Book Reviews: "What's the Play and Where's the Stage?: A Theatrical Family of the Regency Era," by Alan Stockwell

What's the Play and Where's the Stage?: A Theatrical Family of the Regency Era Alan Stockwell Vesper Hawk, 2015 ?16.95 hb. 420 pages, 27 b/w ill. ISBN 9780956501363

Alan Stockwell's What's the Play and Where's the Stage? provides a remarkably detailed history of the Jonas & Penley Company of Comedians and their descendants who, "dragging themselves up from obscurity, became established as one of the most reputable theatrical families in the provincial Georgian and Regency theatre" (13). Starting in the 1790s, the book traces the fates and fortunes of various Penleys across six chapters (or "Acts") as they travel between country towns and over the sea to Europe, building successful theatres, facing...