John Arden by Simon Trussler, and: Brendan Behan by Raymond J. Porter, and: John Osborne by Harold Ferrar (review)

394 BOOK REVIEWS that should have been given serious consideration. The greatest failures in contemporary theatre architecture in England, the United States and Canada fall into this category - far too many clients in their desire for solving the answers to multi-purpose programs have influenced theatre technicians and architects into creating a single multi-purpose structure. It is high time that theatre technicians and architects should recognize the basic weakness in this concept. A client must be informed of the financial risks and technical failures which can spell failure in the future use of these auditoria designed to meet every possible type of theatrical presentation. JO MIELZINER New York. JOHN ARDEN, by Simon Trussler. Columbia Essays on Modern Writers. New York & London: Columbia University Press, 1973.48 pp. $1.00. BRENDAN BEHAN, by Raymond J. Porter. Columbia Essays on Modern Writers. New York & London: Columbia University Press, 1973. 48 pp. $1.00. JOHN OSBORNE, by Harold Ferrar. Columbia Essays on Modern Writers. New York & London: Columbia University Press, 1973.48 pp. $1.00. These three essays are numbers 65, 66, and 67 of the Columbia Essays on Modern Writers series. The series is carefully edited, the printing is clear, and the price is right. By holding the essays to three signatures, totalling forty-eight pages, and by stapling, Columbia is able to charge us only one American dollar per essay. Each writer gives us a short life of the dramatist, brief discussions of the plays, with dates of production, and rather makeshift bibliographies. Through 1969 John Arden had written eighteen plays. No mean feat when we learn that his first commercially produced play was put on in 1957 by the Royal Court Theatre. And though quantity alone won't do it, Arden's seriousness, his versatility (he has written mannered comedy, grotesque farce, period problem play, autobiographical allegory, ballad, opera, community drama, epic chronicle, mime play, and melodrama), his knowledge of the theatre, and his abiding interest in it should help Arden to place some pebbles where they will be pretty hard to dislodge, as Frost would say. Mr. Trussler, editor of Theatre Quarterly, does as well with Arden as anyone, and he does better than many. He discusses the plays as theatre, but one learns from this essay a little about Arden himself, a little about the production of Arden's plays, as well as a little about the plays as theatre pieces. But Mr. Trussler does not lead one to higher ground when he writes about what the plays have to say. We remain in the same old foggy bottom Arden left us in when we first read Sergeant Musgrave's Dance, Armstrong's Last Goodnight, and The True History of Squire lohnathan. The ambiguity of Arden's plays Trussler ascribes to Arden's vision, which allows Arden to see both sides of any question, or, for that matter, the facets of any question. BOOK REVIEWS 395 But seeing all the facets of a question is a child's game. The trick is to pick out one facet and stick with it. And this, apparently, Arden has never learned to do. Life is just too complex and difficult to choose sides. So we have a pacifist, Sergeant Musgrave, resort to violence to impose pacifism and Arden refusing to stand up and be counted. Trussler does his best with this copout - "his own particular distinction as a playwright lies in a feeling for dialectics, and for the sheer complexity of the seemingly straightforward, that is usually several degrees more devastating than any direct hit aimed from one side of the polemical barricades." Well, "straightforward" is a lovely word which we can use to describe Homer or Dante. One hopes that Arden, wise in the ways of the theatre, will come to realize that almost anyone can do Duessa; it's Una who's hard to play. But, in general, Mr. Trussler's discussions of the plays are filled with good sense. He also provides us with a better bibliography than those given us by the authors of the essays on Osborne and Behan. Raymond J. Porter's essay on Brendan Behan never catches fire. It's all right if...