Arthur Wing Pinero by Walter Lazenby (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 461 false foundations. His impassioned account of the terrain gives way to comic relief in "The Mask of Unity," a mock-epic poem of the march of reaction in America. The Drama - or Melodrama - of Modern Life is symbolized by John Wayne: "The most important American of our time is John Wayne. Granted that all good things come from California, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan are only camp followers of Wayne, supporting players in the biggest Western of them all." The last American election revealed how the cast of supporting players has avalanched. Last of these politico-personal essays, and last written, is "Men's Liberation," which was rejected by half a dozen magazines. It is a plea for Gay Liberation, which, from the vantage-point of San Francisco, shocks me to think that anyone could find it too shocking to print. On the contrary, I find it naive in spots - as in the claim that homosexuals may be the bearers of a new radical fraternity. For homosexuals are of course no better or worse than heterosexuals. Mistreated minorities usually react with more passion than compassion, but mistreatment must nevertheless be vigorously opposed. Sexual liberation is so much in the air, however, that I suspect Bentley's article was rejected because of an implicit assumption that he was writing about himself. Even so, Bentley's strength is always his personal involvement in what should concern us all. I have indicated that Theatre of War is an only minimally accurate title, but I won't quibble about titles for a range of essays that surveys contemporary theater and contemporary politics, and that brilliantly elucidates some of the classical play~ of the modem theater. In three decades of publishing Bentley has made an unparallelled contribution to our knowledge of drama and theater, always joined in his view - reviews, translations, critiques, productions, integrated books. In some quarters Bentley is dismissed as a has-been, but this book shows he is very much "with it." In some quarters Bentley is dropped as a hothead, but this book shows he is measured and thoughtful. The man who presented playwrights as thinkers is himself a consistent thinker who, hopefully, will provoke more thought than heat. RUBY COHN University of California (Davis) ARTHUR WING PINERO, by Walter Lazenby. New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1972.l73pp. $6.25. On the front, a rampant lion with what looks like a bandaged paw; on the back, an elderly playwright with a bald dome, bushy eyebrows, a cigarette held at a jaunty angle, and oddly frightened eyes. Twayne's English Authors Series has finally got around to Arthur Wing Pinero. It is about time someone did. Pinero's original reputation as the leading playwright of his day is unlikely ever to be revived, but the critical neglect to which he has been subjected in recent years is certainly undeserved, as the frequent and successful revival of his farces and comedies in the theatre 462 BOOK REVIEWS suggests. In academic circles, Pinero is anthologized as the author of The Second Mrs. Tanqueray (not his best play) and referred to in surveys as a skilled craftsman, with the implication that he was nothing else and that his skills are now obsolete. True enough, there is much in Pinero that is dead beyond recall, much that is crudely mechanical or intolerably limited in imagination. But at his best, he displays a refreshingly low opinion of the human race, and a fine sense of the absurd - qualities that make him one of our best writers of farce, and that touch many of his serious plays as well. Thirty years after the last book on Pinero, Walter Lazenby's study would appear to fill a need. It is a pity, therefore, that he is working within the limits imposed by the Twayne series. The worst handicap he faces is that he has set himself - or has been set - the task of giving a plot summary of every one of Pinero's plays. There are fifty-seven of them, most with complicated plots, and by the time Professor Lazenby has trudged through this task (which he does, on the whole, competently enough) there is little...