Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part One. Positions and Polemics -- No Time for Comedy -- The New Relevance -- Does Theatre Matter? -- Maiming the Messenger -- The Rebirth of Political Theatre: The God of Hell -- Democracy -- When Dramaturgs Ruled the Earth -- Red and Blue States of Mind: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee -- Terrorism -- Part Two. Plays and Productions -- Varieties of Histrionic Experience: Medea -- The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui -- Mind Over Material: The Invention of Love -- Mnemonic -- The Jew Who Buried Hitler: The Producers -- The Harrowing of Hell: In the Penal Colony -- Hamlet -- and Hamlet -- Angels in Afghanistan: Homebody/Kabul -- Goat Song: The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? -- Comedy Is Harder: Private Lives -- The Underpants -- Prescient Plays: Far Away -- A Number -- Creations: Uncle Vanya and Twelfth Night -- Take Me Out -- Our Lady of 121st Street -- Dysfunctional Families, Dysgenic Dynasties: Salome -- Gypsy -- Long Day's Journey into Night -- Smelly Orthodoxies: A Bad Friend -- I Am My Own Wife -- Shotover's Apocalypse: Omnium Gatherum -- Anna in the Tropics -- Palace and Garden: Maria Stuart -- House and Garden -- The Political Power of Puns: Caroline, or Change -- The Beard of Avon -- A King and Two Queens: King Lear -- Valhalla -- Homeboy Godot: Topdog/ Underdog -- Fortune's Fool -- Pyrotechnics and Ice: Jumpers -- Frozen -- The Past Revisited: The Frogs -- After the Fall -- In the Jungle: Rose Rage -- Hedda Gabler -- Impersonations: Monty Python's Spamalot -- Orson's Shadow -- Julius Caesar -- Prosecution Plays: Doubt -- Romance -- The Last Days of Judas Iscariot -- The Pillowman -- Thom Pain (Based on Nothing) -- The Light in the Piazza -- Theatre of the Mushy Tushy: Le dernier caravansérail (Odyssées) -- Lear's Lendings: King Lear -- Part Three. People and Places.

Marlon Brando: Contempt for Acting -- Requiem for Jan Kott -- Pieter-Dirk Uys: The Good Hope of the Cape -- Theatre in Australia: The Cultural Cringe -- Theatre in South Africa: Fronting -- MASS MoCa: A Boom in the Boonies -- Hallie Flanagan Davis and the Federal Theatre: Hallie's Comet -- Suzan-Lori Parks: Does Race Matter? -- Kenneth Tynan and Peter Brook: The Cavalier and the Roundhead -- Shakespeare in Bloom: The Two Noble Kinsmen -- Henry IV -- As You Like It -- George S. Kaufman: Keeping Company with Kaufman -- Shakespeare's Geography -- Primo Levi: The Saved and the Damned -- The Death of Arthur Miller -- Richard Gilman: Prisoner on the Aisle -- Laurence Olivier and Elia Kazan: The Peer and the Pariah -- Index.