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Reviews

"""An important and exciting topic for a book. Rowen has pulled together an inspiring archive of texts that provoke all kinds of questions about this underacknowledged form of theatrical inscription and I found myself constantly engaged by the examples that she draws on."" --Daniel Sack, University of Massachusetts Amherst-- ""Daniel Sack"" ""Rowen consistently models a scrupulous and innovative method for reading affective stage directions, and the field would be wise to take up her invitation to extend the work beyond this book's thoughtfully defined parameters. So, too, would twenty-first-century theater artists who feel compelled by but also frustrated with O'Neill and his plays. As Rowen shows, the author's copious stage directions can provide them with opportunities to exercise a creative authority that is all their own."" --Eugene O'Neill Review--Jennifer Buckley ""Eugene O'Neill Review"" ""This timely investigation, which re-frames our historical and contemporary understandings of the roles that stage directions play in affecting all bodies that encounter them, establishes a productive path forward for those who write, embody, and analyse stage directions. It rightfully recognizes affective stage directions as tools that prompt creative, inclusive choices in both imagined and staged performances and establishes the groundwork for future studies on the relationship between affect and embodiment on stage."" --Modern Drama--Kaitlyn Farrell Rodriguez, University of Texas at Austin ""Modern Drama"" ""The book pulls off an astonishing feat by being both a typology of stage directions and a stirring call to action. Rowen's hortatory tone drives the prose, performing the criminally uncommon feat of marrying theory and analysis to practicable suggestions and provocations toward performance and production practices..."" --Theatre Survey-- ""Theatre Survey"" ""The Lines Between the Lines is a richly valuable new interrogation of a still somewhat under-explored element of theatre practice and scholarship."" --The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory--Hannah Simpson ""The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory"" ""As a whole, The Lines between the Lines delivers on the promises outlined in its title and introduction: to uncover the affective elements of stage directions that occur in production, embodiment, and performance. Working deftly through a variety of theoretical perspectives, particularly semiotics, performativity, and affect theory, Rowen opens up a purportedly boring, possibly constraining, and always imperative aspect of scripts and illustrates its radical potential for multiplicity and fanciful engagement."" --Tennessee Williams Annual Review--Tison Pugh ""Tennessee Williams Annual Review"" ""Engages an incredibly rich and under-explored topic, and extends the existing literature on the subject in significant and meaningful ways. The book is chock full of really outstanding case studies and close readings... It will be a go-to text for writing about dramatic secondary text."" ---Ryan Claycomb, Colorado State University"

An important and exciting topic for a book. Rowen has pulled together an inspiring archive of texts that provoke all kinds of questions about this underacknowledged form of theatrical inscription and I found myself constantly engaged by the examples that she draws on. --Daniel Sack, University of Massachusetts Amherst Engages an incredibly rich and under-explored topic, and extends the existing literature on the subject in significant and meaningful ways. The book is chock full of really outstanding case studies and close readings... It will be a go-to text for writing about dramatic secondary text. ---Ryan Claycomb, Colorado State University

"""An important and exciting topic for a book. Rowen has pulled together an inspiring archive of texts that provoke all kinds of questions about this underacknowledged form of theatrical inscription and I found myself constantly engaged by the examples that she draws on."" --Daniel Sack, University of Massachusetts Amherst ""Rowen inspires and guides the reader to tend to their own embodied reactions. While ""[c]ross[ing] out these descriptions"" may give production teams and actors a sense of resisting the authority of the playwright, Rowen's methodology provides an alternative that systematically reconfigures this relationships. For all the attention we give to bodies who perform on stage, The Lines Between the Lines reminds us that text, just as vitally, performs on the body."" --Theatre Journal--Tyler Graham ""Theatre Journal"" ""This timely investigation, which re-frames our historical and contemporary understandings of the roles that stage directions play in affecting all bodies that encounter them, establishes a productive path forward for those who write, embody, and analyse stage directions. It rightfully recognizes affective stage directions as tools that prompt creative, inclusive choices in both imagined and staged performances and establishes the groundwork for future studies on the relationship between affect and embodiment on stage."" --Modern Drama--Kaitlyn Farrell Rodriguez ""Modern Drama"" ""In an ambitious project that bridges theoretical analysis and practical application, Bess Rowen considers the significance and importance of stage directions within the theatrical text in The Lines between the Lines: How Stage Directions Affect Embodiment. Tracing the evolution of stage directions from the twentieth century on, Rowen argues that stage directions offer a path toward interrogating the cultural processes of theatre to challenge, subvert, and transform how we think about representation."" --Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism --Catherine Heiner ""Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism"" ""Rowen consistently models a scrupulous and innovative method for reading affective stage directions, and the field would be wise to take up her invitation to extend the work beyond this book's thoughtfully defined parameters. So, too, would twenty-first-century theater artists who feel compelled by but also frustrated with O'Neill and his plays. As Rowen shows, the author's copious stage directions can provide them with opportunities to exercise a creative authority that is all their own."" --Eugene O'Neill Review--Jennifer Buckley ""Eugene O'Neill Review"" ""The book pulls off an astonishing feat by being both a typology of stage directions and a stirring call to action. Rowen's hortatory tone drives the prose, performing the criminally uncommon feat of marrying theory and analysis to practicable suggestions and provocations toward performance and production practices..."" --Theatre Survey-- ""Theatre Survey"" ""The Lines Between the Lines is a richly valuable new interrogation of a still somewhat under-explored element of theatre practice and scholarship."" --The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory--Hannah Simpson ""The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory"" ""As a whole, The Lines between the Lines delivers on the promises outlined in its title and introduction: to uncover the affective elements of stage directions that occur in production, embodiment, and performance. Working deftly through a variety of theoretical perspectives, particularly semiotics, performativity, and affect theory, Rowen opens up a purportedly boring, possibly constraining, and always imperative aspect of scripts and illustrates its radical potential for multiplicity and fanciful engagement."" --Tennessee Williams Annual Review--Tison Pugh ""Tennessee Williams Annual Review"" ""Engages an incredibly rich and under-explored topic, and extends the existing literature on the subject in significant and meaningful ways. The book is chock full of really outstanding case studies and close readings... It will be a go-to text for writing about dramatic secondary text."" ---Ryan Claycomb, Colorado State University"

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Bess Rowen is Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre at Villanova University.

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