Theatre of Sound: Radio and the Dramatic Imagination (review)

History of University Patronage in the United States” by Sally Banes, and “Never Enough Is Something Else: Feminist Performance Art, AvantGardes, and Probity” by Kristine Stiles. Banes begins chronicling the largely untold history of university theatres’ relation to and support of avant-garde artists; discussion of this not-alwayscomfortable relationship between artists and academe (influences, shared history, interaction) deserves wider expansion. Stiles’s essay combines personal narrative with criticism; she describes her own experience as a critic in a specific confrontation with avant-garde artists and curators who, she believes, had allowed radicalism to become an institution unto itself. As a result, she analyzes avant-garde precepts with new scrutiny, drawing a distinguishing line between “radicalism” and “radical” (defining avant-gardes as the latter), and calls upon avant-garde artists to become accountable and responsible to their commitments by approaching their work with greater probity.