Vanishing Acts: Theater Since the Sixties

By Gordon Rogoff

Book Overview

In this outstanding collection of critical writings, some published here for the first time, Gordon Rogoff tells the story of live theater in America over the past forty years. His view of modern drama and its performance is rich with the insights of both a discerning critic and an individual for whom the making of theater is a passion. As Rogoff explores the topics of acting, directing, playwriting, Shakespeare productions, opera, and theater criticism, he celebrates live theater's victories over new realms while deploring the threat of imitative repertories, acting styles, and playwriting. Throughout the book he underscores his conviction that dramatic literature and performance may be taken as a book of instruction for the way we lead our lives.

Rogoff ranges widely in his discussions, considering the work of Peter Brook, Robert Wilson, Ariane Mnouchkine, Samuel Beckett, Tennessee Williams, Alban Berg, and Tony Kushner among others, and the performances of such actors as Laurence Olivier, Donald Wolfit, Judi Dench, Anthony Hopkins, Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, Lee J. Cobb, Vanessa Redgrave, and Geraldine Page. He registers dissenting notes about the accomplishments of Joseph Papp, Eugene O'Neill, and Arthur Miller. In his concluding essay, Rogoff contends that nostalgia--"our millennial nemesis"--may be a way of forgetting rather than remembering.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300087772
• ISBN13: 9780300087772
• Release Date: September 2000
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.6" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Eloquent, accurate, and a joy to read.

This is a dead-on accurate testament from a man who really knows, and has been an improtant part. of the scene for many decades now. Read. Learn. Weep. Re-invent.

Puts Passion Back into Theatre

Reading Gordon Rogoff's Vanishing Acts has revived old passions for the theatre that I thought were dead and gone. I've grown to expect so much-less from a play-going experience these days, but Rogoff's inspired critical writing is like a bellows applied to a smoldering fire -- a force of fresh air that makes me feel excited again about the possibility of a play, an actor or director. I've even decided to go the theatre tonight. So there!