Players of Shakespeare : essays in Shakespearean performance /

Cambridge University Press has a right to be proud of this book, which is original in conception, beautifully printed and bound, and generously illustrated. The collection consists of 12 essays by well-known Royal Shakespeare Company members, who illuminate their roles in recent (1969-81) productions, revealing with remarkable insight and knowledgeability the actor's professional disciplines. Also remarkable are the individuality and spontaneity that characterize the writing, making all the essays a pleasure to read. To cite only three of the best: Donald Sinden's account of his Malvoleo catches brilliantly the step-by-step building of a role from without, recalling Sir Lawrence Olivier's classic way with a characterization; Michael Pennington, on the other hand, reveals something of the inner-outer dialectic involved in creating the complexities of a Hamlet torn between a public self and ``that within which passes show''; Tony Church's fine essay on his Polonius roles contains a brief case study of how changes in the social-political atmosphere tend to influence interpretations even a mere 10 or 15 years apart. Brockbank's introduction neatly distinguishes ``the director's theatre'' of the recent past from the current relationship between actor and director at the RSC. Highly recommended for academic and public libraries.-R.P. Griffin, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale