Reviewed by: Writing and Rewriting National Theatre Histories Maggie B. Gale S.E. Wilmer , ed. Writing and Rewriting National Theatre Histories. Studies in Theatre History and Culture Series. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2004. Pp. xi + 277. $42.95 (Hb). S.E. Wilmer's collection brings together the work of international scholars – and the range is impressive, embracing as it does scholarship from North and South America, South Africa, Slovenia, Russia, and Scandinavia among other settings – in order to explore the "writing and rewriting" of a variety of national theatre histories. The context for many of the essays is the theorizing of what it means to write theatre history in the broader context of recent developments in historiographical practices within the field. As such, the volume offers a real intervention into established practices and historical formations of theatre history, as well as into national theatre histories. One of the very obvious problematics of such a remit is that the writing or rewriting of national theatre histories in a relatively limited context can prove impossible, and in some of the essays, there is an unresolved balance between telling the story and looking at the ways in which that story might be told. Thus, when the nation being focused upon has produced so many different and conflicting versions of its own nationhood, it is only possible to indicate the current state of affairs rather than provide much in the way of suggestions for future developments. The broad outlines given by Laurence Senelick in his exploration of Russian theatre, therefore, give evidence of the political agendas behind theatre history writing but cannot encompass the "whole story," as it were. What is useful about Senelick, however, is his exploration of the historiographical significance of the particular "lenses" through which Russian theatre history has been viewed: the analysis of the history of acting, for example. Alan Filewood, in "Named in Passing: Canadian Theatre History," also provides a very useful entry point for the reader with little knowledge of his particular area of focus, in his problematizing of the somewhat arbitrary lenses through which Canadian theatre history has been written. Filewood points to the significance of those people or events that have been ignored or considered irrelevant. If one rewrites by including such events and people, then the whole history has to be rewritten. This, of course, is not a new idea; feminist theatre historians have been trying to map their revisionings onto traditional theatre histories for some decades now. But Filewood, unlike some of the other essayists in the volume, works through the actual re-formations that such interventions may necessitate. Many of the essays in the volume fail to do this; rather, they outline the ways in which we might create a revision in theory but not in practice. From a theoretical perspective, such chapters are useful but they do not fulfil the need for close readings and for the specific material evidences that many theatre historians would appreciate. Many of the scholars who contribute to the volume encounter similar methodological [End Page 244] quandaries – in order to get to the theatre history, they have to first negotiate the whole question of what is nationhood, the nation, and the national. Clearly, there are overarching themes, but sometimes the specific historical and political contexts of a particular geographical setting make clarity of definition deeply contentious. This is especially the case in terms of countries like Slovenia, Israel, and even Belgium. Many of the authors embrace this difficulty and, having outlined specific problems, go on to focus on one or two exemplars only. While this is useful, it is an indication of the limitations of the collection – the reader goes away with more questions than answers and in need of more information than can be provided in a collection such as this. This perhaps indicates that a more closely defined process of editing would have allowed for a collection where certain themes were dealt with more organically, so that the individual essays could be focused more strategically. This having said, the way the volume is constructed allows for broadness and plurality, which are always welcome. Bruce McConachie's "Narrative Possibilities for U.S. Theatre Histories...