A Primer for Playgoers by Edward A. Wright (review)

1958 BOOK REvmws 61 as a maker of plays with abstract allegorical shapes imposed on the action. Listening closely to music of The Confidential Clerk he notes, somewhere far behind the visible and audible comedy for polite suburbs, "8 resigned and lyric meditation _ on the ways of Providence"; but for him the distance between that and what Eliot's comedy seems to say is too great. Behind these views is a classical and Aristotelian vi~w of drama that demands that the action be incarnate in individual lives, and a rejection of the Platonic notion of art as directly didactic, of drama as the demonstration of an idea. As against the demonstration of an idea Fergusson prefers the "imitation of an action." The essay "Macbeth- as the Imitation of an Action," though rather too brief to fully establish its thesis, reads Aristotle's praxis as nearer to "aim" or "motive" than outward deed, that is, as the inner movement of the play. In trying to define this action by an infinitive phrase (in this case "to outrun reason"), Fergusson follows Boleslavsky, once his teacher, and the theory of the Moscow Art Theatre. A demonstration of what may be called his nanalogical" method, this essay, as well as the one on Measure fOf" Medsure, throws suggestive new light on two set-pieces of Shakespeare criticism. In an age of much critical jargon and dogma it is gratifying to have a critic frankly recognize the empirical nature of his art. Renouncing the "mirage" of encyclopedic completeness or "scientific" soundness (although the unobtrusive scholarship utilized in these essays is hardly inconsiderable), Fergusson hies ·to cultivate "a sense of proportion." His Aristotelian basis allows a wide freedom; the method of analOgical reading, admittedly dangerous, remains unforced. All of the essays testify to faith in literature as an autonomous activity with social and spiritual significance. In the slightest of them criticism itself appears as a valuable activity contributing to the life of humane letters. A PRIMER FOR PLAYGOERS, by Edward A. Wright, Prentice-Hall, inc., 270 pp. A Pri1Mr f01' Playgoers, by Edward A. Wrigh~ is intended principally, as the title suggests, for the playgoer, for the person who sits in the audience. It is an introduction to all phases of the theatre; and its aim is not only to add to the playgoer's enjoyment but to make him a more discriminating critic, thus gradually to "create a better audience which will in turn demand better theatre." Mr. Wright covers an immense amount of territory in this book of 270 pages, though it might be more accurate to say that he raises an immense number of questions, all pertinent. It is obviously impossible in a "primer" to go thoroughly . into such matters as the nature and function of art, the meaning of beauty, the tradition of tragedy from the Greeks to Arthur Miller, the history of drama, and' the evolution of the modern theatre. It is possible only to introduce them; and this Mr. Wright does, interestingly and provocatively. From his long experience as a teacher of drama and a director, Mr. Wright explains with the authority of a practitioner the many aspects of play produCtion: the problems of the director, the actor, the scene and costume designers, the technicians -all the tangible and intangible elements which make a play and of which, for the most part, audiences are unaware. He includes also two chapters on cinema and television drama, line drawings illustrating modem trends in scenic design, many photographs of actual productions and of persons famous in the theatre, and a helpful glossary of theatre tenns. Mr. Wright is entirely aware of the fact that a book about the theatre will not ipso facto guarantee either enjoyment or discrimination on the part of the reader and playgoer. Enjoyment of any real significance and true discrimination and 62 MODERN DRAMA May taste in the theatre, as in any of the arts, must be earned through effort. As the Preface states, «Appreciation in itseH cannot be taught. That is a by-product growing out of lmowledge and understanding. It comes to the individual only after he has applied. first consciously and later unconsciously. all...