This critical exploration of modern drama begins with Büchner and Ibsen and then discusses the major playwrights who have shaped modern theater. A new introduction by the author assesses developments of recent years.

This critical exploration of modern drama begins with Büchner and Ibsen and then discusses the major playwrights who have shaped modern theater. A new introduction by the author assesses developments of recent years.

Focuses on the work of eight modern playwrights to reveal the way drama contributes to man's consciousness of the human condition.

The result of twenty-five years of research on three continents, Brecht and Company is a revolutionary portrait of one of the world's greatest theater artists -- and the people upon whom he built his reputation. A noted Brecht scholar, John Fuegi traces the evolution of Brecht's parasitic relationships and aggressive ambition through close analysis of diaries, letters, and drafts of the literary works, revealing a man who was personally dazzling, a genius at assembling and directing the plays created in his workshop, but ultimately lacking in literary stamina, for which he depended on his lovers. A landmark study about the life and times of one of the most influential figures in twentieth-century theater, Brecht and Co. will forever change our understanding of Brecht and his oeuvre. "[An] enormous, fascinating biography." -- The New Yorker "One of the most important critical studies of the century." -- New York Magazine

Publisher description

Maurice Maeterlinck has been called the 'prodigal father' of modern theatre. As Rilke put it, he shifted theatre's center of gravity, replacing action with inaction, events with the eventless, and dialogue with an expressive semantics of silence. This study, the first in over a decade, traces the development of Maeterlinck's dramatic vision of extraordinary originality and depth.