The Making of T. S. Eliot's Plays by E. Martin Browne (review)

1970 BooK. REVIEWS 345 man appears to be of the latter opinion. More important to the student of the theater IS, of course, Wedekind's position as a dramatist. To this problem the author devotes a chapter entitled "The Place of Frank Wedekind." In it he states thal "in a half-dozen plays created during one decade of his life, Wedekind antici· pated many techniques to be found today in the modem theater of revolt." In this chapter Professor Gittleman succeeds admirably in bringing Wedekind doser to the non-German reader by emphasizing not only Wedekind's· predecessors )ike Lent, Biichner, Grabbe, and his greatest German diSCiple Brecht. but by relating other European and American dramatists to him. In view of the fact that Wedekind's writings are obviously and strongly autobiographical , moral, and what we would call engages, Professor Gittleman brilliantly carries out the general charge given him by the Twayne editors: he includes the biographical, historical. and cultural material necessary for understanding, appreciation, and critical appraisal of the writer. ERICH A. ALBRECHT University of Kansas THE .MAKING OF T. S. ELIOT'S PLAYS, by E. Martin Browne. Cambridge University Press, 1969. 349 pp. $9.50. More than any other man., E. Martin Browne assisted T. S.Eliot in his effort to bring renewed life to the verse drama of the twentieth century theater. The Making of T. S. Eliot's P14ys is an indispensable book for students of the drama. It recounts the most significant steps in the progress of each play-The Rock, Murder in the Cathedral, The Family Reunion, The Cocktail Party, The Confidential Clerk, and The Elder Sstatesmah; and it tells the story of the various productions. The early Sweeney Agonistes is dealt with only briefly. for Mr. Browne concentrates on his working association with T. S. Eliot, as adviser and director of the first production of each of his completed verse dramas from 1933 to 1958. The account is made vivid through the inclusion of letters to and from T. S. Eliot, and the use of Mr. Browne's diary, detailed memories, and critical evaluations. Highly gifted theater people such as Lilian Baylis. Rupert Doone, Ashley Dukes, Robert Speaight, Michael Redgrave, Henry Sherek, and Alec Guinness are a part of the story which evolves, in their relation with the famous poet turned dramatist. The chapter liThe Chorus in Performance" afters an interesting by-path. concerned with the choral direction Elsie Fogarty and Gwynneth Thurburn provided for The Rock and Murder in the Cathedral. The book focuses particular attention on the evolution of the plays. analyzing the author's intentions and techniques in the earliest manuscripts as compared with developments in subsequent versions, and it indicates T. S. Eliot's sensitive response to detailed criticisms by Mr. Browne and others. Such an examination provides the rare opportunity to obserVe the creative mind of a poet-dramatist at work, accepting or rejecting suggestions to better fulfill his own intentions for the play in progress, or determining to pursue success in a new drama rather than revise an old one. Unfortunately, in this reader's opinion, Mr. Browne decided to keep the size of his book down by quoting only a few passages from the published plays for his comparative analysis with earlier versions; however, he does provide references to the Collected Plays so that the reader may complete the study for himself. In the chapter "The Poetry of the Modem Plays in Performance," Mr. Browne quotes T. S. Eliot's description from "Poetry and Drama" of the 3-stress lint; 346 MODERN DRAMA December with caesura, which he used, among other meters, in The Family Reunion. Accordingly , Mr. Browne assumes that the later plays are to be scanned a$ having predominantly 3-stress lines. However, in an earlier essay, "The Dramamtic Verse of T. S. Eliot" [T. S. Eliot, A Symposium, eds. Richard March and Tambimuttu (London, 1948), pp. 203-4], he described the verse-norm of The Family Reunion as 4-stress. And he seemed to agree with this writer that the norm of The C~cktail Party was a 4-stress line if we were describing isochronous metrical stresses creating the temporal rhythm actually...