Gift books for lovers of stage and screen

"The Necessity of Theater:

The Art of Watching and Being Watched"

By Paul Woodruff

(Oxford University Press, $27.95)

"People need theater. They need it the way they need each other — the way they need to gather, to talk things over, to have stories in common, to share friends and enemies."

So begins the argument of Paul Woodruff, a University of Texas professor of philosophy and classics, in his fascinating, erudite and cogent rumination on why human beings need to watch events acted out for them by other humans.

Woodruff's definition of theater is broad, including such shared performance rituals as weddings and sports events.

With nods to Aristotle and Plato, he suggests how elements of theatrical experience (plot, character, space, etc.) reinforce our humanity and spark our empathy.

Misha Berson, Seattle Times theater critic

"Lana: The Memories, The Myths, The Movies"

By Cheryl Crawford and Cindy De La Hoz

(Running Press, $35)

Not a fan of Lana Turner? Don't get why the lacquered, semi-talented blonde was such a big star in the '40s and '50s?

Fine, but if Old Hollywood and its resonance interest you, this hefty, glossy coffee-table tome, co-written by Lana's daughter Cheryl Crawford, is a keeper.

Packed with slick studio shots and candid snaps of Turner, and with Crawford's fond and bittersweet memories of her mother, the book gives an inside view of how the Dream Factory took on a pretty kid from Wallace, Idaho, and manufactured a glamour goddess — complete with seven marriages, a murder scandal and a celebrityhood that says as much about the culture she lived in as Turner herself.

M.B.

"In the Frame: My Life in Words and Pictures"

By Helen Mirren

(Atria, $35)

A standout in the 2008 film-star memoir stack, this scrapbook/autobiography by Dame Helen Mirren is a treat.

Most Americans know the Oscar honoree Mirren as an older actress (she's a very youthful 62) of boundless charisma and skill.

But Mirren has been a much-admired stage, film and TV actress in England since her 20s, and her intelligence, classical training and innate sexiness have lit up every medium.

Mirren holds forth on her roles, her aristocratic Russian roots, her flower-child days, and nods fondly to special men in her life, including Liam Neeson (a former lover) and film director Taylor Hackford (her current husband).

No surprise here, that Mirren is a class act all the way.

M.B.

"Isadora Duncan: A Graphic Biography"

By Sabrina Jones

(Hill and Wang, $18.95)

It looks like a comic book, and it is a ton of fun. But Sabrina Jones' graphic depiction of the life of Isadora Duncan is also a serious work of biography.

It synthesizes much of what we know about the bold and sometimes bizarre doings of one of the great dance innovators of the 19th and 20th centuries, from her bohemian California childhood to her artistic conquest of the cultural capitals of the world, to her macabre death (she was strangled when her long scarf got stuck in the wheel of an open roadster she was riding in). But it also points out the parts of her story that are contradictory or unknowable.

Most remarkably, in just 125 fluidly drawn pages, Jones (one of the originators of Fantagraphics' "Girl Talk") brings Duncan's astonishing creativity, revolutionary fervor and romantic disasters to life.

Lynn Jacobson, Seattle Times NW Arts & Life editor

"Shall We Dance"

By Brian Lanker

(Chronicle Books, $50)

Photographer Brian Lanker's love of dance was sparked at a powwow on the Yakama Indian Reservation; fanned by a National Geographic assignment to chronicle dance in America; and reaches full blaze on the pages of "Shall We Dance" — a spectacular tribute to the human impulse to move.

This oversized book includes dizzying color shots of weddings, ballroom competitions, breakdancing, ballet, the tango, Vegas showgirls, praise-dancing in church and more. Unlike the gauzy, soft-focus pictures in many ballet photo books, Lanker's images movingly reveal the full weight, texture and mortality of the human body. With a foreword by Maya Angelou.

L.J.