Stage books: Comedy and science, loss, lust and love

This has not been a banner year for revelatory biographies of film and stage folk. And compared to last winter, the number of enticing theater and cinema coffee-table tomes we'd want to wrap up with a bow for a loved one is rather meager.

With a little investigation, however, we have found some very giftable items in the slimmer-than-usual book pile. They range from informative reads for your favorite aficionado, to an offbeat movie guide and a gag-book extraordinaire.

"Black Comedians on Black Comedy: How African Americans Taught Us to Laugh" by Darryl J. Littleton (Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, $27.95).

Part chronology, part biographical encyclopedia and part oral history, this chunky tome by writer/stand-up comic Littleton (stage name: D'Militant) is fairly plain for a coffee-table book. (It's not printed on slick paper stock, and there are no big color photo spreads.)

Yet after a preface by Dick Gregory, Littleton does take us on a lively guided tour of African-American comedy across a wide time span. It begins with (gulp) a chapter about humor in the slave era (blithely titled, "Take My Overseer, Please!") and ends with the recent antics of unpredictable funny guy Dave Chappelle and other contemporary comedians.

In hodgepodge style, Littleton mixes up snippets of interviews with many modern jokesters (the obscure and the famous), with biographical and historical material.

Despite its jumpy (literary hip-hop?) format, the book fills a void. And it's fun getting the skinny on Cedric the Entertainer and his peers, while also learning what younger comedians have to say about such earlier trailblazers as Gregory, Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby. Though the latter has drawn flak for criticizing today's profanity-laced comics, Sinbad says affectionately of Cosby, "I call Bill Yoda. He's that bad, man."

"Science on Stage: From 'Doctor Faustus' to 'Copenhagen' " by Kirsten Shepherd-Barr (Princeton University Press, $29.95).

The recent success of a new wave of plays related to math and science made this book inevitable.

Shepherd-Barr, an English theater academic, provides an overview of scripts that delve into these subjects. And instead of a straight chronology, she considers the works in such categories as "Living Newspapers" (for science-oriented docu-dramas) and evolution dramas (a la "Inherit the Wind"). The book is heavily researched and footnoted, and not a swift read. Still, the author's learned analysis of her topic, and her discussion of such plays as Christopher Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus," "Proof" by David Auburn, and Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia," is an intellectual stimulant for anyone interested in theater of equations and formulas.

"Without You: A Memoir of Love, Loss and the Musical Rent" by Anthony Rapp (Simon & Schuster, $14).

Much has been written about the tragic death by aneurism of young theater composer Jonathan Larson, hours before the opening of what would become his first mega-musical hit: "Rent."

This engaging memoir by one of the original co-stars of "Rent" deserves special attention. Rapp writes movingly of how the development and rise of Larson's show (which re-set the 19th-century opera "La Bohème" to bohemian New York in the 1980s AIDS era) dovetailed with other big events in the actor's life.

Especially touching is Rapp's account of his mother's fatal illness during this period, and their renewal of a relationship that had chilled after Rapp came out as a bisexual. Candid and sensitive, this graceful memoir is one from the heart.

"Movie Lust" by Maitland McDonagh (Sasquatch Books, $16.95).

Former Seattle librarian Nancy Pearl started a whole new franchise, with her "Book Lust" guide to seductive (in a literary sense) tomes.

Now the same Seattle publishing house has issued this quirky bible of cinematic favorites by tv.guide.com film critic McDonagh. Her goal: to recommend films "for every mood, moment and reason."

Well, it's not as comprehensive as all that. (There are no suggested movies, for example, to wax your car by.)

Hyperbole aside, McDonagh has highly eclectic tastes. And her tips stray way beyond the obvious to embrace some intriguing obscurities. Take, for instance, the horror flick "Short Night of the Glass Dolls," which gets "high-water marks (for) sheer bizarreness" from her. Or consider "Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains" featuring the young Diane Lane and Laura Dern as teen punk rockers.

McDonagh's prose is breezy and fun, though her categories are not all mood-related. One of the wackiest: the "Hanging on the Telephone" chapter, which groups the frothy Doris Day comedy "Pillow Talk" with the intense Barbara Stanwyck thriller, "Sorry, Wrong Number."

No matter — when you want an alphabetized movie guide, go to Leonard Maltin. If you want to be led enjoyably astray, try "Movie Lust."

"Sky Maul" by Kasper Hauser (St. Martin's Press, $14.95).

Yes, we know, this is not really a theater book. But hey, it was concocted by a San Francisco sketch comedy troupe called Kasper Hauser and it is bang-up hilarious.

A wicked parody of those ultra-slick catalogues so ubiquitous on commercial airliners, "Sky Maul" is full of weird stuff you can't buy, because it doesn't exist. If it only it did ...

Some choice items: Medical Test Results Fortune Cookies, provided by doctors who want to avoid telling patients the bad news themselves. How about a Backyard PMS Bungalow, for self-quarantine on really bad days? And a favorite: Pepper Self-Spray to spritz yourself with, when you're doing something stupid. Extremely irreverent and emphatically R-rated, "Sky Maul" is a kick. Move over, National Lampoon.

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com