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FDU PRESS
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| Scholarly Review |
 | Electra USA
ISBN# 9780838642115
Reviewed by: J. Wetmore Jr., Loyola Marymount University
Choice, March 2010 |
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Choate (theater, Kean University) outlines 11 productions (or series of productions) of Sophocles' play produced in the US between 1889 and 1995. Her stated intentions are two: "to preserve" the productions and "to highlight" some pivotal figures in American theater history, including significant but overlooked women such as Mrs. Patrick Campbell (as she was known) and Margaret Anglin, who directed nine productions of the play in two decades. In addition to production histories, Choate provides individual chapters of Electra, Clytemnestra, and Chrysothemis. She demonstrates how casting and directorial choices shaped experience, understanding, and reception by the audience and how the understanding of the character, the play, and even theater changed over the century. This study is a significant one that offers a model for comparative study of a multitude of productions of the same play. The final chapter on the growth and transformation of the chorus is of especial merit.
Recommended. All readers.
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