Theatre Design & Technology - Dec 1974 - 35

using themes of freedom and imprisonment, light
and darkness. The language in wh ich Orghast was
expressed was originated by Hughes and developed
by the group through a series of complex exercises
based on that myth.
A. C. H. Smith was asked to join Peter Brook's
company, not as chronicler of an event looking in
from the outside, but as a writer becoming an
integral part of the experiment with great freedom to
observe and discuss work in progress. From this
point of view we get Smith's inestimable account of
Orghast at Persepolis: An International Experiment
in Theatre.
Smith begins his book with a preamble on Peter
Brook's earlier work, and details some of the ideas
that led to the creation of the International Centre for
Theatre Research. He mentions the work done at the
Paris-based centre and some of the results the group
achieved during 1970. A few of these Paris results
which were carried over into the Persepolis venture,
were expanded, further developed and discarded if
found necessary. The experiment was an endless
fermentation process. The author goes into great
detail explaining Brook's approach to acting by
carefully outlining rehearsal procedures, and explaining the work with both the Avesta and Orghast
languages.
Smith writes with an incredible insight into the
work itself and the numerous artistic problems which
the group had to face. He mentions other problems
which were created by pressures on the group
through cultural and language differences and still
others created by political and bureaucratic pressures
exerted on them indirectly through the Festival
organ izers.
The final chapter contains critical material on the
Orghast performance as well as a retrospective view
of the project by Peter Brook himself.
Orghast at Persepolis is highly informative and
instructive as to the nature of Brook's experimentation in methods of acting and the concepts that lie
behind his medium. Smith has written an impressive
and stimulating book.

Anne Frank

SPLENDOR AT COURT
Roy Strong
Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston
;973.287 pp., iIIuS.

THEATRE DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY

The spectacular exhibitions of which Roy Strong
writes with such alacrity and purpose comprise the
outward manifestation of a cult of princely magnificence in whose service all the arts were applied in
chorus to extend the glory of the ruler into the public
domain. In the form of the royal entry, an exercise of
arms or a mythological divertissement, these elaborate and didactic celebrations which were common to
every court of Europe by the sixteenth century were
in fact the liturgy of the epoch, the Renaissance court
having dethroned the medieval church as the focal
point of social order.
But Splendor at Court's biggest reward to the
student of the theatre is the path which it traces both through theory (a long chapter on "The Politics
of Spectacle") and examples of practice (from the
Hapsburg, Valois, Medici and Stuart courts) - of the
nondramatic antecedents of the illusionistic stage.
The Medici chapter in which Strong discusses the
development of stage scenery and the Renaissance
theory of spectacle in connection with the historic
intermezzi of 1589 and 1608 are ·especially noteworthy. So too is his short chapter which treats the
court of Charles the First and the theatre of Inigo
Jones, the concl usions therein having been drawn
from a recent larger study, Inigo Jones: The Theatre
of the Stuart Court by Roy Strong in collaboration
with Stephen Orgel.
Splendor at Court is as rich visually as textually
with nearly two hundred black and white reproductions and sixteen color plates to substantiate Strong's
argument. The illustrations are also generous in size,
most occupying a half page or more. The book
concludes with two items: the first is a ten-page
"I nformation Index" in wh ich Strong cites h is major
sources and offers a brief but exacting comment on
each; the second is several pages of genealogical
tables relating to the ruling houses of Europe for the
historically uninformed to follow the rise of absolute
power.

Brian Arnott

Roy Strong's sumptious Splendor at Court merits
the attention of all those who may have forgotten that
political theatre did not begin with Piscator. This is a
book which gathers together for the first time all that
has been written about Renaissance court fetes in the
past thirty years; and although the title might

suggest a subject somewhat arcane or beyond the
ken of North American readers, Strong's enthusiastic
style and his comprehensive understanding of philosophical bases of Renaissance politcal iconography
together with his innate grasp of the effect which
spectacle had on pre-literate audiences make a foray
into this work an enlightening experience for the
scholar and a pleasurable one for the casual theatrical reader.

Readers interested in reviewing books
should write:
Tony Courtade, 37 Union St., Cortland,
New York 13045 for a cu rrent book list
and the book review guide.

DECEMBER. 1974

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Dec 1974