Stage Reference THEATRICAL reference books are good as and when
they stick to facts, recording what happened and who took part when and where; for good measure it is often desirable that a consensus of critical opinion written at the time be requoted on the chief events.
They fail to be useful reference books when too much of their content consists of stamping-grounds for critics and other commentators with pet hypotheses to be expounded.
The Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet, edited by Hugh Fisher (A. and C. Black, 12s. 6d.) records almost every fact that matters about the achievements and personnel of the company during its first ten years; it also records an account of the company's history which fails to discuss any of the shortcomings in that history. The tabulations and photographs together add up to a clear picture of the volume and intensity of a decade's activity.
International Theatre Annual, edited by Harold Hobson (Calder, 21s.) is scarcely international enough in its coverage (omitting the USSR, the satellite countries, Scandinavia, Latin America, and most of Western Europe). There is some sound and stimulating writing on the London Year, on Brecht, on Shakespeare in Canada; for the rest, hobby-horses both grand and ignoble are ridden all round French actresses and playwrights, symbolic dramatists, the theory of Great Acting and sundry other matters. And there are too many literal errors for a reference book on any subject—even one on Errors in Typo- graphy.
A. V. C.
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