bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Increased Susceptibility to Atrial Tachyarrhythmia in Spontaneously Hypertensive Rat Hearts
Authors: Choisy Stéphanie C.M. , Arberry Lesley A. , Hancox Jules C. , James Andrew F.
Published: January 2007

Although hypertension is the most prevalent risk factor for atrial fibrillation, there is currently no information available from animal models of hypertension regarding the development of atrial remodeling or increased susceptibility to atrial tachyarrhythmia. Therefore, we examined the susceptibility to atrial tachyarrhythmia and the development of atrial remodeling in excised perfused hearts from male spontaneously hypertensive rats in comparison with age-matched male Wistar–Kyoto normotensive controls at age 3 and 11 months, corresponding with early hypertension and pre-heart failure stages, respectively. The incidence and duration of left atrial tachyarrhythmia induced by burst pacing was greater in hearts from 11-month–old hypertensive animals than either in age-matched controls or in 3-month–old hypertensive rats, although there was no difference between hypertensive and normotensive hearts at 3 months. Thus, hypertension was associated with the development of an arrhythmic substrate. Atrial effective refractory period and the duration of monophasic action potentials recorded from the left atrium were not altered with either hypertension or age, although there were changes in the whole-cell Ca
2+
current density of isolated left atrial myocytes. On the other hand, Masson’s trichrome staining of wax-embedded sections of left atrium revealed markedly greater interstitial fibrosis in 11-month–old hypertensive rats compared with controls. These data constitute the first experimental evidence that hypertension is associated with the development of a substrate for atrial tachyarrhythmia involving left atrial fibrosis without changes in the atrial effective refractory period and demonstrate that the spontaneously hypertensive rat represents a suitable model for investigating hypertension-associated atrial remodeling.
Increased Cyclooxygenase-2 Expression in Hypothalamic Paraventricular Nucleus in Rats With Heart Failure
Authors: Yu Yang , Kang Yu-Ming , Zhang Zhi-Hua , Wei Shun-Guang , Chu Yi , Weiss Robert M. , Felder Robert B.
Published: January 2007

We investigated the role of nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) in the cytokine-mediated induction of cyclooxygenase-2 activity in the paraventricular nucleus of hypothalamus (PVN), a critical cardiovascular and autonomic center, in rats with heart failure (HF). Sprague–Dawley rats underwent coronary artery ligation to induce HF or sham surgery. HF rats were treated orally for 6 weeks with vehicle (tap water), the NF-κB inhibitor pyrrolidine dithiocarbamate (150 mg/kg per day), or the mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist eplerenone (30 mg/kg per day), which has been shown to reduce circulating proinflammatory cytokines in this model. Compared with sham surgery, HF rats had higher (
P
<0.05) levels of aldosterone, interleukin-1β and norepinephrine in plasma and prostaglandin E
2
in cerebrospinal fluid. In the PVN, NF-κB p50 precursor p105 mRNA increased, and mRNA for its inhibitor, IκB, decreased (
P
<0.05). Cyclooxygenase-2 mRNA and protein expression was increased in perivascular cells of the PVN. Both pyrrolidine dithiocarbamate and eplerenone reduced (
P
<0.05) p105 mRNA and increased IκB mRNA in PVN. Both also reduced (
P
<0.05) cyclooxygenase-2 mRNA and protein expression in PVN, cerebrospinal fluid prostaglandin E
2
, and plasma norepinephrine. Eplerenone, but not pyrrolidine dithiocarbamate, reduced plasma interleukin-1β. Pyrrolidine dithiocarbamate and eplerenone had no effect on plasma aldosterone. The results suggest that activation of NF-κB is an intermediary step in cytokine-mediated induction of cyclooxygenase-2 in the PVN of HF rats. By enhancing access of prostaglandin E
2
to hypothalamic neurons, this mechanism may contribute to augmented sympathetic nerve activity in HF.
Prediction of Clinical Cardiovascular Events With Carotid Intima-Media Thickness
Authors: Lorenz Matthias W. , Markus Hugh S. , Bots Michiel L. , Rosvall Maria , Sitzer Matthias
Published: January 2007

Background—

Carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) is increasingly used as a surrogate marker for atherosclerosis. Its use relies on its ability to predict future clinical cardiovascular end points. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of data to examine this association.

Methods and Results—

Using a prespecified search strategy, we identified 8 relevant studies and compared study design, measurement protocols, and reported data. We identified sources of heterogeneity between studies. The assumption of a linear relationship between IMT and risk was challenged by use of a graphical technique. To obtain a pooled estimate of the relative risk per IMT difference, we performed a meta-analysis based on random effects models. The age- and sex-adjusted overall estimates of the relative risk of myocardial infarction were 1.26 (95% CI, 1.21 to 1.30) per 1–standard deviation common carotid artery IMT difference and 1.15 (95% CI, 1.12 to 1.17) per 0.10-mm common carotid artery IMT difference. The age- and sex-adjusted relative risks of stroke were 1.32 (95% CI, 1.27 to 1.38) per 1–standard deviation common carotid artery IMT difference and 1.18 (95% CI, 1.16 to 1.21) per 0.10-mm common carotid artery IMT difference. Major sources of heterogeneity were age distribution, carotid segment definition, and IMT measurement protocol. The relationship between IMT and risk was nonlinear, but the linear models fitted relatively well for moderate to high IMT values.

