Reviewed by:

• Sports Plays ed. by Eero Laine and Broderick Chow
• Sharon Mazer

Sports Plays breaks new ground in inviting contributors to look at how theatre makers have taken up the challenge of representing diverse sports practices and the often-ambivalent social meanings produced as a result. The editors Eero Laine and Broderick Chow begin by asking: “Why put sports on stage?” (1). Both sports and theatre, they note, are part of entertainment culture, performed to be looked at and, for the most part, conventionally constructed with ideas of conflict at center. Sporting events are “designed to be entertaining” (1), as such, intrinsically theatrical. Why then, “would anyone want to watch a play about baseball instead of just going to a baseball game?” (1), they ask, and what is to be achieved in (re)creating the spectacle of a sporting event within the confines of the theatrical environment? Yet, as theatrical as sports are, their associated practices are not readily transferrable to the stage. Pause for a moment and imagine a play in which actors are expected to progress a plot while at the same time safely batting a tennis ball over a net or shooting hoops. Even fight choreography necessarily deviates from the dance-like moves of a boxing, martial arts or professional wrestling exhibition in its turn from the real (or not-quite-not real) of staged hand-to-hand combat to the drama-turgical exigencies of the theatre.

Sports Plays is prefaced by a brief essay by David Henry Hwang. Anticipating the complexities ahead, Hwang muses on his desire to write a musical based on the life of Bruce Lee. “Why,” Hwang asks, “should he sing, when he already expresses himself most eloquently through martial arts?” (xvii). More critically, perhaps, what might it mean to translate Lee’s exquisite physical artistry into choreography? Having got as far as an Off-Broadway play titled Kung Fu – less musical, more “dancical” (xvii) – Hwang tells us he accepted defeat, although the aspiration lingers. For Hwang, “sports and theatre do not inhabit separate, irreconcilable worlds. On the contrary, both are fundamentally dramatic, sagas of physical and mental skill and acuity that play out before our eyes” (xviii). These sentiments are echoed by Harvey Young, who introduces the first suite of essays by reminding us that: “Theatre and sports share an emphasis on structures of seeing (spectating) and hearing (audiencing). In both, we identify protagonists and find drama in their engagements with others” (14). The essays that follow revolve around these fundamental recognitions, while also seeking to deepen our understanding of the pleasures peculiar to watching and thinking about sports plays.

The range of sporting genres represented is wide: boxing; martial arts; basketball; baseball; American football; soccer; rugby; field hockey; tennis; professional wrestling; and cheerleading. Gymnastics and track and field are also mentioned in a number of the prefatory essays. The book is structured in four parts, each prefaced by a brief essay that, like Hwang’s opening passage, offer a positioned perspective. Topics overlap and intersect. The chapters about race necessarily address questions of gender and vice versa, while essays on the theatricalization of combat incorporate discussions of race and gender. The final part is labeled “sports equipment,” although its two chapters are focused first on plays featuring undressed male athletes and then on plays about scantily clothed female cheerleaders.

The first part, “Sports/Race,” is illuminated by Harvey Young’s thoughtful examination of what happens when race takes centerstage in sports as in theatre. Young reminds us: “Histories of race and legacies of racism ghost sports” (14). He observes the ways that star athletes like Naomi Osaka, Simone Biles, and Colin Kaepernick have turned their performances in the spotlight toward demands for racial justice, and how plays like August Wilson’s Fences and The Great White Hope by Howard Sackler have “the ability to bear witness to racialized experiences” (16). The three chapters that follow look at plays that demonstrate this capacity for illumination and in so doing potentially indict the racialist underpinnings of both sport and theatre. In “‘Surviving against the Sharp White [Tennis] Background...

审核人：

• 体育戏剧编。通过 Eero Laine 和 Broderick Chow
• 沙龙梅泽

运动剧开辟了新天地，邀请贡献者了解戏剧制作人如何应对代表多样化体育活动的挑战，以及由此产生的往往矛盾的社会意义。编辑 Eero Laine 和 Broderick Chow 首先问道：“为什么要把体育放在舞台上？” (1). 他们指出，体育和戏剧都是娱乐文化的一部分，表演是为了观看，而且在大多数情况下，传统上都是以冲突为中心的思想来构建的。体育赛事“旨在娱乐性”(1)，因此本质上具有戏剧性。那么，为什么“会有人想看一场关于棒球的比赛，而不是仅仅去看一场棒球比赛？” (1)，他们问，在戏剧环境的范围内（重新）创造体育赛事的奇观会取得什么成就？然而，就像体育一样戏剧化，他们的相关实践不容易转移到舞台上。暂停片刻，想象一下这样一出戏，演员需要推进情节，同时安全地在网上击球或投篮。甚至打斗编排也必然偏离拳击、武术或职业摔跤表演中类似舞蹈的动作，从真实的（或不完全不真实的）上演的肉搏战到戏剧性的紧急情况剧院的。

运动剧的序言是大卫·亨利·黄 (David Henry Hwang) 的一篇短文。预见到未来的复杂性，Hwang 沉思着他想要根据李小龙的生平创作一部音乐剧的愿望。“为什么，”Hwang 问道，“当他已经通过武术最雄辩地表达自己时，他还要唱歌吗？” (十七). 也许更关键的是，将李精湛的身体艺术转化为舞蹈编排可能意味着什么？曾演过一部名为《功夫》的非百老汇戏剧– 更少的音乐，更多的“舞蹈” (xvii) – Hwang 告诉我们他接受了失败，尽管愿望依然存在。对于 Hwang 来说，“体育和戏剧并不存在于分离的、不可调和的世界中。相反，两者从根本上讲都是戏剧性的，都是在我们眼前上演的身心技能和敏锐度的传奇故事”（xviii）。Harvey Young 回应了这些观点，他在介绍第一组文章时提醒我们：“戏剧和体育都强调看（观看）和听（听）的结构。在这两者中，我们都确定了主角并在他们与他人的交往中发现了戏剧性”（14）。下面的文章围绕这些基本认识展开，同时也试图加深我们对观看和思考体育比赛所特有的乐趣的理解。

所代表的运动类型范围很广：拳击；武术; 篮球; 棒球; 美式足球; 足球; 橄榄球；曲棍球; 网球; 职业摔跤；和啦啦队。体操和田径运动也在一些序言中提到。这本书分为四个部分，每个部分都以一篇简短的文章作为序言，就像 Hwang 的开篇文章一样，提供了一个定位的视角。主题重叠和交叉。关于种族的章节必然涉及性别问题，反之亦然，而关于战争戏剧化的文章则包含了对种族和性别的讨论。最后一部分被标记为“运动装备”，尽管它的两章首先关注的是裸体男运动员的戏剧，然后是关于衣着暴露的女拉拉队队员的戏剧。

第一部分“体育/竞赛”由哈维·扬对当竞赛在体育和戏剧中占据中心位置时会发生什么的深思熟虑的研究加以阐明。Young 提醒我们：“种族历史和种族主义幽灵运动的遗产”（14）。他观察了 Naomi Osaka、Simone Biles 和 Colin Kaepernick 等明星运动员如何将他们在聚光灯下的表演转向对种族正义的要求，以及 August Wilson 的 Fences和The Great White Hope等剧目如何霍华德·萨克勒 (Howard Sackler) 的作品具有“见证种族化经历的能力”(16)。接下来的三章着眼于展示这种启发能力的戏剧，这样做可能会控诉体育和戏剧的种族主义基础。在“'在尖锐的白色 [网球] 背景下生存......