Theatre and the Good: The Value of Collaborative Play - Exploring Teamwork in Performing Arts for Drama Classes & Community Theater

This book is clearly the fruit of a lifetime of contemplation. If we pay attention to what the author is actually saying, more than just his idea about the theatre is presented here. We, potentially, encounter the author as person. For the attentive reader, this book performs a similar role to the theatre itself in that it serves as an antidote to living a somewhat technologically deformed life-style. It invites us, after appropriate contemplation as Fearnow points out, to strive to contribute more of our selves, or at least differing aspects of our selves, to the community at large. Fearnow, in sharing his experience of the theatre, appeals to Martin Heidegger's philosophy. Anyone familiar with phenomenological philosophy, however, will recognize much that may be attributed to Edmund Husserl's insights which have been subsequently mediated through Heidegger.A critique of contemporary North American technological and marketing techniques sets the stage for seeing the theatre as an alternative "tribe" in our media-dominated age. The theatrical tribe enjoys a humanitarian advantage over the one-sided, commercially-sponsored tribes prevalent in modern society. Business, Fearnow reminds us, is not a necessary part of human society. It may not even be a natural part of society. Omitting business he lists sports, work, faith, politics and civic engagement within "authentic tribalism." Here, I am reminded of Husserl's vision, and program, to revise philosophical thinking through a community of like-minded thinkers. I am led further to wonder if Fearnow would consent to add a community composed of philosophers to his list of authentic tribes.In reading the book, I saw Chapters 1 through 4, as setting the philosophical stage for the application of the author's experience with theatre as being more than mere entertainment. Chapters 5 through 7 are lighter reading, the rigors of philosophical thinking having been undergone earlier, and are presented with descriptive case studies and examples of theatre's therapeutic, but not necessarily clinical, collaborative play in our lives. I am among those people who, if I were to go to the theatre I would want to be entertained, as Fearnow has observed in the book. However, there is more than mere reading or intellectual entertainment in the book. The book is, in fact, a joy to read. This is probably due to his honesty and integrity in laboring to share ideas that matter to him and, hopefully, to others.