Conclusions—

Carotid IMT is a strong predictor of future vascular events. The relative risk per IMT difference is slightly higher for the end point stroke than for myocardial infarction. In future IMT studies, ultrasound protocols should be aligned with published studies. Data for younger individuals are limited and more studies are required.
Multiple‐Dose Administration of Sitagliptin, a Dipeptidyl Peptidase‐4 Inhibitor, Does Not Alter the Single‐Dose Pharmacokinetics of Rosiglitazone in Healthy Subjects
Authors: Mistry Goutam C. , Bergman Arthur J. , Luo Wen‐Lin , Cilissen Caroline , Haazen Wouter , Davies Michael J. , Gottesdiener Keith M. , Wagner John A. , Herman Gary A.
Published: January 2007

Sitagliptin, a dipeptidyl peptidase‐4 inhibitor, is an incretin enhancer that is approved for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. Sitagliptin is mainly renally eliminated and not a potent inhibitor of CYP450 enzymes in vitro. Rosiglitazone, a thiazolidenedione, is an insulin sensitizer and mainly metabolized by CYP2C8. Since both agents may potentially be coadministered, the purpose of this study was to examine the effects of sitagliptin on rosiglitazone pharmacokinetics. In this open‐label, randomized, 2‐period, crossover study, 12 healthy normoglycemic subjects, 21 to 44 years, received single 4‐mg doses of rosiglitazone alone in one period and coadministered with sitagliptin on day 5 following a multiple‐dose regimen for sitagliptin (200 mg once daily × 5 days) in the other period. The geometric mean ratios and 90% confidence intervals ([rosiglitazone + sitagliptin]/rosiglitazone) for rosiglitazone AUC0‐∞and Cmaxwere 0.98 (0.93, 1.02) and 0.99 (0.88, 1.12), respectively. In conclusion, sitagliptin did not alter the pharmacokinetics of rosiglitazone in healthy subjects.
Liquid Modernity and Cultural Analysis
Authors: Pollock Griselda
Published: January 2007

This extended introductory article sets the scene for consideration of liquid modernity and Bauman’s recent work in general. His ideas are placed against Pollock’s concept of the ‘trans-disciplinary’. The ramifications of Bauman’s work for cultural analysis are discussed, particularly his ideas about migration, tourism, borders and the impact of global social trends on citizenship and agency. One central theme is deterritorialization - both in terms of academic disciplines and the shift from solid, defined, localized, territorialized, nation-bound modernity to the liquid modern.
Continuous Performance Test (CPT) of College Students With ADHD, Psychiatric Disorders, Cognitive Deficits, or No Diagnosis
Authors: Advokat Claire , Martino Leslie , Hill B D , Gouvier William
Published: January 2007

Objective/Method: The Conner’s Continuous Performance Test (CPT) was administered to four groups of adult college students who self-referred for comprehensive psychoeducational evaluation and received either no diagnosis ( n = 30) or a diagnosis of ADHD ( n = 26), a psychiatric disorder ( n = 17), or various cognitive deficits ( n = 22).

Results: The groups did not differ with respect to age, sex, race, or IQ. Although the ADHD group made more CPT errors of omission, had longer response times, and showed greater variability in responding than the other three groups, these differences did not reach statistical significance when analyzed parametrically using standard scores. But when the pattern of scores across the groups was analyzed nonparametrically, significant and interpretable results emerged.

Conclusion: The CPT reliably differentiated between individuals with ADHD and both normal college students and individuals with psychiatric diagnoses but not persons with learning/cognitive disorders.
Scanlon as natural rights theorist
Authors: Mack Eric
Published: January 2007

This article examines the character of Scanlon’s contractualism as presented in What We Owe to Each Other. I offer a range of reasons for thinking of Scanlon’s contractualism as a species of natural rights theorizing. I argue that to affirm the principle that actions are wrongful if and only if they are disallowed by principles that people could not reasonably reject is equivalent to affirming a natural right (of an admittedly non-standard sort) against being subject to such reasonably disallowed actions. I argue that Scanlon’s invocation of the value of human life can be seen as an attempted grounding for this principle that is akin to standard natural rights attempts to ground fundamental rights. Lastly, I argue that the invocation of the value of human life does not in fact well support the sort of requirement of justifiability to others that characterizes this contractualist variant on natural rights theorizing; if anything, it better supports the sort of ascriptions of rights characteristic of traditional natural rights theorizing.
Developing a pedagogy of opportunity for students and their teachers
Authors: Ravitch Sharon M. , Wirth Kathleen
Published: January 2007

This article examines an action research study of a collaboratively constructed professional development program for teachers in an urban elementary school. Through the use of qualitative and quantitative methods, Wirth, a teacher and Literacy Leader for over 25 years within the research setting, studied the structure and process of this initiative and explored the issues that emerged from her work as an insider action researcher. The article examines this research process in order to explore the systemic, institutional, personal, and professional implications of engaging in school-based, practitioner-driven research that works within an action research paradigm. Key themes discussed are: 1) the contextual, relational, and systemic issues of insider action research in terms of negotiating roles as a colleague, researcher, and school leader; 2) navigating the practical and ideological spaces between facilitating change and not imposing beliefs and values; and 3) reflexivity and methodological adaptations around issues of power and authority.
Clinical Predictors of Occult Pneumonia in the Febrile Child
Authors: Murphy Charles G. , Van De Pol Alma C. , Harper Marvin B. , Bachur Richard G.
Published: January 2007

Background: The utility of chest radiographs (CXRs) for detecting occult pneumonia (OP) among pediatric patients without lower respiratory tract signs has been previously studied, but no predictors other than white blood cell count (WBC) and height of fever have been investigated.

