Land/Scape/Theater. Edited by Elinor Fuchs and Una Chaudhuri. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002; pp. 390 + illus. $59.50 cloth, $29.95 paper.

Extract

The past three decades have produced a wealth of criticism devoted to the issue of space and performance as well as a glut of terms attempting to capture how theatre artists exploit the spatial dimension. A brief inventory yields spectacle, site, image, heterotopia, simulacra, surface, environment, geography, scenography, visual field, place, and space—to name only a few. Drawing on insights from anthropology, phenomenology, cultural studies, new historicism, and urban studies, critics are working to investigate the cultural meaning of space, to capture its dramaturgical potential, and to rethink performance as a system of communication based on visual vocabulary.