From Publishers Weekly
"Creativity is very difficult to talk about," warns veteran playwright Robert Anderson. Nevertheless, he and 14 of America's leading dramatists participate in an entertaining and at times revealing discussion about the creative process-despite an overall lack of focus occasioned by multiple interviewers. As Bryer, a professor of English at the University of Maryland and co-editor of Selected Letters of Eugene O'Neill, says in his introduction, the intention was to "deal with the mysteries of that 'irrational act' [playwriting], as well as with the changing face of the American theatre during the past half century." In light of this, it is odd that the book is organized alphabetically rather than chronologically, making it difficult to draw comparisons between writers of a period or to follow the progression of dramatic writing. The playwrights hold forth quotably on a range of topics, and if certain recurrent questions are generically probing ("What terrifies you?"), the playwrights rise to the challenge. When asked simply "How did you become a playwright?" Terrance McNally launches into a four-page response that is practically a one-act play. Critics are characterized by Neil Simon as "The R-rated part of the conversation." And Ntozake Shange confesses that she prefers writing novels to plays "because I don't have to talk to anybody." If the book is ultimately a bit disappointing, the fault seems to lie in Edward Albee's answer to what terrifies him: "Not being asked wonderful questions."
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Books of interviews with theater people have recently become common as dandelions. Good ones, sadly, have not, which is why it's such a treat that this one comes along and so successfully exploits the strengths of a good interview--informal conversational tone, greater intimacy with the subject--without falling into the usual pits: pointless or ill-informed questions; digressive, boring answers; and thoughtless, sloppy, Q&A-style transcriptions. Every fascinating, absorbing interview in this collection takes us on a rich journey through the mind of a living, working American playwright. We learn, for example, that Ntozake Shange's hit, for colored girls, grew out of a series of poetry readings Shange conducted in the early 1970s; that John Guare was first produced because he was "an Aquarius"; and that none of the interviewees find the theater critic useful except as a kind of publicist for their shows. It's a rare interview book that contains as many insights into the joys and dilemmas of life in the theater as this one. Jack Helbig
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
