John Gielgud's 'Stage Directions'

"It is no use my pretending to be an intellectual where the theatre is concerned," Sir John Gielgud writes in his introduction to Stage Directions. "I am, I hope, a professional." His book bears that claim out.

Where Gielgud's first book, Early Stages, Jeans toward autobiography and family history, this sequel is simply an objective appraisal of past performances and possible roles. He begins with a chapter on acting--"Art or Craft"--in which he discusses preparation, makeup, the question of "business," and The Method.

Reminisces on Roles

From there he moves to analyses and reminescences of famous and less famous roles in his experience. His quick studies of Hamlet, Richard II, Cassius, Leontes,. The School for Scandal, and Chekhov are both practical and perceptive, helpful cribs for students as well as for actors. Particularly useful for this Loeb Shakespeare Festival is Gielgud's discussion of Lear, including in an appendix Granville-Barker's notes on the play, from the Old Vic production of 1940.

The book closes with chapters on "Tradition, Style and the Theatre Today" and "Actors and Audiences" which deflate the theatre of the absurd and at the same time remind us that drama is a matter of living moments more than philosophy. "Nothing can compare with the magic of the real occasion," he concludes, "which is to me the true glory of the ephemeral art of the theatre--the living actor appearing before the living audience; the silence, the tension, the entrances and exits, the laughter and applause, the subtle changes between one night's performance and another's." Gielgud writes about what he knows well and sends us more clear-headed to the theatre.