‘Katie Mitchell is too European for some British tastes’, writes Dan Rebellato, co-editor of Contemporary European Theatre Directors (p. 319). The concept of a theatre director as an auteur who leaves her/his hallmark on a production is anathema to British theatre, where playwrights rather than directors are sovereign. The art of mise en scène, which foregrounds staging as much as, and sometimes more than, text, is largely European, although this collection does include several UK directors who, not surprisingly, are often inspired by European theatre. The excellent introduction to this volume, which describes the practices of groundbreaking and influential European directors from the past three decades, demonstrates how directing has always been a pan-European practice: the first European director to be recognized as such, France's André Antoine, staged German, Russian and Swedish naturalist plays. The introduction continues to explain that this cross-pollination is enhanced today by the international festival circuit and system of international coproductions. The book maintains, however, that Europe is dominated by no salient directorial style – a fact illustrated by the vast range of rehearsal practices and production aesthetics that the essays explore. Whereas Belgium's Jan Lauwers creates a highly physical theatre of visual poetry, Spain's Calixto Bieito and Germany's Thomas Ostermeier develop new approaches to realism; whilst Romania's Silviu Purcărete elaborates a baroque scenography, the UK's Declan Donnellan is a minimalist; Italy's Romeo Castellucci upholds a postmodern aesthetic of deconstructed narratives, but Germany's Frank Castorf calls for a new political realism. France's Ariane Mnouchkine draws on non-European performance traditions, whereas Castorf suffuses his productions with Western popular culture; the productions of Mnouchkine's compatriot Daniel Mesguich make cultural references to philosophers and psychoanalysts, whilst Spain's Rodrigo García evokes emblems of capitalist consumerism like McDonald's and Ikea. Switzerland's Christoph Marthaler eschews the psychological individuation of character, while Mitchell returns to Stanislavski. Nor is there a common European approach to directing. Mnouchkine has famously developed the practice of création collective, an egalitarian forum for improvisation. Conversely, Castellucci reigns supreme over his productions. Bieito builds professional relationships across productions with an ensemble of performers and technicians. García works with different professional and non-professional performers depending on the geographical location of his works.

The great majority of the essays are at once detailed and panoramic. They provide vivid first-hand accounts of productions which then open onto a broader discussion of the director's aesthetic specificity. They include insights into pre-show rehearsal periods, and post-show critical reception. They provide a biography of the director, which is located within the context of the country's theatrical traditions. Finally, they set the director and country's theatre industry against a historical, economic and political backdrop. Many of the essays therefore provide both narrow and wide focus, much in the vein of the great French theatre specialist David Bradby, to whom the volume is dedicated.

Making Contemporary Theatre acts as an ideal companion piece to Contemporary European Theatre Directors, taking the subject of the process of creating theatre or performance, and exploring it in detail. Each essay focuses on a director, choreographer or company from Europe and further afield, and details the processes that contribute towards elaborating performance style, scenography, costume design, technical aspects of production, and even budgeting. Like the first volume, this one demonstrates the great diversity of styles and approaches adopted by directors. The directorial methods of the UK's Simon McBurney are described as ‘muscular, incisive and carnivorous’ (p. 72). On the other hand, New York-based Marianne Weems of the Builders Association acts more as facilitator or negotiator, and the Canadian Robert Lepage includes in the creative process not only actors, but also spectators, inviting them to watch open rehearsals and provide comments. One of the collection's many strengths is that each chapter is written by a contributor with privileged access to the creative process. Some contributors are eyewitnesses; others are members of the creative team (assistant directors, dramaturgs or performers). Essays include interviews with directors, performers and designers, and the book's eighty illustrations provide fascinating examples of set design, photographs of rehearsals and productions, reproductions of directors’ notebooks, and so on. With their rehearsal schedules, lists of devising processes and tasks set by the director, and information on how to work across languages and cultures, some essays could almost serve as manuals. However, the book never becomes a mere inventory of practices, since the essays often provide astute analysis scaffolded by robust critical theory.

Whereas Contemporary European Theatre Directors provides an eclectic cross-section of directorial practices, this volume selects directors and companies that are all in some respect ‘postdramatic’, a comprehensive and elucidating definition of which is provided in the introduction: each director or company in some way challenges psychological realism, the supremacy of text, narrative structures based on the classical notion of conflict, the leadership role of the director and the role of the audience.

Each of these publications provides invaluable new insights into recent developments in theatre- and performance-making across Europe, and beyond. They signify welcome contributions to the fields of scholarly research, and also serve as accessible guides to practitioners. Of the eighteen directors featured in Contemporary European Theatre Directors, only two are women; of the eleven included in Making Contemporary Theatre, only one is a woman. I have no doubt that this proportion reflects accurately the proportion of women directors across the world today. However, I would have welcomed at least some speculation in the introductions to the volumes as to why this might still be the case, well into the twenty-first century.