CONCEPTUALIZING SPACE: THE GEOGRAPHIC DIMENSION OF WORLD THEATRE

Abstract

Geography has been accorded surprisingly little attention in the study of world theatre history. Maps are by no means the sum total of geographic knowledge, but their existence (or the lack thereof) provides a handy indicator of an author's interest in the subject. Oscar G. Brockett and Franklin J. Hildy'sHistory of Theatrehas numerous pictures of actors and diagrams of theatres but only one map that directly pertains to theatre. All the rest of its maps (of which there are fewer than two dozen) are standard-issue political maps.Theatre Histories: An Introduction, by Phillip B. Zarrilli and others, is groundbreaking in many ways, but it includes only six maps, and none of these directly concerns theatre. Each of the six volumes ofThe World Encyclopedia of Contemporary Theatreincludes only one map, a basic political one. Other standard reference works on the history of theatre contain no maps; these includeThe Cambridge Guide to Theatre,The Oxford Companion to the Theatre, andThe Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance.Numerous types of map might be relevant for a study of theatre, but aside from the occasional political map, the basic overviews of theatre history do not include such resources.