Holiday Gifts for Devotees of Broadway By BEN BRANTLEY

December 12, 2008
Holiday Gifts for Devotees of Broadway By BEN BRANTLEY

Entering into conversation with those who speak Theater — a language shared by a small, passionate subspecies of humanity known as Regina Dramatica — requires more than peppering your conversation with "darlings" and hyperbole. Speaking Theater starts with a shared mind-set, a collective, aggrandizing and affectionately barbed myth of an institutional art form with its own rituals and gods.

Should there be someone in your life who wishes to pass for Theater-fluent — a sensitive young cousin, perhaps, who fills leisure hours listening to "Gypsy" and looking at bound issues of After Dark instead of playing World of Warcraft — I propose giving him or her the following four-volume Theater Literacy Kit. None of these books are recent, but each is, in its way, a template for a different essential aspect of looking at and understanding the theater.

'ACT ONE: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY,' by Moss Hart. (St. Martin's Griffin, 1989, $17.95.) The primal account of falling in love with the theater, and of its powers to transform, written by a man who found a way out of a hard-knock life in a pushcart neighborhood in Upper Manhattan to become one of New York's most sought-after dramatists and directors, in a time when Broadway still glittered like Oz.

'THE SEASON: A CANDID LOOK AT BROADWAY,' by William Goldman. (Limelight Editions, 2004, $20.) A gimlet-eyed counterpoint to the starry-eyed "Act One," this invaluable chronicle of the egos, art and advertising that go into making a single Broadway season was published in 1969, long before the corporate invasion of Disney and Clear Channel. Yet Mr. Goldman's tasty, acerbic narrative of what it takes in dollars, sweat and tears to mount a play suggests that, on Broadway, the fundamental things still apply.

'PETER HALL'S DIARIES: THE STORY OF A DRAMATIC BATTLE,' Edited by John Goodwin. (Oberon Books, 2000, $32.95.) Mr. Hall's take-no-prisoners journal about his years as the director of the National Theater of Great Britain in the 1970s is the ultimate backstage back story, replete with tales of political infighting, artistic love matches and mismatches, and illuminating thumbnail analyses of the elusive greatness of titans like Samuel Beckett, Vanessa Redgrave and Harold Pinter.

'CURTAINS,' by Kenneth Tynan. (Atheneum, 1961) Nearly half a century after he stopped reviewing plays with any regularity, Tynan remains the theater critic's theater critic, a writer who combines surgical skill for dissecting a performance with a fan's drunken enthusiasm. These collected reviews, originally published in British and (later) American newspapers and magazines in the 1950s, present the critic both as a serious force for change (in Tynan's legendary championing of John Osborne's "Look Back in Anger") and a delightful poisoned wordsmith. (Who else would describe "Flower Drum Song" as a "world of woozy song"?) The book may be hard to find at your local bookstore, so shop online instead.

And because those who speak Theater also sing it, at least in their hearts, I suggest completing the package with the boxed CD set 'Sondheim: The Story So Far,' (Sony Classics, 2008, $54.98.) which features 81 tracks spanning the long, fruitful career of the Broadway composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, the high priest of a tradition of wit, elegance and intelligence in musicals that may well be on its last legs. In addition to highlights from Sondheim classics like "Follies," "Sweeney Todd" and "Company," this compilation also includes lesser-known Sondheim efforts for theater, television and film. Astound your friends by reciting what this lyricist wrote for the television puppet show "Kukla, Fran and Ollie." A perfect opportunity to brush up your Sondheim, which for those fluent in Theater today is even more crucial than quoting Shakespeare. (Click here for an interactive feature on "Stephen Sondheim: The Story So Far.")


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