In general, astonishing technical virtuosity coupled with a prolific ability to devise new and provocative forms of theater are the qualities which set Abell's contribution apart from that of any other playwright of his generation in Scandinavia. "Why is there anything in the theater called realism?" he demanded in a seminal essay from the thirties. "Can theater ever be realistic? Has 'the human comedy' anything to do with everyday reality?… Must the actors always stand facing the audience?… Who has decreed how reality should look? Does it always look like that?" As his art deepened, the questions multiplied, and their urgency seemed to increase. Underlying his restless quest for an imaginative and "retheatricalized" theater is the fundamental purpose to which he incessantly returns in his theoretical writing: to restore the spectator, narcotized by the literal-mindedness of the naturalistic style, to his rightful function as an active participant in...