Overview

According to Robert Brustein, the theater should be taken seriously as one of the fine arts, but it should also be considered a means to reflect on our world, times, and culture from a different perspective. However, this presents a great challenge—the masses must come to appreciate the theater as a means of leisure, but also one of learning. If Word Plays tickles your funny bone as well as touches your mind, then Brustein will have achieved his goal. Word Plays, a collection of Brustein’s articles, satires, and skits, is his attempt to both entertain and educate about the current political and cultural environment in America. Openly positioning himself as a left-leaning political observer, Brustein’s material is wide-ranging and witty. His provocative views on contemporary politics and his ease with a broad range of subjects, from Shakespeare to The Sopranos, makes this an enjoyable, engaging, and reflective volume. The book is divided into three sections. The first is a set of short essays, many of which link political themes to the dramatic arts and others that are purely political commentary. The second includes a series of ""dramatic commentaries""—short skits— lampooning contemporary politics and modern American life. The final section consists of ""elegies and eulogies"" honoring recently deceased icons of the American theater.

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9781412865616

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Robert Brustein is a playwright, director, actor, and the founding artistic director of two major theatre companies--the Yale Repertory and American Repertory theatres. He spent thirteen years as dean of the Yale School of Drama, where he founded Yale Cabaret and Theatre Magazine, and twenty-one years as professor of English at Harvard, where he founded the Institute for Advanced Theatre Training. Currently distinguished scholar in residence at Suffolk University, he is a recipient of the National Medal of the Arts.

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