Two Modern American Tragedies by John D. Hurrell (review)

BOOK REVIEWS TWO MODERN AMERICAN TRAGEDIES, compiled by John D. Hurrell, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1961, 153 pp. Price $1.95. The fourth volume in a series of controlled-research anthologies published by Scribner's and under the general editorship of Martin Steiumann, Two Modern American Tragedies is a collection of reviews of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman and Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, three statements on the condition of tragedy in the modern world, and three essays by the playwrights themselves. The texts of the two plays are not reprinted. Although the book is designed as an anthology for use by a freshman or sopho-more class, the student of modern drama will find it useful for the simple reason that it gathers together under one heading a valuable group of essays that, otherwise , would have to be gleaned from various sources, thus causing the researcher considerable pains. What is even more valuable to the serious student of modern drama is that the original pagination has been retained in the text of the book, thereby obviating the necessity of verifying references. The book is divided into three parts. In the first section, perhaps the most thoughtful group of essays in the entire book, three writers attempt to deal with the question of tragedy today. The first essay is the now-famous fifth chapter of Joseph Wood Krutch's book, The Modern Temper, "The Tragic Fallacy." So well known is Mr. Krutch's thesis it is hardly necessary to restate it in a review. The other two essays in the first section are John Gassner's thoughtful essay, "Tragic Perspectives: A Sequence of Queries," and Orrin E. Klapp's "Tragedy and the American Climate of Opinion." The former essay is reprinted from Tulane Drama Review; the latter is by a sociologist who disdains to assault us with the jargon we have come to associate with members of his calling, but who instead is vitally interested in the problem of tragedy in our century. In the second section, the playwrights themselves take the floor. Arthur Miller's well-known essay, originally printed in the Drama Section of The New York Times, "Tragedy and the Common Man," appears along with his introduction to A View from the Bridge and Tennessee Williams' introduction to The Rose Tattoo. "Tragedy and the Common Man" is one of the most important statements on tragedy that has been made in our time, and it is gratifying to have the essay in a convenient form, far better than having to cull through dusty back issues of The New York Times for it or to squint at it through a microfilm reader. The third section is by far the longest in the book and consists of reviews of the plays themselves, reviews of the published forms of the plays, and articles garnered from books and scholarly journals. Included are essays by Robert Emmet Jones and Signi Falk, both of which appeared originally in Modern Drama. Since the issue in which Miss Falk's article appeared is now out of print, its appearance in this form is of interest. The section also contains an assessment of Tennessee Williams' plays by a Marxist critic, which is as amusing to read as it may seem improbable, and a striking article which has not appeared in print before by Richard J. Foster of the University of Minnesota, "Confusion and Tragedy: The Failure of Miller's Salesman," Other articles are Kenneth Tynan's "American Blues ... ," from Encounter, and Eric Bentley's "Better than Europe?" from In Search at Theater. The reviews are by the respected dramatic critics, Brooks Atkinson, George Jean Nathan, Eleanor Clark, and Harold Clurman. 245 246 MODERN DRAMA September That these two plays should have been selected for such extensive treatment may surprise a few readers. Yet it is hardly questionable that no other plays written by Americans since the end of World War II have so affected American theater, and certainly no other plays have captured the imagination of the theater-going public as have these two. JOHN S. LEWIS University of Kansas A DRAMA OF POLITICAL MAN: A STUDY IN THE PLAYS OF HARLEY...