bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Ajuste dos modelos Gompertz e Logístico aos dados de crescimento de frutos de coqueiro anão verde
Authors: Prado Thalita Kelen Leal do , Savian Taciana Villela , Muniz Joel Augusto
Published: April 2013

O objetivo do trabalho foi estudar o ajuste dos modelos não-lineares, gompertz e logístico, na descrição do desenvolvimento de frutos de coqueiro da variedade anão verde, com base nos dados de diâmetros externos, longitudinal e transversal. Os resultados indicaram que tanto para o diâmetro longitudinal externo (DEL) como para o diâmetro transversal externo (DET), o modelo logístico foi o mais adequado na descrição do crescimento do fruto. O ajuste dos modelos, para ambas as variáveis, apresentou autocorrelação residual positiva. Para o DEL o resíduo foi modelado segundo um processo autoregressivo de primeira ordem (AR1) e para a variável DET o processo autoregressivo considerado foi de segunda ordem (AR2). A consideração do processo autoregressivo (AR1 ou AR2) resultou em estimativas dos parâmetros mais precisas. De acordo com o modelo logístico, o fruto do coqueiro anão verde, totalmente desenvolvido, tem diâmetros externos longitudinal e transversal, respectivamente, de 21,56cm e 15,35cm.
Macrofauna assemblages in a XVIIth century shipwreck: comparison with those on natural reefs and sandy bottoms
Authors: Coelho Rui , Monteiro Pedro , Abecasis David , Blot Jean Yves , Gonçalves Jorge M. S.
Published: April 2013

The macrofauna assemblages of a XVIIth century shipwreck off southern Portugal were studied and compared with those of nearby natural reefs and sandy bottoms, by underwater visual census. A total of 11 173 specimens of 224 different fauna taxa and 12 phyla were recorded. Natural reefs had the highest density of specimens (35 122 / 1000 m²) followed by the shipwreck (21 392 / 1000 m²) and the sandy bottoms (3771 / 1000 m²). Three biodiversity indices were estimated (Margalef, Shannon-Wiener and Pielou), with the natural reefs showing the highest values. However, the shipwreck presented values relatively similar to those of the natural reefs for the Shannon-Wiener and Pielou indices. The three habitats were clearly distinguishable by multivariate statistical analysis, with the average dissimilarity between sand and shipwreck, and between sand and natural reefs being much higher than that between the shipwreck and the natural reefs. The shipwreck had higher abundances of some commercially important species, such as the pouting Trisopterus luscus, European conger Conger conger, and common spider crab Maja squinado, as well as some vulnerable and threatened species such as the pink seafan Eunicella verrucosa. The results presented emphasize the importance of this habitat on the southern Portuguese coast.
Muitas festas numa só: a configuração do campo do carnaval do Recife
Authors: Gaião Brunno Fernandes da Silva , Leão André Luiz Maranhão de Souza
Published: April 2013

O carnaval é considerado uma das festas mais emblemáticas da identidade cultural brasileira. Em Pernambuco, ganha destaque a festa realizada na cidade do Recife, marcada pela multiplicidade de ritmos, públicos e espaços, e pela convivência entre a tradição e o novo. Valendo-nos da teoria dos campos de Pierre Bourdieu, buscamos discutir como se configura o campo do Carnaval Multicultural de Recife. Para tanto, recorremos à análise de dados secundários, formados pelas informações disponibilizadas pela organização do evento, e de dados primários coletados por meio de observações não participantes na festa de carnaval de 2012. Entendemos os diferentes espaços da festa, os polos do carnaval, como representativos de nove posições distintas dentro do campo em questão. Cada polo está relacionado com uma classe de foliões específica, que apresenta um perfil particular.
Adhesion of Streptococcus mitis and Fusobacterium nucleatum on nanopatterned titanium surfaces
Authors: Pang James , SjÖstrÖm Terje , Dymock David , Su Bo
Published: April 2013

