Alan Ayckbourn by Sidney Howard White, and: Alan Ayckbourn by Michael Billington (review)

Book Reviews seems to be my lot to repair that omission, and break the silence with as much of a resounding tinkle as a short review can afford. I feel almost obligated to say: "Take Howard Barker - Please!" But more obligated to say that, apart from the playscript. the interview and essay by Dunn, the Issue also contains an essay on Barker's language by Eric Mottram; on his approach to women's issues by Ruth Shade; and on an actor's experience with his work, by Ian McDiarmid. There is also a factual playlist, and a critical bibliography. In many ways, the actor's response, unburdened by the necessity of taking any critical posture, and that of the feminist critic, who is willing to allow that for Barker "Classical theatre is more complex than writing plays that are ideologically sound" (p. 108), are the most successful in giving us some true flavor of the man. Somehow the very earnestness of Mottram and Dunn stands in the way of our appreciation. Curiously, a more recent, and much shorter essay by Dunn in Drama (No. 155, 1985), contains a sentence that gives us more feeling for Barker's work than all the critical overkiU of Gambit: "The typical Barker set - a field, a hill, a cathedral, a roomwhich localises the action and speech of people whose cunning, ignorance, treachery and wit are recognisably ours" (p. 9). For all that this special issue of Gambit was somewhat hard to digest - a fact which the smallness ofthe type did not make any easier- it must, in the context of what is available on Barker, be accounted a major contribution. Whether it will further the appreciation of his work, and endear him to a wider audience is less certain. Alas for human perversity! We may admire what we are told is good for us; but find it hard to take in large doses. JOHN HARROP, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SlDNEY HOWARD WHITE. Alan Ayckbourn. Boston: G.K. Hall; Twayne English Authors 1984. Pp. xviii, 159. $18.95. MICHAEL BILLINGTON. Alan Ayckbourn. New York: Grove 1984. Pp. viii, 183, illustrated. $12.50 (PB). "Alan Ayckbourn is popular. He is prolific. And he writes comedies." These are Billington's opening words. These facts explain why, like Rattigan, Ayckboum is rarely taken very seriously. We know instead that, despite having written more than thirty plays, he insists that his work is as artistic director of the theatre at Scarborough and that he is a playwright for only a few days each year. (Somehow, Peter Shaffer worrying for years towards perfection on one play is admirable, for all that time and sweat ought to result in work superiorto Ayckboum's.) Ayckboum is further known for ingen~ity . for setting himself enonnous structural problems in such works as Absurd Person Singular, Sisterly Feelings and the recent Intimate Exchanges. Critics, however, have trouble with ingenuity: what kind of virtue is this in a playwright? Ayckboum, too, has cleverly. and uniquely, .provided his own explanations and justifications ahead of the critics by publishing Conversations with Ayckbourn in 1981. Book Reviews I know that I have only to open The Norman Conquests to laugh again at Tom stuck on the low chair at the dinner table, at Nonnan, in disgrace, chattering to himself about his breakfast cornflakes, at Reg explaining his game about policemen who can see round corners. I know, too, that at least four plays - Absent Friends, Joking Apart, Season's Greetings and especially h4St Benveen Ourselves - probe deeper, and that Way Upstream aspires to allegory. While the laughs are almost as frequent, the human truths are more penetrating. Now the first two books about Ayckboum arrive together. White faithfully submits to the Twayne formula, pages and pages of competent plot summary followed by a paragraph or two of comment. The plot of the early Mr. Whatnot defeats him, and his account trails off with: "It is difficult to say what is accomplished with such a full stage. Their marital complaints simply continue. More strange events follow" (p. 19). His evaluation of Bedroom Farce is merely "completely satisfying as a good evening's fun" (p. 88) and he misses the joke...