Objectives: To identify predictors of OP in pediatric patients in the postconjugate pneumococcal vaccination era.

Methods: This was a retrospective cross sectional study that was conducted in a large urban pediatric hospital. Physician records of emergency department (ED) patients of age 10 years or less who presented with fever (≥38°C) and had a CXR obtained for suspected pneumonia were reviewed. Patients were classified into two groups: “signs of pneumonia” and “no signs of pneumonia” on the basis of the presence or absence of respiratory distress, tachypnea, or lower respiratory tract findings. Occult pneumonia was defined as radiographic pneumonia in a patient without signs of pneumonia.

Results: Two thousand one hundred twenty‐eight patients were studied. Among patients categorized as having no signs of pneumonia (n = 1,084), 5.3% (95% CI = 4.0% to 6.8%) had OP. Presence of cough and longer duration of cough (greater than 10 days) had positive likelihood ratios (LR+) of 1.24 (95% CI = 1.15 to 1.33) and 2.25 (95% CI = 1.21 to 4.20), respectively. Absence of cough had a negative likelihood ratio (LR−) of 0.19 (95% CI = 0.05 to 0.75). The likelihood of OP increased with increasing duration of fever (LR+ for more than three days and more than five days of fever, respectively: 1.62; 95% CI = 1.13 to 2.31 and 2.24; 95% CI = 1.35 to 3.71). When obtained (56% of patients), WBC was a predictor of OP, with a LR+ of 1.76 (95% CI = 1.40 to 2.22) and 2.17 (95% CI = 1.58 to 2.96) for WBC of >15,000/mm3 and >20,000/mm3, respectively.

Conclusions: Occult pneumonia was found in 5.3% of patients with fever and no lower respiratory tract findings, tachypnea, or respiratory distress. There is limited utility in obtaining a CXR in febrile children without cough. The likelihood of pneumonia increased with longer duration of cough or fever or in the presence of leukocytosis.
A More Explicit Grading Scale Decreases Grade Inflation in a Clinical Clerkship
Authors: Weaver Christopher S. , Humbert Aloysius J. , Besinger Bart R. , Graber James A. , Brizendine Edward J.
Published: January 2007

Objectives: The medical education literature contains few publications about the phenomenon of grade inflation. The authors' clinical clerkship grading scale suffered from apparent inflation relative to the recommended university distribution. The investigators hypothesized that a simple change of the shift grading cards, using explicit criteria, would decrease this grade inflation and aid to redistribute the shift evaluations.

Methods: This was a before‐and‐after study examining medical student shift evaluation grades. Evaluators and students were blinded to the purpose of the card change and were unaware that a study was being conducted. Beginning June 1, 2005, the authors altered the shift evaluation cards from the previous four choices of honors, high pass, pass, or fail to five choices of upper 5%, upper 25%, expected, below expected, or far below expected, and explicit grading criteria were provided. No other interventions to alter the grade distribution occurred. Data were collected on all evaluations from June 1, 2004, to March 31, 2005 (before change), and compared with data on all evaluations from June 1, 2005, to March 31, 2006 (after change).

Results: A total of 3,349 evaluations were analyzed: 1,612 before the card change and 1,737 after the change. The grade distribution before the card change was as follows: honors, 22.6%; high pass, 49.0%; pass, 28.4%; and fail, 0%. This compared with the following ratings after the card change: upper 5%, 9.8%; upper 25%, 41.2%; expected, 46.2%; below expected, 2.8%; and far below expected, 0% (p < 0.001).

Conclusions: A simple change in shift evaluation cards to include more explicit grading criteria resulted in a significant change in grade distribution and greatly decreased grade inflation.
Iron Supplementation for Postoperative Anaemia Following Major Paediatric Orthopaedic Surgery
Authors: Lau Kelvin KW , Utukuri Murali M , Ramachandran Manoj , Jones David Ha
Published: January 2007

INTRODUCTION

There is increasing evidence that the anaemia of surgery is not iron deficient and is, therefore, unresponsive to iron supplementation. Oral iron is best avoided postoperatively, particularly in children, due to its dose-dependent side effects. We undertook a national survey of major paediatric orthopaedic surgical units in the UK to investigate the current management of postoperative anaemia with particular reference to iron supplementation.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Middle-grade doctors and charge nurses at 23 major paediatric orthopaedic units in the UK were contacted by telephone and a structured questionnaire was used to determine the management of postoperative anaemia in major hip, pelvic and spinal surgery.

RESULTS

Only one (4.3%) of the units surveyed had a formally established protocol for the management of postoperative anaemia. Only 10 out of 23 units (43.5%) did not routinely prescribe iron postoperatively. Of the remaining units, 11 commenced iron based on the postoperative haemoglobin level while only 2 used iron supplementation after investigation of serum haematinics for iron deficiency. One unit used erythropoietin in the treatment of postoperative anaemia.

