In Theatre and Evolution from Ibsen to Beckett, Kirsten E. Shepherd-Barr examines recurring patterns of evolution that appear within plays and performances, writing, “Given the popularity of theatre, it is likely that more people encountered evolutionary theory through theatrical performances than through other art forms” (5). Looking primarily at examples from England and America and spanning Darwin's era to our own, this survey elucidates how playwrights have responded to evolution and its many significant implications. Theatre and Evolution's originality emerges from Shepherd-Barr's approach in exploring how the science, and consequential questions raised about concepts like human biology, gender, adaptation, the environment, and extinction, were translated into plays. Shepherd-Barr inspects these scientific threads in many plays but is most innovative when looking at plays that do not readily suggest the influence of evolution, thereby showing how the book attempts “not only to catalogue theatrical allusions to evolution but also to show the more indirect, oblique engagement with the ideas” (3). Building on her 2006 book, Science on Stage: From “Doctor Faustus” to “Copenhagen,” Shepherd-Barr continues her pioneering scholarship in the field of theatre and science through this erudite new work.

In her Introduction, Shepherd-Barr identifies key evolutionary thinkers and their distinctive perspectives, which is a helpful resource for future chapters that reference how these different theorists influenced playwrights. She argues that evolution's impact extends beyond Darwin: “In short, Darwin's was just one of a range of competing theories, and Theatre and Evolution shows the staying power of non-Darwinian ideas in the theatre long after their supposed demise in scientific circles” (9). In Chapters 1 and 2, Shepherd-Barr evaluates the crossovers in Victorian society among science, popular culture, and many forms of performance—including freak shows and exploitative displays of people and animals from other countries. Though she acknowledges Jane R. Goodall's Performance and Evolution in the Age of Darwin, which thoroughly investigates these Victorian, hybrid performances, Shepherd-Barr only grazes upon this history. Instead, in Chapter 2 she establishes her book's contribution by implementing her methodological technique of play analysis. Reviewing Henry Arthur Jones's 1891-premiered play The Dancing Girl, Shepherd-Barr outlines Herbert Spencer's evolutionary theory that Jones read prior to writing his play, and closely examines the story of the play, noting what within it replicates Spencer's theories. She then assesses how the use of the “fallen woman” trope in the play is reflective of emerging biological questions inspired by evolutionary thought regarding a woman's role within society (44). This thorough, complex approach toward analysis is used for plays in following chapters, and remains consistently succinct, well-researched, and illuminating. It is through such shrewd analysis that the reader becomes aware of how both intricately and discernibly evolutionary theories inform a playwright's theme, characters, setting, or narrative details.

Time and again, Shepherd-Barr traces evolution within plays in an enlightening fashion. These were hotly contested philosophies, not only debated between evolutionary theorists, but also inspiring playwrights who rebuked or aligned these ideas with their own vision of human life and its struggles. For instance, Shepherd-Barr asserts that “One of the ways in which extinction plays out on stage in the nineteenth century is through the idea of the end of the family line” (47). She follows this intriguing statement by explaining how this concept materializes in François de Curel's 1892 play Les Fossiles, in which a plotted marriage is revealed as an attempt to continue the family bloodline. Looking at Ibsen in Chapter 3, Shepherd-Barr considers how the theory of evolution inspired allusions to extinction within his personal letters, explores how it may have shaped his female characters and their role as mothers, and discerns how he conceptualized evolution. In carefully extracting such examples, she makes it clear that playwrights reacted to evolution in a multitude of ways.

Shepherd-Barr frequently returns to how women are represented on the stage, which is not surprising when she concludes “the book as a whole suggests one abiding, eternal theme: the family” (286). In Chapters 4 and 6 the author interrogates how maternal instinct and reproductive issues appeared in theatre, describing multiple instances of how plays demonstrated or challenged ideas like gender essentialism, abortion, marriage, and sexual selection. Citing James Herne's Margaret Fleming, Shepherd-Barr delves into the multifaceted symbolism in the act of breastfeeding that the title character performs for a child that is not her own. Later, Shepherd-Barr relates the portrayal of infanticide in Elizabeth Robins and Florence Bell's Alan's Wife to Darwin's description of infanticide in The Descent of Man, stating it was a common practice for population control within certain cultures. Both of these acts were controversial when represented onstage, illustrating that the manifestations of evolutionary science in theatre have not always been performed without their critics. If there is one criticism to be made against the book itself, it is that the many facets of evolution Shepherd-Barr uses in her play analysis are seemingly countless. Shepherd-Barr is aware of this, however, as noted in her Preface and Epilogue. Reading Theatre and Evolution one must acknowledge the book's vast scope and larger objective, understanding that some explorations give only hints of what is possible for future research.

Shepherd-Barr weaves together multilayered analyses among a large number of plays and playwrights, including Shaw, Wilder, Glaspell, and Beckett—whose work she contemplates astutely in Chapter 8. Finding nuanced illustrations of evolutionary thought within Beckett's work, she writes, “Rather than simply reflect evolutionary ideas, he transforms them into something uniquely his own and uniquely theatrical” (271). The same could be said for Shepherd-Barr's book, which deploys an innovative lens for scholars analyzing theatre and science's “interplay”—a term she uses early in the book (3) as a way of rethinking the dynamic between theatre and science research as a “two-way conversation” (287). Providing new possibilities for scholarship between these two disciplines, Shepherd-Barr's rigorous study of evolution should be welcomed by scholars researching intersections between theatre and science and by scholars seeking new perspectives for drama analysis.