EVELYN DOVE Britain’s Black Cabaret Queen
Nonfiction A grand Victorian, nearly forgotten EVELYN DOVE Britain’s Black Cabaret Queen By Stephen Bourne 160 pp. Jacaranda Books Reviewed by Sala Wyman Biographies of performing artists are my guilty pleasure. I enjoy stories that that carry me along the roads leading to an artist’s career. And perhaps because I've been a performer myself, stories about performers remind me of the grit it takes to make and leave a mark in the world. Those who make it and are remembered must be very , very tough and resilient. They appear to have a particular kind of toughness. I call it the “killer instinct.”` In Stephen Bourne’s Evelyn Dove, Britain’s Black Cabaret Queen , he gives a portrait of an artist who apparently did not have that instinct. More interesting, however, and even more importantly, he documents the growth of the black theater movement in Europe and the forgotten role that Evelyn Dove played in that movement. I expected Bourne’s portrait of Dove to be linear, with a beginning...