New Trends in 20th Century Drama: A Survey Since Ibsen and Shaw by Frederick Lumley (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 239 medicines of a capitalist doctor ... who ... caters to and encourages her every neurosis." She escapes from the "sickroom of capitalism" to a life of adventure in an earthly paradise, but after growing bored sets off to found a sisterhood that will "clean up this filthy world and keep it clean." And so it is with each play. Hummert pauses just long enough to point out the characters who are capitalists or Marxists or potential Marxists, and to quote a few lines that support the idea that Marxian economics are central to the dramatist's vision. Unfortunately, very little is pointed out that is not obvious, and Hummert gives small indication that he's aware that the plays contain matter other than Marxian. Hummert gives too little credit to Shaw's purposefulness. He presents Shaw as a typical Bloomsbury intellectual revising his revisions with each bit of news or hearsay from revolutionary Russia. Hummert, further, seems unaware of Shaw's powers of irony and strategy. Many of Shaw's most revolutionary statements were made tongue-in-cheek, as modest proposals, or as strategic frightening of the body politic, but Hummert treats them all as straightforward statements. Seldom has a writer's tone been so ignored. Tone, in fact, is one of the most serious problems here. For a book that purports to be an account of a Shavian romance, it is surprisingly humorless and romanceless. Hummert rightly introduces Shaw as an incurable romancer, but then pretty much drops the idea of a romance for a rather plodding demonstration of Marx's influence. One gets little feeling from Hummert that Marxism was something that might cause a Shaw to soar. There are other problems. Although a specialist work, it seems written for non-specialists (too much unnecessary plot summary, for instance). Further, the scholarship is very definitely not up-to-date (1956 is the latest date of any reference), and as literary criticism it is flawed by obvious gaffes (such as the idea that Apollodorous is "the true artist" in Caesar and Cleopatra, when Shaw obviously ridicules him as an esthete). And too often Hummert identifies Shaw with his characters, seeing no distinction, for instance, between Shaw and John Tanner. Bernard Shaw's Marxian Romance is, finally, a somewhat useful book rather than an insightful book. It is useful to have the thread of Shaw's Marxian concern followed from beginning to end in a single book, as a reference guide, but it is regrettable that the isolating of this thread sheds so little enlightenment upon the whole pattern. R. F. DIETRICH University of South Florida NEW TRENDS IN 20TH CENTURY DRAMA: A SURVEY SINCE IBSEN AND SHAW, by Frederick Lumley. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972.418 pp. $8.50. This volume is an updated revision of Lumley's first New Trends in 20th Century Drama, originally published in 1956. Lumley's discussion is not really centered on a consistent analysis of "new trends"; instead he offers to 240 BOOK REVIEWS the reader a loosely connected series of biographical notes and plot outlines, covering the span of drama from Pirandello to Mrozek. His "survey" is a rather pedestrian one which has little to offer to the professional student of drama. Nor, frankly, do I think that undergraduates would find his book very helpful, because its strong biases, imprecise language, sporadic lack of understanding and arbitrariness create confusion. Lumley does not like "pessimistic" drama, but never clearly defines what he means by "pessimism." Thus he uses this catch-all term to characterize the work of dramatists as diverse as Sartre, Anouilh, and Beckett. On the other hand, he warms to the plays of "optimists" such as Giraudoux and Claudel. He goes so far as to chide Sartre for despising the church and plunging man into darkness. After a bit of this the reader is able to predict with surprising accuracy which playwrights Lumley will be negatively disposed towards - we know as we approach the discussion of the state of drama in Germany that Hochhuth does not stand a chance. A second set of blinders is revealed in Lumley's propensity towards criticizing "Communists." He takes Peter Weiss to task...