Reviewed by:

• Earth Matters on Stage: Ecology and Environment in American Theater by Theresa J. May
• Morgan Grambo

Earth Matters on Stage: Ecology and Environment in American Theater is a dynamic calling in of the American theatre to serve as an imaginative, empathetic, and multivocal advocate against environmental destruction, environmental racism, and climate change through ecodramaturgy. Theresa May's book, which can accurately boast of being the "first book-length ecocritical study of the American theater," engages dozens of theatrical works produced between 1871 and 2015. Earth Matters on Stage is a significant, powerful text primarily due to May's approach: thoughtful readings and analyses of each piece of theatre in relation to the prevailing environmental ethos of the era it is presented in, ranging from complicity in environmental degradation (explicit onstage through the mid-twentieth century, at least) to the emergence of a counter-discourse onstage advocating for a relational, interconnected ecological viewpoint and advancing efforts for environmental justice and decolonization.

May is the author of Salmon Is Everything (2019) and co-founder/artistic director of the EMOS Ecodrama Playwrights Festival. Her eco-critical text is densely populated with frameworks and ways of knowing drawn from a small but burgeoning community of ecodramaturgy artists and scholars, including Wendy Arons, Una Chaudhuri, Downing Cless, Nelson Gray, and Sarah Standing. Earth Matters on Stage defines the practice of ecodramaturgy as trifold: "(1) examining the often invisible environmental message of a play or production, making its ecological ideologies and implications visible; (2) using theater as a methodology to approach contemporary environmental problems (writing, devising, and producing new plays that engage environmental issues and themes); and (3) examining how theater as a material craft creates its own ecological footprint and works both to reduce waste and invent new approaches to material practice" (4). While May does not focus this book's efforts on producing materially sustainable theatre, she has made resources on this topic available elsewhere, including as one of the authors of "Ecocriticism in Theatre and Performance Studies: A Working Critical Bibliography (1991–2014)" on the Theater Historiography website.

Utilizing close readings of various approaches (structural, thematic, character analysis, origins, staging, and so on), May calls forth the environmental messaging of seventeen plays from the past 150 years within seven chapters. In chapter 1, she considers Horizon by Augustin Daly (1871) and Wild West: The Drama of Civilization by William F. Cody (1886), pieces of theatre that support military occupation of Indigenous land and promote white supremacy and ecological violence through the extermination of people and animals. In the second chapter, May analyzes The Girl of the Golden West by David Belasco (1905) and The Great Divide by William Vaughn Moody (1906). These plays serve as apt metaphors for a reclamation of the "biblical garden," calling forth semblances of the Judeo-Christian Garden of Eden as a reason for expansion and land-management strategies (8). The conservation and preservation movements reflected in these plays depicts a "utilitarian or scenic" binary thinking with continuing impacts on the environmental policies of the United States (8). Chapter 3 is concerned with technology and industrial capitalism, the source of the exponential growth of resource mismanagement on this continent. May considers Dynamo by Eugene O'Neill (1929) and the Federal Theatre Project's Living Newspaper's Triple-A Plowed Under (1938) and Power (1937). In the latter texts, May points to the interlocked nature of the welfare of workers and society to the welfare of the land.

Shifting approaches, in chapter 4 May considers a possible call and response between two pieces: Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! (1943) and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (1949). Her analyses show the former as a celebration of settler-pioneers, the termination of tribal sovereignty and the seizure of tribal lands, and a clear post–World War II antiradical standpoint, while revealing the latter as a "warning about the mental and spiritual, as well as environmental, impacts of consumer capitalism" (9). May amplifies the growing dissonance at this time in the...

审核人：

• 舞台上的地球问题： Theresa J. May在美国剧院的生态与环境
• 摩根格兰博

舞台上的地球问题：美国剧院的生态与环境是美国剧院的一个动态呼吁，通过生态戏剧学作为一个富有想象力、善解人意和多语言的倡导者，反对环境破坏、环境种族主义和气候变化。特蕾莎·梅 (Theresa May) 的书可以准确地吹嘘自己是“美国戏剧的第一本长篇生态批评研究”，其中涉及 1871 年至 2015 年间制作的数十部戏剧作品。舞台上的地球很重要是一部重要而有力的文本，主要归功于梅的方法：对每一部戏剧进行深思熟虑的阅读和分析，与它所呈现的时代的普遍环境精神有关，从环境退化的同谋（明确在舞台上到 20 世纪中期）世纪，至少）到舞台上出现了一种反话语，倡导一种相互关联的、相互关联的生态观点，并推动环境正义和非殖民化的努力。

梅是《鲑鱼就是一切》（2019）的作者，也是 EMOS 生态剧剧作家节的联合创始人/艺术总监。她的生态批评文本密集地填充了框架和认知方式，这些框架和认知方式来自一个规模虽小但正在迅速发展的生态戏剧艺术家和学者社区，其中包括 Wendy Arons、Una Chaudhuri、Downing Cless、Nelson Gray 和 Sarah Standing。舞台上的地球很重要将生态戏剧的实践定义为三重：“（1）检查戏剧或作品中通常不可见的环境信息，使其生态意识形态和影响可见；（2）使用戏剧作为解决当代环境问题的方法（写作、设计、并制作涉及环境问题和主题的新戏剧）；以及（3）研究作为一种物质工艺的戏剧如何创造自己的生态足迹，并努力减少浪费和发明物质实践的新方法”（4）。虽然 May 并未将本书的重点放在制作物质上可持续的戏剧上，但她在其他地方提供了有关该主题的资源，包括作为“戏剧和表演研究中的生态批评：工作批判书目（1991-2014）”的作者之一

通过对各种方法（结构、主题、角色分析、起源、舞台等）的仔细阅读，梅在七章中唤起了过去 150 年中十七部戏剧的环境信息。在第 1 章中，她考虑了奥古斯丁·戴利 (Augustin Daly) 的《地平线》(1871) 和威廉·F·科迪 (William F. Cody) 的《狂野西部：文明的戏剧》( Wild West: The Drama of Civilization )，这些戏剧片段支持对土著土地的军事占领，并通过灭绝来促进白人至上主义和生态暴力人和动物。在第二章中，梅分析了大卫·贝拉斯科 (David Belasco)（1905 年）和《大鸿沟》的《黄金西部女孩》。威廉·沃恩·穆迪 (William Vaughn Moody) (1906)。这些戏剧作为对“圣经花园”的开垦的恰当隐喻，将犹太-基督教伊甸园的外表作为扩张和土地管理战略的理由（8）。这些戏剧中反映的保护和保护运动描绘了一种“功利主义或风景”的二元思维，对美国的环境政策产生持续影响（8）。第 3 章关注技术和工业资本主义，这是该大陆资源管理不善成倍增长的根源。May 认为Eugene O'Neill 的Dynamo（1929 年）和联邦剧院计划的 Living Newspaper 的Triple-A Plowed Under（1938 年）和Power（1937 年）。在后面的文本中，梅指出了工人福利和社会福利与土地福利的相互关联性。

转移方法，在第 4 章 May 考虑了两个部分之间可能的调用和响应：Rodgers 和 Hammerstein 的俄克拉荷马！（1943 年）和亚瑟·米勒的《推销员之死》 （1949 年）。她的分析表明，前者是对拓荒者的庆祝、部落主权的终止和对部落土地的掠夺，以及二战后明确的反激进立场，而后者则是“对精神和精神的警告，以及消费资本主义对环境的影响”(9)。可能在这个时候放大了日益增长的不和谐......