Backwards and Forwards: A Technical Manual for Reading Plays

Rating:
Summary: Valuable advice
Review: The scope of BACKWARDS AND FORWARDS is narrow, but its ambition is important. This is a book about how to read a play. More specifically, it's about how to read a play whose production you are planning. There are 96 pages in this book and many of them are only partially filled. Some of them are blank. So in very few pages, author David Ball gives some valuable and (I would say, essential) advice. So many bad productions are bad simply because of a basic misreading of the script. Ball tells prospective directors what's important and how to recognize what's important. His advice is very straightforward and concise. He does not pad the book by going off on tangents or use long anecdotes to illustrate a point. He makes a point and then moves on to the next one. I think this book should be compulsory reading for the director, but it is also valuable to the playwright, the actor and the designer. This book is basic. There is a great need to get back to basics. David Ball has done the theatre a great service by writing this valuable book.