Editor's Note

By Jim O'Quinn

This edition of American Theatre casts an appreciative eye on the working lives of two important directors—the increasingly visible Ethan McSweeny, who recently took up the reins (along with his partner, Vivienne Benesch) of the venerable Chautauqua Theater Company in upstate New York; and the inimitable Julie Taymor, whose latest undertaking, the full-scale opera Grendel (created with her partner, composer Elliot Goldenthal), is proving to be one of the most extraordinary challenges of her eclectic career.

If McSweeny and Taymor seem to make an odd couple, it is because their coincidental pairing points up the enormous scope of the work finding its way onto contemporary American stages. McSweeny, as arts reporter Jaime Kleiman notes in her interview/profile, moves "from classics to contemporary dramas to premieres with ease," and lays no claim to a signature McSweeny style of direction. His recent baptism into Greek theatre comes as a confirmation of his versatility. Taymor, by contrast—in a long career marked by accomplishments in experimental and feature film as well as commercial theatre and opera—has cultivated a fiercely individual style informed by puppetry, masking and sculpture. She's willing, as critic Eileen Blumenthal observes, to "design and build her own actors" when mere humans won't suffice—as is the case in Grendel's mythic universe.

In certain ways, McSweeny and Taymor are polar opposites. But the interpretive master and the form-bending experimentalist are equally essential to a robust and evolving art form. It's our good fortune that both are welcomed and nurtured in the rich and variegated terrain of America's theatre.

The issue offers up further evidence of the field's aesthetic and formal multiplicity in Trey Graham's nuanced account of the reception in Zimbabawe of the actor-created performance In the Continuum; the complete text of Lee Blessing's fascinating new play about the roots of identity, A Body of Water; and, perhaps surprisingly, in Ben Pesner's detail-rich special report, "Where Are We Now?", derived from recent pulse-taking conversations with theatre professionals across the U.S. When Pesner's candid talkers yearn for "work that confronts and interprets the spirit of the times, "we hear echoes of both McSweeny's driven commitment and Taymor's transporting magic.