chitin

Phyllis Harnoll's "The Theater: A Concise History" has got to be the single worst textbook ever written. It's got it all: difficult-to-untangle run-on sentences containing seven names that are never mentioned again! Opaque references that are never fully explained! Tons and tons of pictures, mostly without context! No differentiation between historical "footnotes" and the actual, truly important people in the theater (they'll ALL get exactly three sentences!)

A quote, if I may:
"[Wagner's] vision of the 'complete work of art' must be taken into account in any survey of the nineteenth-century theater in Europe."

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? What IS Wagner's vision of the "complete work of art?" I don't know! That's the first and last mention of Wagner in the whole damn book! But I need to know who he is for the exam.

A further example, if it please the court:
"In the same company was her elder sister Kate, accounted by some a finer actress than Ellen, who retired early on marriage, and whose eldest daughter, also Kate, was the mother of John Gielgud. Ellen's youngest brother, Fred, was a fine romantic actor, who with his beautiful wife, Juilia Neilson, appeared in three popular successes."

Who. Are. These. People? I was looking for an even worse example, in which it rattled off ten names and then said "...who was murdered outside the theater in 1842." I was like? What? Who was? Why?

God. This text sucks.