How to Read a Play

by Damon Kiely

How to Read a Play outlines the cruicial work required for a play before the first rehearsal, the first group reading or even the before the cast have met. Directors and dramaturgs must know how to analyze, understand and interpret a play or performance text if they hope to bring it to life on the stage. This book provides a broad range of tools and methods that can be used when reading a text, Contributions, reflections and interjections from a host of successful directors make this the ideal starting point for anyone who wants to direct a play, or even devise one of their own. This wide range of different approaches, options and techniques allows each reader to create their own brand of play analysis.

Genres: Theatre, Nonfiction

216 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1900

Reviews

[Michael Gravante · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do not believe Goodreads when it says that this book was published in 1900!! This is a lie!! It was published in 2016! Goodreads, fix this IMMEDIATELY!!!

This has been a PSA from me.

Back to the book: I really liked reading How to Read a Play, even though it took me quite a while to read lol. It's extensive and goes into detail about directors of the past including people I had never heard of before; it contains interviews from a diverse group of contemporary theatre makers; and I got to relearn some ideas and concepts about analysis that I first learned in school and some completely new ones by reading this book as well. The workbook section at the end provides some good tools, but I really really liked its emphasis on finding your own method of analysis. Not every play will require the same basic structure of analysis because every play is different. Every director is different as well, so while I won't follow this book to the letter, that's okay because the author doesn't want me to. It encourages individuality and brainstorming my own methods to analyzing a play, and I do want to use this book in the future while I hopefully become a director for the theatre.

My cons about the book were that it seemed too extensive at times, especially the workbook section at the end. (Too wordy for a workbook, in my humble opinion.) The section on Devised Theatre wasn't as engaging to me, just because I do not have an interest in working on Devised Theatre at the moment, so I was really just reading it to finish the chapter. Finally, while I do acknowledge that the author Damon Kiely has had a successful directing career, I didn't agree with all of his staging choices or ideas that he mentions throughout the book.

Note, while this is a fairly modern book, "How to Read a Play" heavily uses classic plays as examples for analysis concepts. In order to not get confused while reading this book, read Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" and Tennessee Williams's "A Streetcar Named Desire" beforehand. It will also help you in the long run, because those plays are a necessity to read if you want to do any sort of theatre in the future.

[Mordred Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

An in-depth book with lots of useful information for those wanting to approach, read and/or perform a piece of theatre. It looks at various theatre approaches from those used by the Ancient Greeks to Stanislavski to present day American devising companies.
It is a useful book for theatre students and practitioners, definitely one to read with a highlighter in hand to help with note taking.

My only mild complaint is regarding layout: occasionally interviews (enclosed in boxes/borders) are placed in the middle of paragraphs/segments about unrelated productions which can be a little confusing.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Filled with a wealth of interviews and specifics, this is a really outstanding addition to the director's bookshelf. I doubt you could implement every technique, but there are so many tools at hand it can provide inspiration for almost anyone. It's a book I'll come back to.