Adrian Cairns, an actor and director himself, has taught several generations of actors at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Jeremy Irons and Daniel Day-Lewis were two of his students. He provides a stimulating analysis of acting styles and training used on the Elizabethan stage, Restoration and 18th-century developments, Victorian acting "in the grand manner", and 20th-century initiatives in Russia, Europe, England, and the U.S. (the French avant-garde, the German twenties, the "turbulent thirties"), the European gurus, and American actors. Cairns concludes with chapters on modern drama and the use of Controlled Environments, Virtual Reality, and Found Spaces. He predicts that ritual and a Renaissance of the Mysterious might be the most likely direction in the evolution of playacting.