English Drama: A Modern Viewpoint by Allardyce Nicoll (review)

1969 HOOK REVIEWS ~15 home in our present society merely adolescent maladjustment, or might it not be at least the beginning of grace?" Taylor briefly surveys British society in 1956 to help to explain the initial impact, and concludes with a guarded judgment: much is "positively sentimental" and the opposition to Jimmy is feeble. It is unfortunate that the book has no photographs, and even more unfortunate that there is no discussion of the movie version, since this is the form in which most readers are likely to meet the play. Osborne's A Bond Honoured features in Contemporary Theatre among the reviews of forty plays staged in London in 1966 and 1967, selected by Geoffrey Morgan . All the plays are new, 27 of them. British, the rest foreign, a proportion probably representing fairly the attention given to foreign works by the West End. The discussions lead me to hope for rapid American discovery of David Mercer, Peter Terson and Charles Wood. Morgan chooses reviews from eleven newspapers and periodicals, most often The Times, Sunday Times and New Statesman (he misses some entertaining criticism by not using the Spectator, and some thoughtful views by not drawing on Tribune and Encounter), usually giving three or four critics on each play. As most of the comment is from the weekly reviewers, who have had time to ponder before wrhing, the judgments are more perceptive than those in the New York Theatre Critics' Reviews. Morgan writes that he wants to give "the reviewers' contemporaneous impression," but in fact omits almost entirely reporting on acting and production, so allowing no sense of what it was like to be in the theatre on the first night. Instead, we read observations on content generally written by people who had not had a chance to read the play! The front cover claims the book as a "useful reference" work, but actually no supporting information is supplied. The plays are arranged in no discernible order, with no cast-lists, names of theatres, or dates of performance. Though the selection may rouse our interest, we are not told where the plays are publishedor whether they are available at all. While my welcome is qualified, I hope this will be the first of a series of collected reviews. MALCOLM PAGE Simon Fraser University ENGLISH DRAMA: A MODERN VIEWPOINT, by Allardyce Nicoll. Barnes and Noble, Inc., New York, 1968, 184 pp. Mr. Nicoll's avowed purpose is to present a specialized survey of the English drama, a survey for individuals interested primarily in the modem stage, a survey which underscores dramatic developments that bear directly or indirectly on "today's theatrical efforts," a survey which ignores developments that do not bear directly or indirectly on "modern achievements," a survey, in short, which is to set what is now going on "in perspective." To accomplish his purpose, Mr. Nicoll pens fourteen brief chapters, the first of which deals with the problem of determining what 'there is in the English drama of the past which may be regarded as pertinent to the English drama of the present. This chapter is of a theoretical nature and is studded with specific examples of specific problems, examples which are "representative" in that they clarify the kind of critical thinking that the author is obliged to do in his subsequent thirteen chapters. The first seven of these deal respectively with Medieval, Elizabethan, Jacobean, Restoration, Neo- 216 MODERN DRAMA September Classical, Romantic, and Victorian developments. The last five chapters of the book examine the English drama from 1890 to the present in an effort to establish the way in which the "first movement" of the "modern drama" inftuenced the "second movement," 'the "second movement" the "third," and so on. The final chapter includes speculation on the query, "where are we going now?" Is this book of value? Does Mr. Nicoll accomplish his purpose? I want to answer these questions very carefully. As we have seen, the author claims that his survey is aimed at people who are interested primarily in the modern stage. But such people presumbaly include individuals who know something about the English drama past and present, and for these individuals Mr. Nicoll's book will...