CONCLUSIONS

Iron supplementation continues to be used in major paediatric orthopaedic surgery in the treatment of postoperative anaemia in the absence of iron deficiency. Given the current available evidence, we call for an end to the practice of routine iron supplementation for postoperative anaemia following major paediatric orthopaedic surgery in the UK.
Galectins in the Mouse Ovary: Concomitant Expression of Galectin-3 and Progesterone Degradation Enzyme (20α-HSD) in the Corpus Luteum
Authors: Nio Junko , Iwanaga Toshihiko
Published: January 2007

Galectin, an animal lectin that recognizes β-galactosides of glycoconjugates, is involved in multiple biological functions such as cell growth, differentiation, apoptosis, and signal transduction. The present study using in situ hybridization revealed the predominant expression of galectin-1 and galectin-3 in the mouse ovary. Galectin-1 mRNA was diffusely expressed in the ovarian stroma, including the interstitial glands and theca interna, and intensely expressed in the corpus luteum (CL) at particular stages of regression. Transcripts of galectin-3 were restricted to CL and always coincident to the expression of 20α-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (20α-HSD), a progesterone degradation enzyme. In the non-pregnant ovary, signals for both galectin-1 and −3 were intense in the old, regressing CL formed at previous estrous cycles. In the newly formed CL, the signal intensity of galectin-1 first increased at the starting point of regression followed by increasing galectin-3/20α-HSD expressions. Under gestation with active progesterone production, signals for both galectin-1 and −3 in CL completely disappeared. At the perinatal stage, intense expressions of galectin-3/20α-HSD recovered in the remaining CL of gestation with the temporal expression of galectin-1 and continued until weaning. These findings suggest that galectin-1 and −3 may mediate progesterone production and metabolism in luteal cells via different mechanisms.
Progressive and Concordant Expression of PKC-η and iNOS Phenotypes in Monocytes From Patients With Rheumatoid Arthritis: Association With Disease Severity
Authors: Heale Catherine Elizabeth , Ree Goverdina Elisabeth Fåhræus-Van , Rahman Proton , Richardson Vernon John
Published: January 2007

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a relatively common autoimmune disease with strong genetic and environmental determinants. The disease manifests itself as inflammation of the synovia and usually progresses to joint erosion and destruction. The disease can also be considered as a systemic disease because extra-articular manifestations are often observed throughout many organs and tissues of the body. Patients with severe RA have altered peripheral blood monocytes (PBM) that express activation markers. Two such markers, PKC-η and iNOS, were studied using confocal laser scanning microscopy to determine how these markers are expressed during disease progression. Healthy individuals expressed neither of the two markers, but there was an elevated level of PKC-η observed as the disease progressed (40% in mild RA and 100% in severe RA patients). Concordant expression of the two markers was observed in only 3% of PBM from mild RA patients, reaching 38% in severe RA patients. No cells expressing iNOS alone were observed in any of the patients studied. These data support the hypothesis linking PKC-η expression with the regulation and predisposition to the development of the iNOS phenotype in severe RA patients. PKC-η may therefore be a key regulator in the production of elevated plasma nitric oxide (NO) and corresponding circulating reactive nitrogen intermediates in severe RA and may be a possible target to regulate iNOS induction and NO production by monocytic cells in RA patients and possibly other inflammatory diseases.
Untersuchungen zur Wiederholunsicherheit von Turbinenraddurchflussmessgeräten für Flüssigkeiten (Investigations into the Repeatability of Turbine Flow Meters for Liquids)
Authors: Riedel Jörg , Többen Helmut
Published: January 2007

Mit Hilfe des Hydrodynamischen Prüffeldes wurde für drei unterschiedliche Durchflüsse und Rohrnennweiten die Wiederholunsicherheit der Messwerte von Turbinenraddurchflussmessgeräten sowie erstmals die Wiederholunsicherheit des Prüffeldes untersucht worden. Es hat sich dabei gezeigt, dass die Werte der Wiederholunsicherheit der untersuchten Messgeräte und des Prüffeldes in der gleichen Größenordnung liegen. Dies ist eine notwendige Voraussetzung, um die Messabweichung der Messwerte dieser Geräte quantifizieren zu können.
Efficacy of preloading combined with prefabricated vertical band drains in improving a clayey silt stratum in situ
Authors: Chakravarthi V. K. , Phanikumar B. R.
Published: January 2007

This paper presents a detailed field study of a soft clayey silt stratum improved in situ with preloading combined with prefabricated vertical band drains (PVDs). The clayey silt stratum was to support a warehouse in a chemical plant. As the bearing capacity of the soil was much lower than the load it was to support, the subsoil condition was improved by installing PVDs in combination with preloading. Thus the rate of consolidation of the clay stratum was increased. The band drains were installed up to a depth of 14·2 m at a spacing of 1·6 m. The intensity of preloading applied was 52 kPa. For preloading, the surcharge fill was placed up to a height of 3·10 m from the natural ground level. The area of both preloading and band drains was 15% greater than that of the floor of the warehouse for more effective improvement of the ground. Preloading was done for 60 days. Settlements were monitored using settlement gauges. The settlements observed across the entire area indicated that the preloading operation was uniform all through. The amount of settlement was large up to the point of filling the surcharge, but thereafter it did not show a significant increase.

