Nonfiction
Winter 1964
Bertolt Brecht’s First Play
The fame of Brecht’s later plays has been bad for the reputation of his earlier ones, and in combating this phenomenon one is combating some powerful preconceptions. It is assumed, […]
Department KR: A Section of Briefer Comment
Autumn 1962
Comment
Just a line to correct a common misunderstanding which has popped up in KR (the Summer 1962 issue, “Happy Ending, Nice and Tidy”). There is no single “Bentley and Vesey […]
Book Reviews
Summer 1945
Brief Comment: Freud, Master and Friend
Freud, Master And Friend by Hanns Sachs. Harvard. $2.50. If we are entitled to study any man’s private life, that man is Sigmund Freud, the arch-explorer of the private […]
Department KR: A Section of Briefer Comment
Winter 1962
Comment
As it was I who commissioned a translation of Phèdre from Robert Lowell, I should like to comment on George Steiner’s unfavorable review of it (Autumn 1961). This review seems […]
Book Reviews
Spring 1945
Brief Comment: This Changing World
This Changing World: A Series Of Contributions By Some Of Our Leading Thinkers, To Cast Light Upon The Pattern Of The Modern World edited by J. R. M. Brumwell. Routledge […]
Nonfiction
Winter 1961
The Political Theatre Reconsidered
One’s thinking begins with the assumption that all the arts have a certain social importance. But do most members of most societies make this assumption? Probably not. So that, at […]
Book Reviews
Spring 1945
Brief Comment: The Bible and the Common Reader
The Bible And The Common Reader by Mary Ellen Chase. Macmillan. $2.50. Those of us who are happy neither with the anti-religous zest of yesterday nor with the neo-religious […]
Nonfiction
Summer 1952
Trying to like O’Neill
It would be nice to like O’Neill. He is the leading American playwright; damn him, damn all; and damning all is a big responsibility. It is tempting to damn all […]
Nonfiction
Autumn 1945
August Strindberg (Reconsiderations: No. IV)
“Trust in God and keep your powder dry.” —Oliver Cromwell In recent years a number of writers who have the disadvantage of being dead, foreign, or esoteric have been sold to […]
Nonfiction
Winter 1951
Eduardo de Filippo and the Neapolitan Theatre
Both in technique and philosophy, Eduardo de Filippo is traditional. At the same time he strikes me as one of the three or four original figures in the theatre today. […]
Book Reviews
Autumn 1945
Brief Comment: The Annihilation of Man
The Annihilation of Man by Leslie Paul. Harcourt, Brace. $2.50. Of all diagnoses of our time those which postulate a Spiritual Crisis are the most dubious. The writer’s own […]
Nonfiction
Spring 1950
Jean-Louis Barrault
The phenomenon Barrault is complex, but two evenings in his theatre—the evening when he gives Le Procès and the evening when he gives La Seconde Surprise de l’Amour and Les […]
Book Reviews
Autumn 1945
Brief Comment: The Aesthetic Adventure
The Aesthetic Adventure by William Gaunt. Harcourt, Brace. $3.00. “The history of the Bohemian movement in art and writing” is an excellent subject but Mr. Gaunt cannot be said […]
Nonfiction
Winter 1950
An American Theatre Critic! (Or the China in the Bull Shop)
Because he will spend most of his time seeing bad things, the American theatre critic must know a bad thing when he sees it; he must remember to say that […]
Communications
Summer 1945
The Views of Mr. Symons
Sirs: Mr. D. S. Savage and Mr. Julian Symons have sent from England two of the most stimulating essays published in the Kenyon Review for some time. But stimulus is […]
Nonfiction
Autumn 1949
German Stagecraft Today
After seeing my production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle in Philadelphia a very friendly critic wrote of Brecht: One has the feeling that he is unconcerned with settings, with the […]
Nonfiction
Spring 1945
The Drama at Ebb
“The drama is always at a low ebb.” —Bernard Shaw. No one could deny that the situation of the theatre is today very problematic. Many discussions of the problem, however, […]
Nonfiction
Spring 1949
Chekhov as Playwright (Reconsiderations, No. XI)
The American theatre finds it possible to get along without the services of most of the best playwrights. Aeschylus, Lope de Vega, Racine, Moliere, Schiller, Strindberg—one could prolong indefinitely the […]
