Actors and American Culture, 1880 – 1920. By Benjamin McArthur. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2000 (reissue); pp. 289, 11 photos. $17.95 paperback.

Abstract

It is a curious comment on the evolution of American theatre scholarship when a reissue retains nearly its original force. That, however, seems the case with Benjamin McArthur's Actors and American Culture, 1880 – 1920, originally published in 1984 and out of print for several years. McArthur was considerably ahead of the pack in 1984 and drew together a wide range of generally thorough research, and the work thus remains a principal, and the most thorough, overview of a crucial era. Since Iowa's is a reissue rather than a new edition, hindsight prompts more exceptions than on first issue, but its basic direction and impulse reaffirm the book as a valuable, if slightly problematic, resource.