Cet exposé présente l'étude de terrain détaillée d'une strate tendre de limon argileux améliorée par précharge et drains en bande préfabriqués verticaux (PVDs). La strate de limon argileux devait porter un entrepzô t dans une usine chimique. Comme la capacité porteuse du sol était bien plus basse que la charge qu'elle devait recevoir, la condition du sous-sol a été améliorée en installant des PVD avec la précharge. Ainsi le taux de consolidation de la strate argileuse a augmenté. Des drains en bande ont été installés jusqu'à une profondeur de 14,2 m avec un espacement de 1,6 m. L'intensité de la précharge appliquée était de 52 kPa. Pour la précharge, un remplissage de surcharge a été placé jusqu'à une hauteur de 3,10 m à partir du niveau du sol naturel. Pour avoir une amélioration plus efficace du sol, la surface de la zone de précharge et de drains é tait de 15% plus é tendue que celle du sol de l'entrepô t. La précharge a été appliquée pendant 60 jours. Les affaissements ont été contrôlés en utilisant des jauges de tassement. Les tassements observés à travers toute la zone ont indiqué que l'opération de précharge était uniforme. Le volume de tassement é tait important jusqu'au point de remplissage mais après, il n'a montré aucune augmentation significative.
Strength properties and variance of cement-treated ground using the pneumatic flow mixing method
Authors: Kitazume M. , Hayano K.
Published: January 2007

In this study, field and laboratory tests were conducted to investigate the strength properties and variance of cementtreated ground, constructed with dredged soils mixed with a small amount of cement by the pneumatic flow mixing method, which has been recently developed in Japan. In the paper an outline of the pneumatic flow mixing system is first presented first. Then various factors causing strength variance of the cement-treated ground are described. It is found that the cement/water ratio of the cement-treated soils, which was monitored and controlled during their production, was stable. The effect of mixing adequacy of the soil/cement mixture and that of non-homogeneity of the dredged soils on the strength variance is discussed. Finally an effective measure to reduce the strength variance is described.

Au cours de cette étude, des essais en laboratoire et in situ ont été réalisés pour examiner les propriétés et les variations de résistance de sol traité au ciment, construit avec des sols issus de dragage mélangés à une petite quantité de ciment au moyen de la technique de mélange dans le courant pneumatique récemment développée au Japon. Cet article décrit tout d'abord brièvement cette méthode. Il explique ensuite plusieurs facteurs à l'origine de variations de la résistance du sol traité au ciment. On a pu observer que le rapport ciment / eau des sols traité s au ciment, relevé et contrôlé pendant leur production, restait stable. L'étude discute également de l'effet de l'adéquation du mélange sol / ciment et celui de la non-homogénéité des sols issus de dragage sur les variations en résistance et décrit finalement un moyen efficace de les réduire.
Re-read Artaud
Authors: Weingarten Romain
Published: January 2007

On viscous, foul-smelling, bloody streams (the color of anguish and opium) which spurt out of corpses, pass strange characters dressed in wax, with noses as long as sausages, and with glass eyes; they are mounted on a kind of Japanese sandal made of double wooden slats, one vertical and the other horizontal, serving as the sole, and these protect them from the polluted fluids; they chant absurd litanies which do not stop them from sinking into the blaze in their turn.
On the Newness of the New Drama
Authors: Kaufmann R. J.
Published: January 2007

“Even shapes and colours acquire their meaning only in cultural contexts. The less we know of this context the more we are forced to dream it up.”

E. H. Gombrich

It is a commonplace truth that irresponsible artists dream up contexts for fictions set in the past, but it is harder to realize that only the best artist, gifted with the Shavian power to “imagine things as they really are” can conjure up an adequate vision of the context of our present lives. Moreover, imaginative concentration on context or situation in the new drama is, paradoxically, a result of a deep wish to restore reverence for human character. This essay will repeatedly address this paradox as we try to isolate our period style. In drama as in other things, not everything is possible in every period.
The Language of Drama
Authors: Farrington Conor A.
Published: January 2007

When one rides out to do battle with the ogre of Realism it is at first dismaying to see how many noble shields and lances already litter the field. Rostand, Maeterlinck, Hofmannsthal, Yeats, Lorca, Claudel, Auden, Eliot, Fry … one had not thought there were so many. Not that they were all dishonorably unhorsed, but—the ogre still rules. And there are the critics too, like captured squires, bending to serve the one in power, always wistful and alert for liberation, it is true, but not actively encouraging to further challengers. And they have good reason for their hesitation since some who came to set them free are now among their persecutors.
Farce As Method
Authors: Stephenson Robert C.
Published: January 2007

To get at the nature of farce we go back to beginnings, in either time or structure. Russian folk drama from the seventeenth into the twentieth century, for example, recapitulates much of what we know or infer about rude origins. Here, as Berkov remarks, necessity creates and fixes a manner. Out-of-door performance calls for exaggerated tones, sweeping gestures, loud singing and furious dancing, features which persist when public square and puppet stage, but not groundlings, are left behind. An impudent tone, imposed by the turbulent crowd, provokes performers into the picaresque asides, the jibes and the cheeky stepping out of role which, all the way down from remote beginnings in Attica to Hellzapoppin in New York, have raised their roars of laughter. Brutally enlarged, this is the way of folk game and folk tale, and should remind us, once for all, of the indissoluble bond by which farce is tied to folklore in general; and of what it owes to the point of view and the aesthetics of the folk.
Drama and Society
Authors: Sastre Alfonso
Published: January 2007

