When Nietzsche announced the death of God, he lowered the boom on
all traditional values, and thus began the modern tradition of
revolt. Or so Professor Brustein reads cultural history in his
programmatic "approach to the modern drama." His choice of
exemplary playwrights may seem at first glance an odd mesh, and his
omissions may appear scandalous (why not Montherlant, Beckett,
Ionesco?). But given the formulae (three fundamental and usually
overlapping categories: the messianic, social, existential) and
accepting the fashionable canons (the conflict between the real and
the ideal, the self and the Other, la bete huamine and
man-become-God), the essays are ??liant, and sometimes
superlatively successful, attempt so bring to the drama the kind of
close reading the New Critics have given to the novel and poetry.
Alas, Brustein is, as they say in the theatre, always "on," working
up so much steam that the discussion of his philosophical,
essentially apolitical, and bourgeois-biffing rebels tends to be
fogged-out every so often. Still, the Shaw and Strindberg are
brilliantly done, especially as psychological portraits, and those
on Ibsen, Chekhov and Pirandello bright enough. The O'Neill's a
bore, the Brecht respectable, and with Genet, Brustein goes flying
blind quite frequently, albeit excitingly. The book, which
presupposes a deep acquaintance with the plays, is a landmark of
sorts, and its attention-demanding air certainly won't have it
collecting dust on the shelf. (Kirkus Reviews)
In a new edition of this now-classic work, Robert Brustein argues
that the roots of the modern theatre may be found in the soil of
rebellion cultivated by eight outstanding playwrights: Ibsen,
Strindberg, Chekhov, Shaw, Brecht, Pirandello, O'Neill, and Genet.
Focusing on each of them in turn, Mr. Brustein considers the nature
of their revolt, the methods employed in their plays, their
influences on the modern drama, and the playwrights themselves.
"One of the standard and decisive books on the modern theater....
It shows us the men behind the works,... what they wanted to write
about and the private hell within each of them which led to the
enduring works we continue to treasure."-New York Times Book
Review. "The best single collection of essays I know of on modern
drama... remarkably fine and sensitive pieces of criticism.
"-Alvin,Kernan, Yale Review.
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