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FOOD AND THEATRE ON THE WORLD STAGE. Edited by Dorothy Chansky and Ann Folino White. Routledge Advances in Theatre and Performance Studies. New York: Routledge, 2015; pp. 286.
Dorothy Chansky and Ann Folino White's collection of essays, bold in ambition and scope, seeks to unravel the relationship between food and theatre, "in all of its sociopolitical, material complexity" (2). The book has its origins in an American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR) working session, co-convened annually between 2008 and 2011. The volume is organized into five sections and is the first of its kind to consider the intersections of food and theatre across genres, historical periods, and cultural contexts. This compendium offers a broad range of chapters that critically reflect on staged comestibles and modes of consumption in performance, providing tasters of significant areas of analysis in this field and serving as a vital reminder of this rich area of scholarship.
The first section, "Dramatizing Gluttony and Famine," presents key dramatic figures in relation to dramas embedded in cultural narratives and politics surrounding national cuisine and identity. Will Daddario and Joanne Zerdy's essay examines the plays of sixteenth-century Paduan actor Ruzzante against their socio-agricultural setting, drawing inspiration from Jane Bennett to analyze food as an actant within this context. Recasting food as a nonhuman actor allows the authors to explore the network of relationships unfolding beyond staged drama, and the way that food informs and shapes cultural narratives. This dynamic is considered throughout the section and is particularly evident in the third essay by Praise Zenenga, which...