It seems that tragedy is a kind of social sin. The average spectator considers the writer of tragedies, in the best cases, as a sort of sinister mar-joy worthy of criminal persecution, social ostracism and the most rigorous repression by the censors. It seems we are opposed to the voices of sorrow, death and catastrophe on the stage. Theatre managers illustrate this evident antipathy for the tragic genre by programming silly light comedies, and musical reviews whose artistic pretensions go no further than an exhibition of nude bodies, and saucy facility of situation, puns and jokes.
The “Revolutionary Theatre”- of Alfonso Sastre
Authors: Pronko Leonard C.
Published: January 2007

The capital discovery in the career of Alfonso Sastre was the fact that the theatre is a social act, and one which may have far-reaching consequences. The recognition of his role as a kind of social leaven places a heavy responsibility upon the dramatist, for he is capable of directing the thoughts and feelings of large sections of a population. Sastre, facing up squarely to this responsibility in a country where it is not always easy to do so, is producing what he calls a Theatre of Social Agitation whose fundamental theme is Revolution. It is not surprising to find that his plays have enjoyed few performances in Spain, where, however, Sastre is recognized as one of the outstanding young playwrights of today, and more than an author of promise. Of the ten full-length plays written before 1959, only five have been presented in Spain.
The Three Sisters at the MAT
Authors: Stroyeva M. N.
Published: January 2007

“After the success of The Seagull and Uncle Vanya the theatre felt that it could not do without a new play by Chekhov,” wrote Stanislavski. “The fate of the theatre was in his hands: if he gave us a play we would have another season; if he didn’t the theatre would lose all its prestige.”

The Three Sisters was the first play Chekhov wrote especially for the Art Theatre; actually, on order from it. After a preliminary discussion, Nemirovich-Danchenko went abroad, so that the rehearsals were conducted by Stanislavski alone. His production plan (now in the MAT archives) clearly includes rehearsal changes, since Stanislavski finished it on January 8, 1901, and the first full run-through took place at the end of December, 1900.
Are Stanislavski and Brecht Commensurable?
Authors: Bentley Eric
Published: January 2007

“How does Brecht’s system differ from Stanislavski’s?” I have often heard this question asked, sometimes in exactly these words, and probably we shall all live to see the question appear in much this form on college examination papers. I recall, too, that as a young admirer of Brecht’s, nearly twenty years ago, I myself described an actor in one of his plays as having gone “beyond Stanislavski.” Will the acting profession soon be divided between Method actors and Brechtians?
Great Hatred, Little Room
Authors: Hethmon Robert
Published: January 2007

On October 1, 1923, the Abbey Theatre produced a new one-act play by a Dublin laboring man, Sean O'Casey. The Abbey had created considerable interest in April, 1923, by giving the first production anywhere of an O'Casey play, The Shadow of a Gunman, a tragedy about the Black-and-Tan war. By the end of its three-day run, the Abbey was turning people away, despite the fact that the theatre was under armed guard because of the Civil War; Lady Gregory wrote in her journal after the final performance that The Shadow of a Gunman was “beautifully acted, all the political points taken up with delight.” O'Casey's new play, Kathleen Listens In, was received quite differently.

The Abbey management was theatre-wise enough to schedule Kathleen Listens In as a curtain-closer to a revival of Shaw's Arms and the Man: the soothing syrup of Shaw's “pleasant” exposé of “romantic convention” cannily preceded the bitter pill of O'Casey's “phantasy”—which turned out to be a no-holds-barred, deadly accurate satire of warring contemporary Ireland.
Duerrenmatt's The Visit of the Old Lady
Authors: Askew Melvin W.
Published: January 2007

In his presentation of the twentieth-century world and Everyman, Duerrenmatt uses a form as old as Greek tragedy and a staging method as modern as surrealism; he uses characters as old as the Sphinx in combination with our contemporaries, Eisenhower and Nehru; and in his stage business, he uses motifs as old as Oedipal inspired fears of castration, dark, mysterious, and frighteningly uncontrollable, and motifs as new, as light, as explicable as the operation of The-Place-in-the-Sun Foundry and the economics of a simple local grocery store. This total presentation he makes with an artistry before which the imagination, even of an imaginative critic, boggles; for with a gorgeously simple style and technique, Duerrenmatt's dramatic lines achieve the stylization of poetry, and move from poetry to myth, where the complex of thought, passion, and affect become infinitely expansible, indefinitely relevant, and meaningful without apparent limit.
Pär Lagerkvist and the Swedish Theatre
Authors: Buckman Thomas R.
Published: January 2007

On an afternoon in November 1951, reporters left their offices in the city and hurried out to Lidingö, a quiet residential suburb on an island several miles from Stockholm, in search of the writer's residence. There was no listing in the telephone directory, and there had never been very much reason to venture that way before. Pär Lagerkvist had long been recognized as one of the foremost writers in Scandinavia and was not unknown elsewhere in Europe, but for years he had consistently refused to see the press or make any public statement about himself or his work. “To answer questions about what I eat and drink … is ridiculous, I think, and to say something in a few minutes about a more important subject is nonsense,” he had said.
On The Poetics
Authors: Fergusson Francis , Clurman Harold
Published: January 2007

Professor Else explains in his preface that this book is not intended as a complete new edition of the Poetics, for he omits five and a half chapters, and does not deal with all of the textual problems. On the other hand, it is not a coherent account of Aristotle's theory; Professor Else promises to provide that in a later work. It is, in his words, “a close line-by-line analysis of Aristotle's argument,” to clear the way for a new and more accurate interpretation of the Poetics.

