In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

MODERN DRAMA VOLUME 1 SEPTEMBER, 1958 NUM:BER 2 Foreword Those of us who have been tippling too steadily from the heady wine of presen'tism will be somewhat sobered by M. Duvignaud's review of the Paris stage in this issue. For it is sobering to learn that what we had thought was vanguard is now already becoming rear guard. Ionesco and Beckett, we are told, are no longer new. And we were just beginning to get caught up on them! But if what our reviewer says' is true, those playwrights who will take the place of the 'old avant-garde, Adamov, ScMhade, and Gascar, have merits not possessed by their predecessors. They have for one thing, lucidity, and for another, wider vision. . For the first, lucidity, we must rejoice. It had begun to appear that modern drama wis beginning to accept the same dreary fate which had overtaken much of modern poetry, and to a lesser degree, modem fiction. Unlike the latter two forms, drama, with few exceptions, has continued to accept the responsibility of making itself understood. It is still dependent on the box office. And this is true even in university theatres. Directors of university theatres accept the fact that drama is a social art, that an audience is part of any play and tIlat part of their responsibility is making the play clear to the audience. Recently some of us were beginning to regret what seemed to be a growing fashion in drama-the fashion of being misunderstood. But good omens are appearing. In addition to the changing theatre in Paris, Brecht is becoming increasingly popular. And anyone who has read or seen ''The Good Woman of Setzuan" or "The Caucasian Chalk Circle," those "parables of the theatre" (Bentley's phrase), must be astonished at the manner in which the simple and lucid are combined with the profound. Holdings in Modern Drama , The December number of Modem Drama will cany a description of the O'Hegarty Collection at the Watson Library, University of Kansas. Among other items this collection contains material on the Abbey Theater and a number of unpublished letters by Yeats. If there are other notable collections which touch on the drama since Ibsen, Modern Drama will be glad to hear of them. i )" 1\« ...

pdf

Share