Eric Bentley is one of the most penetrating and dogmatic critics writing on drama and the theatre today. And by dogmatic I mean no derogation at all. For he knows. He has been there. He has seen and felt. He has experienced the theatre. For this reader he has a right to be dogmatic, such is his authority.

Those who have read his former magazine articles and books, especially "The Playwright as Thinker," will remember with what gusto and flailing he tore into many of the idols we had shied around so long and called attention to what he felt were their weaknesses and hollow drummings, their patent-leathered pretensions or their brogan-shodden feet of clay. He carries on his idol-breaking with more power and sustained force here, but at the same time he sets up heroes and in his devotion establishes the theatre ideals he believes in.

He...