Edward Bond by David L. Hirst (review)

Book Reviews and "Critics and Historians," with cross~references from the first to the second. There follows an extremely valuable "Historical table of productions referred to in this book," arranged by date and indicating the author, title, director, theatre, and location ofeach production. There is a fu11 index. The work begins with an "Introduction: the inter-war years" and a chapter on ''The Occupation." Two chapters cover the Parisian theatre under the sub-headings of "philosophical melodrama" and "the New Theatre," dealing in a fresh way with what is usually refered to as "existentialism" and the "theatre of the absurd." The three subsequent chapters cover "The decentralised theatre" and divide it into "the fifties," "Planchon and Adamov," and "the sixties." The final chapters cover "Total theatre," "La creation collective," and "Playwrights of the seventies." Within these divisions, extensive accounts are given of the creation of a large number of individual plays, both new works and revivals from the classical French and foreign repertoire; ofthe careers of a number of directors and playwrights; of the development of various companies; and of the related issues of the respective roles of playwright, director, actors, technicians, and spectators, and of local and central funding agencies, in the working through of conflicting and complementary theatrical theories and practices. The latter half of Bradby's work is particularly valuable in making accessible a great deal of previously scattered and unanalysed material about provincial theatre companies such as Planchon's Thetitre de fa Cite Villeurbanlle, and important but sometimes ephemeral collective creations, such as those of the Theatre du Soleil which are not recorded on film. However, he also rereads earl ier material in the light of developments in the sixties and seventies, and has worthwhile things to say about all the topics he covers. There is, for example, a sustained reassessment ofthe ways in which the theories of Brecht and of Anaud affected French practices. Bradby's is an important work. The material it covers needed to be brought together and reinterpreted as a whole, for no account ofil existed in French or in English. Both in attention to detail and in overall organization, Bradby's treatment of his subject is of such high quality that it will certainly have permanent value. JANE COUCHMAN, GLENDON COLLEGE, YORK UNIVERSITY DAVID L. HIRST. Edward Bond. London: Macmillan 1985, pp. 176, illustrated. £15;£4.95 (PB). The plays of Edward Bond still experience mixed receptions, but Bond certainly is gaining popUlarity as a subject of critical studies. David L. Hirst's Edward Bond, in the Macmillan Modem Dramatists series, is the fifth book on the playwright to appear in the last ten years. The first of these, Simon Trussler's Edward Bond in the "Writers and Their Work" series (Harlow: Longman Group 1976), explains how the plays up to The Sea serve as "an exploration of the historical roots of a violent society" (p. 22), but also stresses Bond's faith "in the slender but real possibilities of redemption" (p. 4). Richard Scharine's The Plays ofEdward Bond (Bucknell University Press, (976) suggeslS the Book Reviews 577 basic patterns of Bond's plays, saying that "in some sense each Bond plOl repeats the basic elements of the Christ/Oedipus legend: GodlLaius/Society destroys Christl Oedipus/Innocents in order to save His followers/himself/the System" (p. 27 1). Tony Coult's thematic study The Plays a/Edward BOfld - using headings such as Gods, The World and Society - (Methuen Theatrefile 1977) is intended to stimulate interest in Bond's themes and counter the hostilerecepcion of his plays, which have been dismissed as kitchen-sink realism mixed with sensational violence. Finally Hay and Roberts's Bond (Methuen 1980) stresses the analytic pressures of Bond's work, quoting the playwright's warning against the danger of incomplete analysis: "One of the things about the twentieth century is that'it has been full of nauseatingly simplified situations. They have been disastrous and I can'I find any conviction ... to do anything other than to try to understand the problems as completely as 1can (p. 22). Indeed, Hay and Roberts present the most carefully analytical interpretations of Bond's plays to date, including a...