Book Reviews
Winter 1945
Kahler and Mumford
Man The Measure: A New Approach to History by Erich Kabler. Pantheon Books. $5.00 The Condition Of Man by Lewis Mumford. Harcourt, Brace. $5.00 Here are two big books […]
Nonfiction
Autumn 1948
Monsieur Verdoux as “Theatre”
“His great forte has been purely theatrical.” —Parker Tyler. What an achievement this film is! We don’t have to compare it with other films: we don’t have to compare it with […]
Nonfiction
Autumn 1944
The Theatres of Wagner and Ibsen
But there can be no doubt that Wagner, and Ibsen too, will one day come into their own again, even though for quite different reasons and out of quite different […]
Nonfiction
Summer 1948
The Meaning of Robert Penn Warren’s Novels
If an author makes a deep impression there comes a time when you are no longer content merely to read his books as they come out. You want to re-read […]
Book Reviews
Winter 1946
Short Notice: Freudianism and the Literary Mind
Freudianism And The Literary Mind by Frederick J. Hoffman. Louisiana State University. $4.00. My first impression was unfavorable. Misled by the title into expecting a speculative discourse, I was a […]
Nonfiction
Spring 1948
Yeats as a Playwright
It cannot be said that Yeats has much of a reputation as a playwright. Literary critics speak of his plays at best as something that helped him to write poems. […]
Nonfiction
Spring 1947
Editors in Person: Little Magazines
Since we have been invited to effect a rapprochement between historical scholarship and the literary magazine, let me quote this: It remained for the 19th Century, with the critical writing […]
Book Reviews
Spring 1948
Sartre’s Struggle for Existenz
Théatre. Les Mouches. Huis-Clos. Morts sans Sépulture. La Putain Respectueuse par Jean-Paul Sartre. Paris: Gallimard. 175 francs The new French theatre, the theatre of the Resistance, the theatre of […]
Book Reviews
Summer 1945
Brief Comment: The Hollywood Hallucination
The Hollywood Hallucination by Parker Tyler. Creative Age Press. $2.50. Since the phrase “slightly screwy” has now been introduced into literary criticism some will want to apply it to […]
Nonfiction
Autumn 1947
“Adapted from the French”
Nobody wants to be considered a mere translator. If you have always wanted to be a creative writer without ever quite managing it, you may translate something from the French, […]
Book Reviews
Spring 1945
Brief Comment: Sunday after the War
Sunday After The War by Henry Miller. New Directions. $3. Since I have read only one other book by Henry Miller I cannot say whether he is justly charged […]
Book Reviews
Winter 1947
Philistines and Films
The Art Of The Motion Picture by Jean Benoit-Levy. Coward-McCann. $3.50 Mr. Benoit-Levy was the director of the well-known French film La Maternelle. For the past five years he has […]
Book Reviews
Autumn 1946
This Is the New Criticism
Explorations: Essays in Criticism Mainly On The Literature of the Seventeenth Century by L. C. Knights. London: Chatto & Windus. 10s. 6d. One may dislike its tone, one may have […]
Nonfiction
Summer 1946
Bernard Shaw’s Politics: A Birthday Tribute¹
Of the fifteen reputations which Shaw has laid claim to, his reputation as a socialist is perhaps the most familiar. Shaw has been expounding socialism for over sixty years, and […]
Book Reviews
Spring 1946
Who Understands Drama?
Understanding Drama by Cleanth Brooks and Robert Heilman. Holt. $2.25 Since textbooks do not commonly run the gauntlet of printed criticism professors can write bad books and sell them to […]
Book Reviews
Winter 1946
Prophetic Anarchists
When Democracy Builds by Frank Lloyd Wright. University of Chicago. $4.00. The Sexual Revolution by Wilhelm Reich. New York City: Orgone Institute. $3.25. The prophet pronounces doom upon a world […]
Nonfiction
Winter 1946
Jean-Paul Sartre, Dramatist: The Thinker as Playwright
From The Playwright as Thinker The question for some years has been: Can the non-naturalistic drama of Paris, for all its charms, grow into something more mature? If Jean Cocteau […]
Nonfiction
Spring 1950
The Theatre and Its Instrument
From the French. When at the age of six I dreamt of nothing but theatre I devoted my time to disguising myself and acting, quite alone. I imitated what I […]