theatre@risk - HARDBACK

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A vivid polemic about the dangers theatre faces in the digital age

A vivid and passionate polemic about the importance of live theatre in a digital age, by a man at the cutting edge of drama and innovation

For over thirty years Michael Kustow has been in the thick of innovative, international theatre

Passionate, combative and compelling, he tells us why we need live drama more than ever

Starting from his own personal perspective, Kustow begins with a sobering and often funny account of his Sisyphean efforts to produce Tantalus, a fifteen-hour theatre epic about the Trojan War by John Barton

Then turning his gaze to crucial theatre events of the past fifty years, Kustow explores many different paths:

The rise of the Royal Shakespeare Company and its renewal of classical language

The creation of the National Theatre

The vanguard work of such pioneers as Jerzy Grotowski, Pina Bausch and Pip Simmons

Television's on-off relationship with theatre

And the cutting-edge work of dramatists like Mark Ravenhill and companies like Théâtre de Complicité

Kustow's quest to uncover the roots of theatre leads him into encounters with important post-war and contemporary theatre makers such as Peter Brook, John Barton, Peter Hall, Tony Harrison, Ariane Mnouchkine, Peter Sellars, Robert Lepage, Pieter-Dirk Uys and Simon McBurney

In a new Millennium, theatre@risk uncovers the qualities and values that make theatre needed, more than ever, in a world tidied by information technology and cultural globalization

REVIEWS

"It should be read by everyone who cares about our culture" ~ Simon Callow

"Rare is the book that transforms the personal experiences of a theatregoer into the testimony of a pulsating polemic and a cultural statement of significance. Writers such as George Bernard Shaw, Kenneth Tynan and Charles Marowitz have managed this trick. Now Kustow, who knew those last two pretty well, has done it himself" ~ Michael Coveney