Title: silly, pretentious, and unnecessary
Product review: This is one of those books that just didn't need to be written. Its central point is terribly obvious and fairly unnecessary, and if the point HAS to be made (over and over), it could have been made easily in ten pages. After reading the book, I see that when McCabe talks about directors misinterpreting plays, what he REALLY means is directors interpreting plays differently than how HE interprets those plays. And he seems to have virtually no credentials to back up his rants. He hates dramaturgs, readings, workshops, backstory, blah, blah, blah. So who cares? I'm not sure why he's so angry and so bitter, but this horrific pandemic of rebel directors raping good plays, against which he rails, doesn't actually exist. Still, the book was interesting in some unexpected ways (sometimes for unintentional entertainment value) even though it holds no real value in any ongoing discussion of American theatre. This is really not worth the cover price...
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