Modern World Drama: An Encyclopedia by Myron Matlaw, and: Crowell's Handbook of Contemporary Drama by Michael Anderson et al., and: The Reader's Encyclopedia of World Drama ed. by John Gassner and Edward Quinn (review)

396 BOOK REVIEWS Anger, Ferrar says, "is a virtual compendium of mid-century concerns: isolation and alienation, noncommunication, the death of ideals and the vanishing heroism, identity crisis and the disintegration of the self, the struggle for authenticity within the technological explosion, the confrontation of nothingness, the uselessness of awareness for changing a cruel world. Unlike Pinter or Beckett, Osborne is not concerned with incorporating his themes into timeless-seeming mythic patterns but prefers a traditional domestic form in which idea inheres in relationships and conflicts. He is willing to sacrifice density of poetic texture in favor of a hyperactive whirlwind rhetoric that mirrors not a cosmic condition but the frantic second-to-second living of pain-filled lives, 'the very narrow strip of hell' we inhabit." But Jimmy never does very much about changing the world himself. As one of my students (a young lady) remarked recently in class, "All Jimmy does is sit around on his ass." The reason Jimmy doesn't get it into the saddle and start lopping off heads is because, as Ferrar makes clear, Jimmy and Osborne believed at heart that human love conquers all. In fact, it is as a human existentialist that Ferrar sees Osborne. "Here we are, we're alone in the universe, there's no God, it all began by something as simple as sunlight striking on a piece of rock. And here we are. We've only got ourselves. Somehow we've just got to make a go of it." This from Jean Rice in The Entertainer, a play Mr. Ferrar discusses with intelligence and imagination. Ferrar regrets that he cannot bring the best tools of his trade - a training in structural methodology - to Osborne's plays because there is little that is original in Osborne's dramatic forms. Most of us will be glad that Ferrar didn't strip the threads of Osborne's plays by obstinately forcing them with the wrong wrenches. We can be grateful that Ferrar used his other gifts instead. There does not exist anywhere a better understanding of Osborne and his plays than one can find in this essay. A. C. EDWARDS University of Kansas MODERN WORLD DRAMA: AN ENCYCLOPEDIA, by Myron Matlaw. New York: Dutton, 1972. 960 pp. $25.00. CROWELL'S HANDBOOK OF CONTEMPORARY DRAMA, by Michael Anderson, Jacques Guicharnaud, Kristin Morrison, Jack D. Zipes, and others. New York: Crowell, 1971. 505 pp. $10.00. THE READER'S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WORLD DRAMA, edited by John Gassner and Edward Quinn. New York: Crowell, 1969.1030 pp. $15.00. Whether it should be or not, the publication of a reference book covering a large tract of one's area is a downright momentous event. For several years to come - normally far too many - that hyper-handy volume will reach the multitudes and prove not only a prime source of factual data (some of it BOOK REVIEWS 397 wrong) but also, by a kind of covert inoculation, a potent transmitter of attitude, perspective, and opinion. Intending simply to be useful (or at worst to sell), it can become well-nigh insidious. Thus we might almost deem it crucial that the reference books in our own field be as good as possible. This may sound like the prelude to strenuous carping, but it is not. The field of modern drama has recently gained three reference works of the ultra-convenient, home-purchase type, all products of thoroughly commercial publishers. However, all three are very good indeed. No review in a reputable journal should amount to a book-jacket blurb, and this one won't. Still, in a day of two-dollar paperback plays and 4-cent-a-page university press books, the modem drama man (or Ms.) will appreciate knowing that the Crowell Handbook of Contemporary Drama, at $10, is the best buy around. Moreover, the same publisher's Encyclopedia of World Drama is a fine bet for an idle $15; and the Dutton Modern World Drama: An Encyclopedia, 960 closely printed pages of sheer usefulness, is genuinely worth its $25 price. The three works form a complementary trio. The most limited in scope, the contemporary drama volume, covers "written drama" of significance in "Europe...