SOURCE: Brustein, Robert. “Way to Break the Silence.” New Republic 219, no. 18 (2 November 1998): 28-9.

In the following review of Edson's Wit and theater troupe De La Guarda's Villa Villa, Brustein contends that such plays have helped restore eloquence in American theater.

For a number of years now, critics have been complaining that language is no longer a key element of the theater, having been displaced by music, spectacle, and special effects. But as a matter of fact, words have rarely been the most important component of contemporary drama—or of classical drama before Shakespeare. (Analyzing the elements of tragedy, Aristotle didn't rate language at the very top of his list either.) Ibsen's famous contribution to modernism was to sacrifice verse altogether, though he was a master poet, in favor of what he called “the genuine, plain language spoken in life.” After Ibsen, dramatic characters were destined to speak colloquial...