His method is to present a short segment of the Greek text, as emended by himself, and then his own translation into English. His translation incorporates his own interpretations of key phrases, sometimes departing very far from the literal meaning of the Greek—if one can speak of a literal meaning when translating from one language to another. He then defends both his textual emendations and his interpretations, taking on a frightening array of grammarians, editors and commentators who have been disputing over the Poetics in many languages for the last twenty centuries.
“The True Originall Copies”
Authors: Ellis Brobury Pearce
Published: January 2007

In 1623 John Heminge and Henry Condell attempted to end the controversy about what Shakespeare really wrote by issuing the First Folio, “Published according to the True Originall Copies.” But what they settled with one hand they stirred up with the other. They dropped a casual remark about the author's unblotted papers, in reference to the ease of his writing, that proved to be a potent dose of intellectual catnip. The image of those immaculate papers received direct from the hand of the greatest writer we know floats before a scholar's eye like a vision of the Grail, intoxicating his mind with the tantalizing suggestion that a literary work of matchless perfection once existed, embodying the pure intention of the author before it was corrupted by performance in the theatre and by the lamentable shortcomings of printers.
Marlowe's Spectacle
Authors: Powell Jocelyn
Published: January 2007

Critics show more toleration than enthusiasm for Marlowe as a dramatic artist. They praise his thought, his poetry, his psychology, but they offer excuses for his stagecraft. This is a pity, for there is no need to excuse it. Marlowe handles his medium with imagination and subtlety.

The root of the difficulty lies in mistaking a drama of spectacle for a drama of character. Marlowe was writing in a period of transition, when an abstract theatre was fast becoming a narrative one, and the development entailed an important shift of emphasis. Narrative throws stress on the characters of men and the motives that lead to the actions portrayed, while the abstract world of the morality play uses the stage action as a projection of an inward and spiritual action of the soul. A drama in which action is image was changing to a drama in which action is fact.
Marlowe and the Critics
Authors: Ribner Irving
Published: January 2007

Christopher Marlowe in a real sense belongs to the twentieth century. Not only did he reflect the doubts and uncertainties of his own time in a manner which we today can find particularly meaningful, but only in the last fifty years have either the man or his works come to be seen for what they really were. In his own day, Marlowe was slandered while he lived by his fellow dramatist Robert Greene and reviled after his death by moralists like Thomas Beard in his Theatre of God's Judgements (1597) and William Vaughan in his Golden Grove (1600) as merely another blasphemous sinner whose murder might fittingly illustrate the visitation of God's judgment upon atheists. Among the poets, Chapman, who probably had been his friend, did praise him, and Michael Drayton wrote the only appreciation of any consequence:

Marlowe, bathed in the Thespian springs,Had in him those brave translunary thingsThat our first poets had: his raptures wereAll air and fire, which made his verses clear:For that fine madness still he did retain,Which rightly should possess a poet's brain.
The Theatre of Harold Pinter
Authors: Dukore Bernard
Published: January 2007

The so-called avant-garde theatre in the United States and England is generally a case of new wine in old bottles. The plays of most of the young Anglo-American playwrights do not break new ground. Edward Albee's The Zoo Story, to begin with one of the better known examples, is essentially a realistic psychological melodrama. His Sandbox and The American Dream utilize conventions of the traditional non-realistic theatre. Jack Gelber's The Connection explores a segment of society that has been previously unexplored in the theatre except in terms of melodrama, but the manner of presentation goes back to Pirandello. Jack Richardson brings to The Prodigal a unique intelligence and virtuosity but uses familiar techniques. In England as well, there is vitality within traditional forms. Although John Osborne's observations of the temper of postwar England are vividly realistic, he blazes no new paths of dramaturgy.
The World of Harold Pinter
Authors: Cohn Ruby
Published: January 2007

Each of Harold Pinter's four plays ends in the virtual annihilation of an individual. In Pinter's first play, The Room, after a blind Negro is kicked into inertness, the heroine, Rose, is suddenly stricken with blindness. In The Dumb Waiter, the curtain falls as Gus and his prospective murderer stare at each other. Stanley Webber, the hero of The Birthday Party, is taken from his refuge for “special treatment.” In The Caretaker, the final curtain falls on an old man's fragmentary (and unheeded) pleas to remain in his refuge.

