IN VARIOUS DIRECTIONS

Director Guthrie is well-known for his far out way of getting at the central themes of classical theater and for his advocacy of local theater across the U.S. In this memoir-credo Guthrie's remarks have a Sunday Times professionalism which is serviceable but hardly carries the latest news from Olympus. He elevates the ritual of theater into a religious faith derived from tragedy's Greek origins. But in this he seems like a man trying very hard to believe something out of a self-won rhetoric, not a philosopher-craftsman inspired by the Divine Afflatus. He contends that Shakespeare was not ""writing for all eternity""--an idea which doesn't give Shakespeare much credit as a Judge of his own works. He must have known his later work was better than his early literary writing or the sonnets, which were ""eternity-directed."" Sir Tyrone has also a eulogy and a slap on the wrist for Sir Laurence; an encomium for Thorton Wilder; an elegy for Method acting; and a garland of directorial insights regarding Hamlet, Coriolanus. The Nerchant of Venice, Julius Caesar and The Tempest. which are rewarding.