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RR 2006/43 The Oxford Dictionary of Plays Michael Patterson Oxford University Press Oxford 2005 xxxv + 523 pp. ISBN 0 19 860417 3 £25, $45
Keywords Drama, Literary criticism
Review DOI 10.1108/09504120610638726
Any reference work that attempts to define "the 1,000 most significant plays of world theatre" must court a measure of controversy. This reader, for one, was piqued by the omission of Brenton and Hare's Pravda or Marie Jones's Stones in His Pockets, in view of some of the works included here. To his credit, the author, Professor of Theatre at De Montfont University, UK, anticipates such objections and acknowledges the "contentiousness" of about a third of his choices. A concise preface explains that the Dictionary is intended to identify the plays "likely to be of most interest to the Anglophone theatregoer, reader and scholar". It includes texts that can be performed by live actors and excludes musicals, operas and most adaptations from other mediums except where these have become successful in their own right. Patterson, a specialist in German theatre, has had the assistance of three advisory editors, for American, British and classical drama respectively. In truth, although some...