The Theatre of Commitment by Eric Bentley (review)

BOOK REVIEWS THE THEATRE OF COMMITMENT, by Eric Bentley, Atheneum, New York, 1967. 241 pp. Price $5.00. The Theatre of Commitment does not seem to me the most committed of Eric Bentley'S eight books-if book is the proper word for this miscellaneous collection of seven essays written over the last fifteen years. All seven have been published before, three in previous Bentley miscellanies (as he himself points out). The subtitle "Other Essays on Drama in our Society" attempts to provide a catch-all rationale for grouping these essays in the same volume. Eric Bentley is critic turned director, then· reviewer, who matured into critic. Though The Theatre of Commitment contains no reviews, it is characterized by a similar immediacy and evanescence. The seven separate essays maybe summarized by citing their titles: 1) "Is the Drama an Extinct Species?" No, but nearly. 2) "The American Drama, 1944-1954": its economics, criticism (which Bentley confuses with reviewing), staging, and writing-all deplorable. 3) "What is Theatre ?" A shared experience of a playwright's probing into the material and spiritual aspects of human life. 4) "Taking Ibsen Personally" because Ibsen is a dramatist of persons. 5) "The Pro and Con of Political Theatre," 19 pages of Con followed by 19 of Pro; in an "Afterthought, 1967," Bentley sees that his equilibrium is only apparent; his scales were weighted for Con. 6) "Letter to a 'Vouldbe Playwright," an implicit retort to Walter Kerr's How Not to Write a Play. 7) Finally, the title essay of the book, "The Theatre of Commitment," which was first a lecture, then an article in Commentary (where lit occasioned some commentary ), and which will soon appear in another book. Bentley is a master of maximum mileage for what he does. Among the seven essays, more or less about drama in our society, only "The Pro and Con of Polit,ical Theatre" is relevant to the title essay. For most people, theatre of commitment is political theater, though Bentley indicates that the word commitment is broad enough to embrace the work of any serious writereven if the commitment is to non-commitment. Like Sartre, however, Bentley feels that all men are involved in politics willy-nilly; the committed artist chooses his involvement, and historically "the literature of Commitment is radical." Though even politically uncommitted works, e.g. Waiting for Codot, can be turned to political use, Bentley focuses on Hochhuth's Deputy as his prime example of commitment in contemporary theater. (He has already edited a Casebook on this play, The Storm over The Deputy.) Bentley notes that the purpose of Hochhuth 's commitment is to awaken outrage and not to be fair to Pope Pius XII. Neglecting the question of the value and mortality of "unfair" outrage, Bentley moves on to suggest that Brecht, too, is profitably viewed as a dramatist of outrage. Times of crises demand a crisis drama, and Bentley declares that that time is now. Because "Theatre is old-fashioned in belonging to the old, intimate, small-scale world," Bentley feels that theater can best contain commitment in an age of mass media spouting sanctimonious slogans. Bentley's essay ends: "In the drama of the Nineteen Sixties, the Theatre of Commitment is the principal new presence. There are reasons both political and theatrical to welcome it." I believe that I share most of Eric Bentley's political prejudices, and many of his theater tastes. I, too, welcome a Theater of Commitment and a commitment 214 1968 BOOK REVIEWS 215 to theater. But my welcome springs from my temperament and not my critical sense, which tells me that a political theater of commitment is a very old presence, and as such it is of small significance theatrically or politically. Though theater has often housed political propaganda, agit-prop plays die quickly. As for commitment to theater, its merit depends upon the merit of the theater. I have seen less of Broadway than Bentley, but I have seen enough to feel that commitment to that theater-intimate and small-scale in the country at large-has been pernicious for all concerned. In this time and country, to which Bentley specifically addresses himself, political theater...