To encounter the work of John Arden is to join a debate about theater: what it is for and whom it is for. These questions are the subject of most of his articles, more than one of his novels, and several of his plays. The debate has been joined by critics who have responded with some passion to both the form and the content of his work: some in favor, some against, and a substantial number with a sort of perpetually delayed gratification that derides his newer work in relation to his early "masterpieces"--which were, at the time, equally vilified. It has also been joined, on a less theoretical basis, by Arden's chosen audiences and performers, between whom the dividing line is not always fixed. They have been drawn not only from the subsidized theater, in which the fairly well-heeled perform for the extremely well-heeled, but also...