complicated issues, but they are more personal and less about the outside persecution they feel around them (though many have this aspect as well)” (95). From plays set in the homeland discussed in Chapter 5, which recreate and reimagine the lost country of origin and attend to troubles stemming from occupation and colonialism, to conflict plays analyzed in Chapter 6, filled with stories concerning refugee crises and civil wars, it is possible, as observed by Najjar, to notice a pattern gesturing toward the fact that Middle Eastern American theatre is living through a renaissance of sorts as more plays and companies turn their attention to Middle Eastern American communities. Through a shift of focus from the works of playwrights to the critical perspectives of influential directors in an interview format, Najjar concludes his book with a constructive dialogue shaped around the development of artistic creation and pivotal issues faced by the Middle Eastern theatre. Via its astute intervention in the aesthetic discourse of Middle Eastern communities in the Americas, Najjar’s text felicitously enriches the burgeoning scholarship of Middle Eastern American theatre.