As Pinter focuses more sharply on the wriggle for existence, each of his successive hero-victims seems more vulnerable than the last. Villain assaults victim in a telling and murderous idiom.
Michel de Ghelderode: A Personal Statement
Authors: Draper Samuel
Published: January 2007

The masks Ghelderode wore for the world were in many ways unfortunate because they alienated him from his contemporaries. His weird poses frightened many admirers away, denying them the happiness of knowing Ghelderode personally. That Ghelderode's art has a secure place in modern dramatic literature is almost universally agreed. That he was an affectionate, exemplary friend, a lovable man, that he possessed a droll sense of humor, incarnated hard work and literary discipline à la Voltaire and Balzac without being spoiled by worldly success, and that he was a pauper most of his life—all this is known only to a small group of friends. They include several Belgians, a few Frenchmen, one or two Englishmen, and a couple of Americans. I, one of the Americans, had the privilege of knowing Ghelderode during 1959 and 1960 when I spent a year in Brussels expressly to study his life and drama.
The Drama Is Coming Now
Authors: Gilman Richard
Published: January 2007

The spirit of an age is known to reveal itself in everything that the age conspires to say about its engagements with itself. We have spoken about ourselves, which really means that we have spoken to ourselves, more characteristically, more obliquely, more problematically, in painting and sculpture than in the other arts. Here our dialogue has been driven by a greater underground fury, frustration in apparent freedom; here we find the aggressive jest and the sense of exhausted yet tenacious conventions still to be overcome. The novel and the film are only occasionally used for their proper purposes, and when they are they approach the graphic arts and become our autobiography. The rest is noise. It used to be that the other arts aspired towards the condition of music, but it is more nearly true to say that they now wish to reach the condition of painting and sculpture.
Decentralization: New Frontiers And Old Dead Ends
Authors: Blau Herbert
Published: January 2007

“The problem, of course, is money.” As they used to say on the old radio program: Arthur J. Goldberg said it. The trouble is that everybody else has said it too, and though Arthur J. Goldberg was then Secretary of Labor and now Justice of the Supreme Court, he was a little out of order. For he ought to know that anything everybody is saying is true enough to be suspect. Money is a problem, let me not discount it; and the unions, and the movies, and the Play of the Week, and the mass media, and the proscenium arch, and fear of creeping socialism, and Minority Leader Dirksen (who helped kill the Federal Theatre by calling its plays “salacious tripe”), and the fire laws, and the decentralized hangover of Puritan morality, and “the youth of our country's culture,” and the fact that there is only one shining knight in tweeds, Tyrone Guthrie, to go around, and so on and so forth—but the true surd, the one vermiculate problem remains the people in the American theatre, those self-sacrificial lambs, who tell themselves that all the other problems are the main problem.
A Theatre of Language
Authors: Vannier Jean
Published: January 2007

If we consider only the theatrical movement which felt Artaud's influence during the period between the wars, or the “poetic” theatre of the post-war period which is merely its continuation, the problem of the language of the avant-garde seems to have only a very limited interest. In the works which these movements have produced, the originality of the language is more spectacular than profound. Or more precisely, we might say that it lies more in its nature than in its function.

The traditional dramatist, whose only end was to interest the spectator by the analysis of passions and characters, used a language which was never disquieting or bewildering because it represented more or less—decorated only with certain literary attributes— the language of the public for whom it was written. In the avant-garde we have just spoken of, theatrical language changes to the same degree that the dramatist's attitude towards his audience changes.
“The Remorseless Rush of Time”
Authors: Weiss Auréliu
Published: January 2007

Pirandello's masterful dramatic technique stands in sharp contrast to the wariness of his thought and the relativism of the human truths he presents. Scepticism usually begets a certain amount of detachment toward human weaknesses. By and by weariness, disillusion, and contempt build a wall between the thinker and life. But human nature follows mysterious ways and the most cynical of men may feel an overwhelming desire to confide in other men and to pour out his disillusions, his defeats, and his philosophical conclusions.
The English Stage
Authors: Brustein Robert
Published: January 2007

An American visitor to London is dazzled by theatrical illuminations that shine even more brightly by contrast with our own darkling stage. America now has an ever-growing number of permanent companies, and some of them can boast of considerable achievements. But it will be a long time, I fear, before we can begin to match the adventurousness of the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych, the fine, fearless integrity of the English Stage Society at the Royal Court, or the expertise of the National Theatre at the Old Vic. There is something in the American character that has thus far proved resistant to collective artistic enterprise—something at the same time invigorating (an anarchic independence of will) and degenerate (a selfish opportunism)—with the result that our serious theatre has been continually engaged in an exhausting struggle with the frailties that are always threatening to destroy it, whether reflected in the actor's glory-lust, the producer's venality, the designer's self-indulgence, the director's careerism, or the spectator's fatigue and apathy.
The Queen Is Dead: Brecht's Eduard II
Authors: Svendsen Juris
Published: January 2007

One of the most remarkable aspects of Leben Eduards des Zweiten is that it is an almost womanless play. Complementary to this observation is that the various antagonists in Marlowe's play become protagonists in Brecht's version. Furthermore, these protagonists—Edward, Gaveston, Mortimer, and Edward's son—are all “youths” and have as their opponents, obviously, father figures. That some of these protagonists oppose themselves does not contradict this. In starting with the Queen, I do not mean that she is the chief character. Quite to the contrary, we find her to be an absence, a negativity which allows our protagonists to stand in sharper profile.

The play consists of twelve captioned episodes which constitute a three-part structure: I. A-C; II. D, alone; and III. E-L. In the first episode (A), we find Gaveston back from exile, invited by the present King Edward, who has dared to recall his bosom friend against his now dead father's proscription and the peers’ wills.