An Impossible Question From A Chinese Actor - Why is Shakespeare eternal? - drove Sidney Homan after fifty years in the theater to ponder just what makes Shakespeare... well, Shakespeare. The result, Directing Shakespeare, reflects the two worlds in which Homan operates - as a scholar and teacher on campus, and as a director and actor in professional and university theaters. His concern is the entire process, beginning in the lonely period when the director develops a concept and moving into increasingly larger realms: interaction with stage designer; rehearsal; and public performances in...

In Hitler in the Movies: Finding Der Fuhrer on Film, a Shakespearean and a sociologist explore the fascination our popular culture has with Adolf Hitler. What made him ... Hitler? Do our explanations tell us more about the perceiver than the actual historical figure? We ask such question by viewing the Hitler character in the movies. How have directors, actors, film critics, and audiences accounted for this monster in a medium that reflects public tastes and opinions? The book first looks at comedic films, such as Chaplain's The Great Dictator or Ernst Lubitsch's To Be or Not to Be (1942),...