Essays on Contemporary American Drama ed. by Hedwig Bock and Albert Wertheim (review)

Book Reviews HEDWIG BOCK AND ALBERT WERTHEIM, EDS. Essays on COlllemporary American Drama. Munich: Max Hueber Verlag 1981. Pp. 302. $!O.9S(pB). The editors of this volume intend it to be a "useful introduction to the playwrights and drama of the United States during the last twenty years." Ofthe sixteen essays contained in the work, three provide overviews of contemporary black, female, and MexicanAmerican drama, while thirteen concern themselves with specific playwrights. Seven of the study's contributors are European scholars whose insights into America's contemporary dramatists are frequently both exciting and perceptive. Kimball King's annotated bibliography ofplays by the dramatists considered, as well as critical reaction to them, is appended to the volume. Extremely useful, it is by no means exhaustive. Although the study is a strong introductory survey of contemporary American dramatists, there are some curious editorial choices regarding inclusion, exclusion, balance, and duplicating of infonnation. Of the three essays treating general trends in minority drama, only Patti P. Gillespie's "America's Women Dramatists, 1960-1980" is successful. Gillespie traces the exit of the female dramatists from the commercial theatre during the 1960s and offers some reasonable explanations for their increasing reliance on noncommercial and alternative theatres as producing agencies. Winona L. Fletcher's "Consider the Possibilities: An Overview of Black Drama in the 1970s" lacks point of view and is, finally, a handlist of black plays produced during the last decade with little explanation of criteria employed for inclusion in the list. Even less satisfactory is John W. Brokaw's "Mexican-American Drama." The author devotes almost one half of the essay to general background infonnation on Mexican-American Drama since 1845. The remainder of the piece concentrates primarily on Luis Valdez, who is treated much more thoroughly in Dieter Henns's "Luis Valdez, Chicano Dramatist: An Introduction and an Interview." The volume would have had more focus if these general essays had not been included. Although the effons of minority dramatists have been largely ignored in introductory texts and collections, this study tends to overcompensate: forty percent of the book is devoted to black, female, and Mexican-American dramatists and trends. The inclusion and exclusion of individual dramatists are also somewhat problematic. Despite her historical importance, Lorraine Hansberry can hardly be considered a contemporary dramatist. Moreover, much of the infonnation contained in Margaret Wilkerson's study of Hansberry is duplicated in Peter Bruck's discussion of Ed Bullins and The New LafayeUe Theatre. If an essay is devoted to the late Hansberry, why is the not-quite-as-Iate Preston Jones totally ignored? Among working contemporary dramatists , Ronald Ribman is the subject of an excellent piece by Gerald Weales, who persuades the reader that the recurrent idea of"failure clownst, characterizes the canon of Ribman's work. Yet one cannot help questioning the inclusion ofan essay on Ribman in a volume which totally ignores the work of Mark Medoff. Seven ofthe essays on individual dramatists have a common theoretical base: a central idea or image that infonns, in various manifestations, all of a playwright's work. In addition to Weales's aforementioned essay on Ribman, Albert Wertheim argues convincingly that Arthur Miller's work since After the Fall deals with .... . the theme of insight and responsibility, the loss of innocence and its consequences." Similarly, Katharine Worth makes good sense of Edward Albee's plays: "Albee has finally made himself the playwright ofaging; he studies with fascination the evolution of personality from one phase of life to another." Kopit is investigated in an analogous fashion by Book Reviews Jiirgen Wolter. who deftly analyzes the playwright's work and demonstrates that: "Kapil is concerned with an individual's interior landscape and the question of his identity; the protagonist's visionary self-portrait is tested and exposed as a fallacious dream which, revealing his true soul. turns into an apocalyptic nightmare," Janet Herzbach finds in her study ofDavid Rabe's plays that "the main characters ... are busy, in their various ways, discovering death." Herzbach's essay on Rabe is, perhaps, unfair to the playwright. She tends to damn rather than explain his work, finds only Streamers to be effective, but grudgingly admits that all of...