Erin Hurley's edited volume is a satisfying collection and more than the sum of its parts. An anthology of vastly different theatre projects that cohere wonderfully around the elusive but penetrating theoretical idea of ‘affect’, this publication will put the lie to the presupposition that edited collections lose in depth and unity what they offer in breadth. This success is in part due to Hurley's own concise yet well-crafted introduction, as well as the text's diversity of creative representation. These projects are consistent in touching upon ideas such as ‘hope’, ‘empathy’, ‘culture’, ‘sensory/muscle memory’, ‘testimony’ and ‘self–other relations’. While many chapters relate to larger bodies of research – ranging from theatre simulations in the military to rasabox exercises in actor training – others explore specific theatrical productions and films (Bioboxes, Nanay and Jill Johnston, 1975), or investigate political concerns (blackface performance in contemporary Quebec, Indigenous world views and theatre, disability and/in theatre). Across these diverse entries exists a tight assemblage of theoretical applications to guide the reader. The volume also features a felicitous mix of genres, with ‘Artist Statements’ alongside more conventional academic treatments. These statements often act as reflexive interludes and intimate appraisals of artistic practice that punctuate our journey across the scholarly landscape.

Another oft-cited weakness of edited volumes is their attempt to force a style of ‘inclusion’ that sometimes serves only to reinscribe the margins vis-à-vis the centre. By contrast, this anthology offers substantial inclusiveness, incorporating at least four different approaches to the subject of settler–Indigenous relations and how these figure in contemporary practices and readings. I also relished learning across two different chapters that use documentary theatre and film to make a cultural study of Filipina–Canadian experiences. These chapters are nicely complemented by several others that bring a feminist lens to the analyses.

In her 2011 call for essays for the collection, Hurley queried, ‘How [has] theatrical affect participated in building or destabilizing collectives, communities, and nations in Canada? Might we consider Canada's geopolitical borders or identity frontiers as affectively invested domains? What performances congregate around such affective investments?’ In the culminating anthology, Hurley hopes to open up a conversation about affect and Canadian theatre and performance, with an eye to gleaning how, whether and where the affective turn is shaping theatre studies in Canada. And she and her contributors have done exactly that. Theatre matters for its impact and its ‘matters’, as Hurley writes in her introduction (p. 1). This volume, the result of her invitation to name how affect is forming the Canadian theatre landscape, sensitively and stimulatingly explores that important question.