Rating: 
Summary: Valuable but frustrating
Review: There is so much valuable in this book that its shortcomings are all the more frustrating. Nobody else has described in as much depth the history of the improv movement in Chicago since the rise of Second City. Certainly there are hard facts in here that I didn't know, and this is a field in which I wrote one of the early books.Unfortunately, much of the text has been written through such narrow ideological blinders that the author sometimes offers arguments so contorted that she unwittingly contradicts herself. As she quotes from my book, SOMETHING WONDERFUL RIGHT AWAY, I have to confess to being upset by the use she makes of one passage with an early Second City player, the late Roger Bowen. She misinterprets what he said about black players in improv profoundly, and her misinterpretation has the lamentable effect of implying he was a racist. Since Bowen isn't around to defend himself, and since he was one of the most progressive, thoughftul and generous souls ever to grace an improvisational stage, this is deeply disturbing. His memory deserves better. If one can distinguish between the often genuinely insightful analyses she presents and gaffes such as the one I mention above, there is a great deal here to chew on. She correctly identifies the contradictions in a form of theatre that grew out of a desire to offer a progressive/radical view of society and those aspects of improvisation which encourage the reinforcement of stereotypes. I'm not aware of anybody else who has made this point as well, so this would deserve its place in the literature if only for raising this issue. On balance, a book that I think serious improvisers should read, but with some skepticism.
Rating:
Summary: Valuable but frustrating
Review: There is so much valuable in this book that its shortcomings are all the more frustrating. Nobody else has described in as much depth the history of the improv movement in Chicago since the rise of Second City. Certainly there are hard facts in here that I didn't know, and this is a field in which I wrote one of the early books. Unfortunately, much of the text has been written through such narrow ideological blinders that the author sometimes offers arguments so contorted that she unwittingly contradicts herself. As she quotes from my book, SOMETHING WONDERFUL RIGHT AWAY, I have to confess to being upset by the use she makes of one passage with an early Second City player, the late Roger Bowen. She misinterprets what he said about black players in improv profoundly, and her misinterpretation has the lamentable effect of implying he was a racist. Since Bowen isn't around to defend himself, and since he was one of the most progressive, thoughftul and generous souls ever to grace an improvisational stage, this is deeply disturbing. His memory deserves better. If one can distinguish between the often genuinely insightful analyses she presents and gaffes such as the one I mention above, there is a great deal here to chew on. She correctly identifies the contradictions in a form of theatre that grew out of a desire to offer a progressive/radical view of society and those aspects of improvisation which encourage the reinforcement of stereotypes. I'm not aware of anybody else who has made this point as well, so this would deserve its place in the literature if only for raising this issue. On balance, a book that I think serious improvisers should read, but with some skepticism.
| 
