Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2015 - Humanities — Performing Arts

DesRochers (theater, Long Island Univ., Post) offers a unique analysis of modern American comedy through pairing a vaudeville-era performer with a contemporary comic: Groucho Marx and Larry David, Mae West and Tina Fey, Will Rodgers and Stephen Colbert, Bert Williams and Dave Chappelle.   The volume begins with an analysis of the vaudeville aesthetic and traces its evolution through radio and television into post-1960s stand-up and improv comedy and finally into new media (Internet, and so on).  Then, through four chapters, each devoted to one pair, the author examines how performers of the last century reinforce, deconstruct, confront, and undermine stereotypes of ethnicity and gender, considering not only the pairings listed above but also relevant and similar comedians.   Eminently readable and yet densely packed with history, theory, and jokes, the book is an excellent model for how to write about comedy, given E. B. Whites famous dictum, Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.  The humor is alive in this volume and shown to be part of a living tradition of social commentary through comedy. Summing Up: Essential. All readers.

Just as tragedies demonstrate transcendent achievements in the face of death, so do circus performers demonstrate what skilled humans can achieve often against dangerous obstacles.  Similarly, as comedies demonstrate human frailties in the face of life-affirming conclusions, circus clowns demonstrate how people stumble even as they persevere.  The history of what we call circus goes back to ancient times.  Simon (emer., Skidmore College) has achieved a great deal in this book.  Often relating circuses to the ways they have been represented in art, she offers detailed descriptions of the basic elements of circus acts.  After a fine introduction covering circus history, she devotes chapters to the elements that make up circus performance.  She addresses the conflict that emerged in the 19th century between one-ring circuses and circuses that had three rings of simultaneous performers.  Sadly, there is no mention of the role the subsidized Soviet circus had in refining circus art and developing training methods that have been emulated throughout the world.  This notwithstanding, this beautifully produced bookwith its excellent color reproductions, extensive notes, and useful bibliographyis a must for those interested in popular culture.Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates, vo-tech students, graduate students, professionals, general readers.