Foreword

MODERN DRAMA VOLUME 2 SEPTEMBER, 1959 NUMBER 2 Foreword .We hope that the current issue of Modern Drama will be the first of an annual series of special issues although the question as to which dntmatists should be represented in such issues is a difficult one to answer. Most of us who teach assume that any writer selected for study has some claim to permanence (we hope that we can assure our students that their investment in time and study is a safe one). Ordinarily, we assume also that the writer's work has a complexity or difficulty which makes the teaching job necessary. If we treat our readers with the same consideration which we extend to our classes, it would seem then, that when we ask readers of Modern Drama to spend their time on a special issue that the dramatist with whom the issue is concerned should have some claim to permanence and be complex enough to make a study of him and his works rewarding. It is with a clear conscience that we present Shaw in this special issue. Shaw's permanence is disputed now only by the Shaw haters. His complexity, not often admitted until fairly recently, is clearly shown in some of the articles in this issue. Here Shaw's insight, his strength of imagination, and the skilled draughtsmanship of a master nlaywright are revealed. o :0 :0 There will be a conference on modern drama at the MLA meeting in December. Some of the topics to be discussed will be problems in research, translations, and anthologies. A report of the conference will be carried in the February, 1960, issue of Modern Drama. :0 :0 :0 In the December, 1959, Modem Drama, there will be a review of the Moscow theater season by the Soviet writer, Pavel Markov. ...