The Pinter Problem by Austin E. Quigley (review)

426 BOOK REVIEWS emphasizes the increasing importance of the role of the director in the nineteenth century productions and discusses Ibsen's directorial duties at Bergen, his first practical experience with the theatre. Judiciously avoiding extended literary interpretations of Ibsen, the Markers instead concentrate on the actors and actresses of prominence and on the director William Bloch and some of his naturalistic productions of Ibsen's plays. They give an extended analysis of the world premiere of A Dol/'s House in 1879, seeing this production as a transition between the romantic and the natur.alistic theatre, in that "rehearsal practice and performance style [were] directly related to the conventions of the actor-oriented romantic theatre with other aspects of staging clearly influenced by the growth of naturalism, with its emphasis on the interaction of character and environment." While Ibsen is seen as the focus of the second half of the nineteenth century theatre, Strindberg is seen as the gathering point of the early twentieth century Scandinavian theatre in his transition from the romantic to the naturalistic theatrical production and then to the post-naturalistic modern theatre with the production of To Damascus I in 1900. The close relationship between the Intima Teatern and the type of chamber play Strindberg wrote is examined in some detail, as are the types of staging and the public responses. "The Modern Theatre" and the theatre "Since 1945" form the last two chapters of the book. These sketch some of the directions in types of theatre, the involvement of talents such as Kjeld Abell and Par Lagerkvist, Ingmar Bergman and Alf Sjoberg, some of the influential actors and productions, the relationship of the Scandinavian theatre to television. One of the difficulties of the book is inherent in its subject matter. Unlike Frederick Marker's Hans Christian Andersen and the Romantic Theatre (1971) or Lise-Lone Marker's David Belasco: Naturalism in the American Theatre (1975), both of which are organized around a single figure, this volume is organized chronologically and to a certain extent geographically, a scheme which is complicated by treating three different theatrical traditions in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and further complicated by the necessity of dealing with such a wide variety of materials related to performance as costumes, lighting, stage construction , acting and directing methods, prominent actors, actresses, and directors , significant playwrights, important theatres, and sources of monetary assistance . The task is a difficult one and the occasional cataloging is understandable. A noteworthy feature of the book is its bibliography by country and additional bibliographical items arranged by chapter references, both of which give additional materials for more detailed study. The great merit of the book is its wellwritten convergence of materials not easily accessible or even available in English into a theatrical context that is made even more vivid by the fifty well chosen and clearly reproduced plates of photographs and illustrations of sets, costumes , and productions. SANDRA E. SAARI Eisenhower College THE PINTER PROBLEM, by Austin E. Quigley. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975. xix & 294 pp. $13.50. To make it clear from the beginning, Professor Quigley'S book is unquestionably BOOK REVIEWS 427 one of the very best critical works on Pinter to have been published in English. (The existence of works in French and German will be referred to below.) Written in a clear and easily accessible style, the study abounds in fresh, remarkable insights into the nature of Pinter's stagecraft. Simon Trussler once claimed that "more rubbish has been written on Harold Pinter than all his contemporaries put together" (The Plays ofHarold Pinter: An Assessment [London, 1973J, p. 13); unfortunately , Trussler's monograph failed to convince the reader of the validity of this assertion. Now Professor Quigley provides conclusive evidence that a good deal of commentary on Pinter has, in fact, to be discarded as rubbish. He successfully avoids falling prey to customary categories and easy generalizations which have been applied to Pinter's work; instead, starting from clear theoretical premises, he establishes his own approach to Pinter and elucidates the plays on their own terms. The results are thoroughly convincing, and, above all, they are verifiable, whereas the findings of many other critics are...