In Other Words: Women Directors Speak

This resolutely academic examination of the British theater is seen through the eyes of 14 prominent directors working in the United Kingdom. Manfull (coauthor with her husband, Lowell Manfull, of The Stage in Action) takes great pains here to keep to the high road, skirting for the most part all feminist issues for the majority of the sections, and in general allowing these women to concentrate on the creative aspects of theatrical directorship: rehearsal, set design and working with a finished or unfinished script. Several of the directors have children, and a few may have languished in relative obscurity for longer than their male counterparts, yet little of this is brought up, and the author seems satisfied with sticking to the business at hand. The assembled names will mean little to any but the most avid theatergoers and the most Anglophilic of American readers. There are dull sections offering advice to young women that go little beyond suggesting that one attend a good university. Falling into the category of the scholarly but not especially insightful, the book is an admirable work that fails to merit serious recommendation. Photos not seen by PW. (Jan.)