I agreee wholeheartedly with those below. But Mr Ball is not merely a theorist, he supplies a chapter in which he takes us on a brief journey backward through Hamlet for a distance, and through this method shows how single and specific Hamlet's action is. I can't approach a script now without setting up my dominoes and charting it backward. It seemes foolish not to.

I had a conversation yesterday in which the other theatre artist asked what approach this book advocated to script analysis:
"is it feminist theory? queer theory? Marxist?"

"No, it's the one where you read the script."

Seriously, I don't know what I was doing in the theatre prior to reading this book, and I am so excited to begin my next project now because I feel that I have so much improved in my grasp of how to read a play. Why I wasn't required to read this book in Intro to Theatre or one of my first design classes I don't know, but I am so happy that I did now.

The scope of BACKWARDS AND FORWARDS is narrow, but its ambition is important. This is a book about how to read a play. More specifically, it's about how to read a play whose production you are planning. There are 96 pages in this book and many of them are only partially filled. Some of them are blank. So in very few pages, author David Ball gives some valuable and (I would say, essential) advice. So many bad productions are bad simply because of a basic misreading of the script. Ball tells prospective directors what's important and how to recognize what's important. His advice is very straightforward and concise. He does not pad the book by going off on tangents or use long anecdotes to illustrate a point. He makes a point and then moves on to the next one. I think this book should be compulsory reading for the director, but it is also valuable to the playwright, the actor and the designer. This book is basic. There is a great need to get back to basics. David Ball has done the theatre a great service by writing this valuable book.