Review by Choice Review
This is the third study--after Jerry Stagg's The Brothers Shubert (CH, May'69) and Brooks McNamara's The Shuberts of Broadway (1990)--of the most powerful theatrical dynasty in US commercial theater history, a force still important in the entertainment industry. Hirsch's is the most complete and up-to-date of the three and the only one with copious notes (albeit his major source is an unpublished series of interviews between John Shubert, the only sole direct heir to the Shubert empire, and writer/one-time Shubert employee Howard Teichmann), and entirely supersedes Stagg's volume. Hirsch (Brooklyn College, CUNY) seems to have tapped little from McNamara's unique and rich source, which provides superior illustrations and draws heavily from the Shubert Archive, of which McNamara is director. Nevertheless, Hirsch is a superb stylist, providing a lively telling of the sagacious albeit avaricious business dealings of the Shuberts, their often strained family relations, Broadway theater from 1905 to the present (under non-Shubert leadership), and the nature of the Shuberts' production and theater ownership practices. This collective biography of the three brothers (Sam, Lee, and J.J.), their successors and their times, is an important addition to the literature on US theater. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers; professionals. D. B. Wilmeth; Brown University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
