Margaret Webster [electronic resource] : a life in the theater / Milly S. Barranger.

ISBN:

9780472026036

9780472113903

Title:

Margaret Webster [electronic resource] : a life in the theater / Milly S. Barranger.

Author:

Barranger, Milly S.

Personal Author:

Barranger, Milly S.

Publication Information:

Ann Arbor, Mich. : University of Michigan Press, 2004.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xviii, 367 pages) : illustrations.

Series:

Triangulations

Contents:

Act One 1905---1936 -- An Itinerant Childhood -- Serious Beginnings -- The Old Vic and the West End -- Act Two 1937---1949 -- Broadway Nights -- Giants and Pygmies -- Battle of Angels -- The Making of Othello -- The American Repertory Theatre -- Act Three 1950---1972 -- Life at the Opera -- McCarthy -- Unfinished Business -- Losing Battles.

Local Note:

eBooks on EBSCOhost

Personal Subject:

Webster, Margaret, 1905-1972.

Subject Term:

Theatrical producers and directors -- United States -- Biography.

Lesbians -- United States -- Biography.

Added Author:

Barranger, Milly S.

Format:

Electronic Resources

Electronic Access:

Click here to view

Publication Date:

2004

Publication Information:

Ann Arbor, Mich. : University of Michigan Press, 2004.

Available:*

Shelf Number	Material Type	Copy	Shelf Location	Status
792.0233092 22	1:E-BOOK	1	1:ONLINE	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

"In Milly Barranger, Margaret Webster has found the perfect biographer. In Margaret Webster, Milly Barranger has found her perfect subject. She brings to vivid life a fascinating and important theater figure whose public and private lives were of equal interest. In this carefully researched book, Webster's colleagues, lovers, and friends shine as brightly as she did. I wish she were here to read it."
-Marian Seldes

" Margaret Webster is a highly welcome addition to our knowledge of the first important female director in American theater. Remembered now especially for her staging of Othello with Paul Robeson, Uta Hagen, and Jose Ferrer, Margaret Webster was probably the best-known, in-demand, and admired director of Shakespeare in America in the 1940s and 1950s. Fascinating throughout, the book's discussions of working with Robeson, and of HUAC, which targeted her just as her career was reaching a peak, make for especially engrossing reading."
-Oscar Brockett

Margaret Webster: A Life in the Theater is an engrossing backstage account of the life of pioneering director Margaret Webster (1905-72).

This is the first book-length biography of Webster, a groundbreaking stage and opera director whose career challenged not only stage tradition but also mainstream attitudes toward professional women.

Often credited with first having brought Shakespeare to Broadway, and renowned for her bold casting of an African American (Paul Robeson) in the role of Othello, Webster was a creative force in modern American and British theater.

Her story reveals the independent-minded artist undeterred by stage tradition and unmindful of rules about a woman's place in the professional theater. In addition to providing fascinating glimpses into Webster's personal and family life, Margaret Webster: A Life in the Theater also offers a who's-who list of the biggest names in New York and London theater of the time, as well as Hollywood: John Gielgud, Noël Coward, George Bernard Shaw, Uta Hagen, Sybil Thorndike, Eva LeGallienne, and John Barrymore, among others, all of whom crossed paths with Webster. Capping Webster's amazing story is her investigation by Senator Joseph McCarthy and HUAC, which left her unable to work for a year, and from which she never fully recovered.

Author Notes

Milly Barranger is Alumni Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She was formerly Chairman of the Department of Dramatic Arts and Producing Director of the PlayMakers Repertory Company at the University of North Carolina.

Reviews (2)

Choice Review

Remembered particularly for her Shakespeare productions with actors such as Maurice Evans and especially Paul Robeson (as Othello), British-born director/actor/writer Margaret Webster (1905-72) was a groundbreaking stage and opera director in a largely male-dominated profession. Barranger (Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) follows her Margaret Webster: A Bio-bibliography (CH, Oct'94) with this first full-length chronicle of Webster's theatrical career. Although drawing heavily on Webster's own engaging history of her family (The Same Only Different, 1969) and her wonderful autobiography (Don't Put Your Daughter on the Stage, CH, Feb'73), Barranger fills a number of gaps in those sources (e.g., Webster before HUAC) and provides a more candid and objective account of Webster's career. The author is especially sensitive, balanced, and even muted (appropriate given Webster's privacy about her personal life) in dealing with Webster's lesbianism and partnerships with several women, especially actor-director Eva Le Gallienne and novelist Pamela Frankau. Despite some redundancy and minor gaffes (e.g., spelling Browne/Brown, Rosamond/Rosamund), this solid, readable, nicely illustrated, and well-documented biography will be valuable to those pursuing women's studies and studies in sexuality, as well as theater studies. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through researchers; professional collections. D. B. Wilmeth emeritus, Brown University

Library Journal Review

A well-documented and -written biography immerses the reader in the people and world surrounding its subject, and this first full-scale study of British theater director Margaret Webster does just that. Barranger (Alumni Distinguished Professor, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Margaret Webster: A Bio-Bibliography) smoothly intersperses narration with quotes from a wealth of letters and interviews with actors, directors, critics, family, personal friends, and Webster herself. She thereby illuminates not only an exceptionally talented woman but also the lives and early careers of some of the most important figures in 20th-century American and British theater. By the 1940s, Webster had made a name for herself as the preeminent interpreter of Shakespeare, but she may be best known for breaking the racial barrier on Broadway, where she directed Paul Robeson as Othello in 1942. Her energetic involvement in numerous organizations helped lead to the establishment of off Broadway and other regional professional theater. Throughout, the reader is given an in-depth look at this successful director's philosophy, technique, and style. Highly recommended for public and academic theater biography collections. Laura A. Ewald, Murray State Univ. Lib., KY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.