Review
Richard Foreman, playwright and director, is the founder and guiding spirit of New York's off-Broadway Ontological-Hysteric Theatre. This volume collects seven of his plays (Book of Splendors: Parts One and Two, Blvd de Paris, Place + Target, Penguin Touquet, Cafe Amen'que, and Egyptology), all produced between 1976 and 1983, along with six essays on his craft. Performance data on each play round out the volume. In Foreman's theatrical cosmos, the stage takes the place of the human mind. Organized plots are dispensed with; instead, a stream-of-subconsciousness, with thoughts and words bounced off one another like so many billiard balls, replaces any conventional stage behavior. Characters appear on stage, then disappear, as in a dream; voices are heard; scenes play rapidly with a kaleidoscopic dizziness. Foreman uses one character, Rhoda, as protagonist in many of the plays. In her quest for truth? life? meaning? she is hit, stripped, branded, and otherwise acted upon and reacted to. Yet she persists in her search, like a curious Alice, always returning as catalyst to activate another play. -- From Independent Publisher
