... BERNHARDT My Grandmother by Lysiane Bernhardt. Hurst and Blackett. 21s. net. Lysiane Bernhardt 's Life of her famous grandmother is not wholly in the style of the glossy biography, but neither can it rank as a serious study. It is written, as the blurb tells us. in the manner of an unfolding story, and it is a story which often brings to mind the plays of Sardou Oreat as she must have ...

... BALLET The Art of Ballet, by Audrey Williamson, Paul Elek, 12s. 6d. net. As a lecturer at the London City Institute, Audrey Williamson nas done valuable work in explaining the mysteries of ballet to the Man-in- t he -Street. She has incorporated some of this material into her latent volume. The Art of Ballet, which, designed as a guide to the new comer. admirably analyses ballet within the ...

... ALL ABOUT A PLAY The Show Mutt Go On, by Elmer Rice. Gollancz, 1 2s. fid. What a relief sometimes to get back to the ordinary kind of novel! And how disappointing at (he end of it to look back and realise one has only been passing the time in the old game of make-believe. Elmer Rice has more vitality and imagination than any writer one can (hink of who has published this sort of novel during ...

... ELIZABETHAN DAYS Queen Elizabeth in Drama, i by Frederick S. Boas. Allen and Unwin, 15s. Dr. Boas is well known as a profound Shakespearean scholar, and in this series of essays his central figures are Queen Elizabeth and Shake speare, though many oiher characters of the period come into the survey. One of the mosi interesting chapters is that devoted to Edmund Tilney, ihe famous Master of the ...

... Essays on Opera. By tgon Wellesz. (Dobson, 10s. 6d.) Thomas Heywood. By Frederick S Boas. (Williams and Norgate, 8 s. 6d.) From Hoist to Britten, By Rose mary Manning. (Workers' Music Association. 5s.) The History of Wallasey Theatres. By Dennis Farquhar. (N.A.L.G.O., Wallasey, 9d.) PLAYS Miss Mabel. By R. C. Sherriff. (French, J0 Random Hanest. By James Hil ton, dramatised by Moie Charles and ...

... MOVEMENT The Master* of Movement on the Stage. By Rudolf Laban. Mac- donald and Evans. 30s. This is noi a book for the ordinary reader. In fact, the words abstruse, recondite and others will occur to anybody but a really earnest student who tackles it. Yet there is much in it for those with the intelligence and perspicacity to grasp its meaning. Mr. Laban has, of course, genuine mastery of his ...

... REVIEWS IN BRIEF World Theatre. Vol. 1, No. 1. International Theatre Initute. (Olivier Perrin. Paris.) Subscription (one year, four issues), £1. A truly international survey of recent developments in the theatre in Argentina. Belgium, Canada, Chile, Czechoslovakia. Denmark, Finland, France. Germany, Italy, Mexico. Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Sweden, Turkey, U.S.S.R., Sowh Africa, United Kingdom ...

... The Player'* Library (Catalogue of ihe Library of the British Drama League), Supplement I. (Faber, 8s. 6d.). In Town Tonight. By Peter Dun can. (Werner Laurie, 10s. 6d.). My Life, My Stage. By Ernest Stern. (Gollancz. 21s.) We Barrjmores. By Lionel Barry- more, as told to Cameron Shipp. (Peter Davies, 12s. 6d.) Drama Festivals and Their Adjudi cation. By C. B. Purdom. (Dent, 8s. 6d.) The Heart ...

... TEAM WORK The World of Gilbert and Sullivan. By W. A. Darlington. (Peter Nevill, Ltd. 13s.) One of the outstanding examples of team-work in theatrical history was the partnership of William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Seymour Sullivan, two very d^Perent individuals who yet combined delightfully in what arc known as the Savoy operas, though several of the curlier works were seen at other ...

... Drama Its Costume and Decor. By James Laver. (Studio, 30s.) Lifar on Classical Ballet. By Serge Lifar. (Wingate, 21s.) Drama, 1945-1950. By J. C. Trcwin. (Longmans, 2s. 6d.) The Year's Work in the Theatre. 1950-1951. Edited by J. C. Trewtn. (Longmans. 5s.) Alfred Wareing. By Winifred F. E. C. Isaac. (Published pri vately, 42s.) Number Nine. By A. P. Herbert. ...

... A MASTER OF MIME Keflections on the Theatre. Bv Jean-Louis Bjrrault. (Rockliff 21 0 Translated by Barbara Waif from the French edition published by Jacques Vauirain in 1949, this book, by a master of mime, does not confine itself to that art. but tells much about other things of the theatre. It contains, for insttnc; reflections on articulation, breathing, walking, d£cor, gesture, emotion in ...

... ACTORS AT SCHOOL Behind the Curtain, by Lawrence Thompson. (Ward Lock and Co., 1XS. OU./ The son of A. M. Thompson, who wrote, or collaborated in. such well-known musical plays as The Arcadians and Tom Jones, is naturally qualified to write about the theatre. So when he essays to describe every little detail from beginning to end. of a production of As You Like It, by the Young Vic ...