BOOKS
YAHOO LAND
THE CULTURE WATCH: ESSAYS ON THEATRE AND SOCIETY,
1969- 1974. By Robert Brustein, Alfred
A.
Knopf. $7.95.
In these essays, Robert Brustein, Dean of the Yale School of
Drama, appears in the role of an evangeli cal Mr. Downright, appa ll ed
by the meretriciousness and mediocrity of American "majority cu l–
ture." The "prism" through which he contemplates thi s moral and
aesthetic chaos is the theater. As self-appointed "cu lture watcher," he
tri es to avoid " the deli cious temptation s o f rage and indign at ion ," but
as he sniffs the "h aunted air" (Lionel Trilling's phrase which Brustein
defines as that " intangibl e a tmosphere" surrounding and envelop ing a
society'S civilization ), he can h ardly contain hi s disgust. The a ir is
polluted.
It
presages cu ltural disaster unl ess the Chi ldren of Light
triumph at the impending Armageddon.
Brustein 's no ta tion s, divided into three secti ons, begin with a
survey o f the American thea trical scene in the aftermath of the destruc–
tive sixties. He sympathizes with th e impul se to cry out aga inst
officially condoned iniquity - not with the self-ri ghteous and ina rtisti c
express ion of tha t impul se in the thea ter. Radical protest in these angry
years, he recalls, in sp ired assaults ostensibly aimed at the "Establish–
ment"; in fact, they hard ly dented the target, but they effectively sapped
serious a rt, tore apa rt the innocent and vulnerable universities, and
undermined standards of excell ence. Would-be revolutionaries became
unwitting allies of Madison Avenue, glad ly lending themselves to
expl o ita tion by the media. Now a mind less, vulgar, faddist , puerile,
commercial thea ter is dying of a wasting disease. The hope of a
rehabilitated and regenerate thea ter, still unrea lized, res ides in the
nonprofit repertory thea ter struggling to survive in Phi listia.
In section II
(1972-3),
the culture watcher moves to England where
he find s himself in a theatrical paradise. London , unlike New York
City, is not brutish, anarchic, apa theti c, or opportuni sti c, and her
people-centered thea ter is responsive to a wide range of public taste.
