Contemporary British Drama, 1970-90

R. Kerry White is the director of theatre arts at Laurentian University.

All of the critical essays in this collection appeared in past editions
of Modern Drama, a University of Toronto Press journal, and all but
three are older than 10 years. The 21 essays focus on 14 British
playwrights (all but one male); a few, such as Pinter, Bond, and
Stoppard, are the subjects of several contributors. Eighteen of the 21
contributors are male, two-thirds are employed in departments of
literature (only two are from theatre departments), and only three are
Canadian—this from a Canadian university press.

Granted that publishing old material is relatively inexpensive, should
limited Canadian publication funds be spent on such a project? Do we
need more literary essays on British playwrights? Are Canadian
contributors, male and female, from theatre departments and the
profession so hard to find? The essays themselves will be of interest
only to students in English departments looking for critical material to
regurgitate, and perhaps to the odd theatre director searching for
inspiration from a survey of critical opinion on the next project. This
is not to say that each of these essays is not a thoughtful piece of
critical analysis, and interesting as such—only that the editors of
Modern Drama can surely do better.