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BOOK REVIEWS THE FOLK DRAMA OF CEYLON, by E. R. Sarachchandra, Department of Cultural Affairs, Government Press, Colombo, Ceylon, 180 pp. 39 illustrations. The best news of 1966-1967 for Asian scholars in the field of dance and drama is the long awaited reprint of Professor E. R. Sarachchandra's brilliant tour de force, The Folk Drama of Ceylon. When this thorough-going survey of Ceylon's many and marvelous theater forms first appeared fifteen years ago, the whole level of Southeast Asian studies was lifted. Few Asians themselves had written about their own indigenous arts (the foreigners had, for the most part, glowed instead of informed), and those who had fell far below standard both intellectually and literarily. Suddenly Sarachchandra's book appeared like an opening in the clouds after a monsoon downpour. He not only put his enchanted and enchanting island back on the theatrical map, but he restored dignity to his subject and its noble history. In eight succinct chapters Professor Sarachchandra surveys Ceylon's music, mime, devil dances, kolam masked plays, Roman Catholic passions, the remote sokari plays of occupation and religion combined in ribald humor, puppets, folk operas, and the modern theater, all with a doughty explorer's hawklike eye. Nothing is omitted, even if the performance may only be seen in tiny villages in the hills; and nothing clutters with excessive detail or obscurity. The translations from the Sinhalese flow as inevitably as bird songs, and capture the flavor and sensation of tropical jungles, passionate people, and sun and rain drenched souls of a nation. As an actor himself, a playwright (whose works attract standing-room only), and as a distinguished professor at Peredeniya, as well as guest lecturer at a number of American universities, most recently Denison in Granville, Ohio, Dr. Sarachchandra invests his writing with the breath of authority and conviction . Augmenting his text with bright color plates of "demons" and stunning photographs of the particularized plays seldom seen by tourists, as well as copious musical examples, the author presents the reader with as complete a view as any country of Southeast Asia can boast. The Ceylon Government is to be congratulated on its State patronage both of the island's arts and this masterful book. When honors are being distributed, Dr. Sarachchandra will doubtless be high on the list for artists and scholars. Although Ceylon may be small-a pearl pendant of a larger necklace-its theater arts are profound. The proof is this informative, interesting, essential book. No library should overlook it. No serious student can do without it. Other writers, take heed. A master walks among us. FAUBION BOWERS DISCUSSIONS OF AMERICAN DRAMA. Edited with an introduction by Walter J. Meserve, D. C. Heath and Company, Boston, 1966, 150 pp. Price $1.65. Critical evaluation of the American drama, aside from biographical studies of playwrights and topical reviews of plays currently on Broadway, has been slow to mature. Indeed, it seemed for a time that Arthur Hobson Quinn, notable as historian and anthologist of the American drama, was the only academic critic concerned with the genre. But happily the situation is changing. Journalists like Howard Taubman and Walter Kerr have produced volumes of history and in216 1967 BOOK REVIEWS 217 terpretation, Richard Moody has studied romanticism on the American stage and has edited a voluminous anthology of nineteenth century American plays, and now Walter Meserve brings together a highly useful collection of essays on native playwrights and themes. The allocation of space in this collection of twenty-one essays immediately attracts the attention of the reader. Fourteen essays are the work of critics; only seven come from the pens of actual playwrights. This apparent disproportion is probably additional proof that American dramatists are seldom articulate about their own technique or goals. Maxwell Anderson and Arthur Miller have written provocative statements about their own craft; O'Neill, on the other hand, was notoriously reticent, and Clyde Fitch, Sidney Howard, and even Thornton Wilder have said relatively little about their work. In other words, the bulk of the anthology is the work of professional reviewers or academic critics. Three essays concern O'Neill, and there are single discussions of Howard, Miller...

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