Talking Books Update (Volume 75)

A new book on global Shakespeare performances with a chapter by former “Talking Books” guest Mark Thornton Burnett, a new edition of Thomas Kyd edited by former guest Sir Brian Vickers, and Shakespeare Survey 76 are covered in this update, but we begin with two books by past guests that are not really about Shakespeare or his contemporary writers but that may still be of interest to readers of The Shakespeare Newsletter.

The Playbook: A Story of Theatre, Democracy and the Making of a Culture War by James Shapiro

Shapiro moves the beginning of the culture wars, so central to American politics in recent decades, back to 1935 and Frankin Roosevelt’s creation of the Works Progress Administration, especially the Federal Theatre Project (FTP). Several shows, such as Orson Welles’s so-called Voodoo Macbeth, and certain other plays and dance programs exposed racism, the dangers of fascism, and social injustice. This became a culture war issue when Democratic Texas congressman Martin Dies, Jr. was appointed chairman of the new House Committee on Un-American Activities. Dies and others fearmongered by associating the creators of FTP projects with communism. Though current culture wars are now largely identified with Republicans, the fears Dies exploited is still a central culture war tactic. Shapiro’s 30 pages on the Welles Macbeth are excellent.  This book is a more focused follow-up to Shapiro’s Shakespeare in a Divided America, which looks as American factionalism over a couple of centuries and through a…