Theater critic, dramaturge, and Village Voice staff writer Solomon (English and Theater/City Univ. of New York Graduate Center) offers a fresh, authoritative view of the canon as the seat, not the nemesis, of postmodern gender theory. Solomon pairs close textual readings of gender complexity in Shakespeare, Ibsen, Aristophanes, and Brecht with reviews of avant-garde productions that unleashed what she considers the inherent trangressiveness of these writers' works. While feminist and queer theorists see only a reinforcement of heterosexism and phallocentricity even in the canon's most ribald gender-bending, Solomon sees real subversion—an invitation to question gender norms. In her analysis of the British theater troupe Cheek by Jowl's all-male production of As You Like It, the Mabou Mines role-reversed King Lear (Lear is played by a woman), the Yiddish King Lear, Charles Ludlum's Hedda Gabler, and the Split Britches' deconstructed A Streetcar Named Desire, Solomon sees a proper rediscovery of all the ``polymorphous potential'' endemic to these plays. To Solomon, these iconoclastic productions were neither as inventive nor as disrespectful as we might think. On the contrary, they did justice for the first time to the richness of these classic texts. The crusty greats deserve more credit than we've given them, argues Solomon. They understood quite well, as did the Puritans who banned their art in Cromwell's England, that theater, as imitation, as performance, as self-consciousness, as irony, is tailor-made for revolt against the social shackles, not just of gender, but of class, race, and sexuality. Solomon is convincing and refreshingly nondogmatic. She has the knowledge, style, and suppleness of mind to make bedfellows of revisionists and dead white males. Her dissent is helpful, not dismissive, inclusive, not harsh. This invaluable contribution to the canon wars is rare manna from academia. (12 b&w photos)
Pub Date: Jan. 21, 1998
ISBN: 0-415-15720-X
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Routledge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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