Contemporary Dramatists

Abstract

This reference work is, in fact, the third volume in a series called Contemporary Writers of the English Language. The first two volumes deal with poets and novelists respectively. The value of a work like this is that it can be a useful aid to teachers preparing courses, students doing research, or to anyone interested generally in drama who wants a detailed account of a particular writer’s career. The difficulty comes with the interpretation of the word “contemporary”. Ruby Cohn, in her preface, confesses that the definition used by the compilers was “biologically alive (for this volume)”. This leads to some curious inclusions and exclusions: J.B. Priestley but not John Whiting; George Abbott and Dore Senary but not Carson McCullers and Loraine Hansberry. In many cases those excluded by reason of death have contributed as much or more to contemporary theatre in its wider sense than the conventional playwrights who are given pages of coverage. In some cases, too, death has intruded since 1973, when the book was published, and put some of the entries into the “no longer biologically alive” category: among them are Noel Coward, William Inge and W.H. Auden.