Titania nanopillars with different heights and diameters (<100 nm) were patterned on titanium surfaces using a through-mask anodization technique. Two oral bacteria, that is, Streptococcus mitis (NCTC 10712) and Fusobacterium nucleatum (ATCC 25586), were used to study the bacterial attachment to nanopatterned titanium surfaces with and without saliva coating at different time points up to 4 h. The adhesion of both bacteria was decreased on 90-nm high nanopillars compared with both 15-nm high nanopillars and polished titanium surfaces, although this effect was significantly reduced with saliva coating, indicating a strong 'masking' effect of saliva on nanotopography-mediated bacterial adhesion. The results demonstrate that nanopatterning may be used to control bacterial attachment to titanium implant surfaces, but it is evident that for oral implant applications, saliva coating may reduce the desired topographical cues.
Electrical resistivity monitoring and characterisation of early age concrete
Authors: Wei Xiaosheng , Xiao Lianzhen
Published: April 2013

The electrical resistivity of concretes with various aggregate volume fractions (Va) at water/cement (W/C) ratios of 0·4 and 0·5 over 24 h were measured by a non-contact electrical resistivity apparatus. The four structure formation periods are the dissolution and precipitation period, the setting period, the accelerating period, and the decelerating period, which are identified from three critical peak points on the differential electrical resistivity curve. A logarithmic equation (ρ(t)=Kcln (Dt) = KmKaln (Dt)) is proposed to express electrical resistivity development with time after the decelerating period, where Kc is the slope of the electrical resistivity for the concrete system after hardening, Ka is a function of Va and represents the impact factor of the aggregate in a unit volume concrete, and Km is firstly defined as the structure formation factor of the matrix and represents the rate of densification of the matrix during hydration, which is independent of Va, and D is the average reaction rate of cement particle hydration during a particular period. The mixture with the lower W/C ratio had a higher Km. An increase either in aggregate fraction or in cement particles per unit volume of concrete results in a higher rate of electrical resistivity development in the concrete.
Effect of superplasticisers on the surface characteristics of fly ash
Authors: Zheng Dafeng , Qin Yanlin , Sun Xiaohong , Qiu Xueqing , Lou Hongming , Yang Dongjie
Published: April 2013

The effect of naphthalene formaldehyde condensate (FDN), sulfonated melamine formaldehyde condensate (SMF) and aminosulfonate formaldehyde condensate (ASP) on the surface characteristics of fly ash was studied. The maximum amount of adsorption of SMF, FDN and ASP on the fly ash was 3·15, 2·86 and 1·10 mg/g at 20°C. The adsorption rate of SMF and FDN was larger than that of ASP, which followed the Langmuir adsorption rate equation. Among the three superplasticisers, ASP increased the ζ potential of fly ash more efficiently. When the dosage of ASP is 0·6 wt%, the fluidity of fly ash paste reached a ‘saturated' value of 290 mm. The fluidity loss of fly ash paste with adding ASP, SMF and FDN was only 20, 52 and 45 mm after 2·5 h. The results indicate that when ASP and fly ash is used in concrete, the workability of the concrete improves.
Photo‐Fenton Oxidation of Azo Dye Reactive Black B Using an Immobilized Iron Oxide as Heterogeneous Catalyst
Authors: Shih Yu‐Jen , Ho Chien‐Hung , Huang Yao‐Hui
Published: April 2013

The heterogeneous oxidation of azo dye Reactive Black B (RBB) by the photo‐Fenton system catalyzed with an immobilized iron oxide, B1 (supported with SiO2 grain), was investigated. Reactive Black B oxidation was carried out in an expended‐bed reactor in which the effect of B1 dosage on the decolorization and degradation of RBB was examined. Through pseudo‐first‐order kinetic studies, decolorization was found to be faster than degradation with a fixed rate constant ratio. By determining the iron dissolution from B1, RBB oxidation was supposed to mainly occur on the B1 surface, which catalyzed the generation of hydroxyl radicals in the photo‐Fenton reaction. Accordingly, the efficiency of photo‐Fenton could reach 100% and 91.2% of decolorization and degradation, respectively, in 300 minutes.
Treatment of HMX‐Production Wastewater in an Aerobic Granular Reactor
Authors: Zhang Jin‐hua , Wang Min‐hui , Zhu Xiao‐meng
Published: April 2013

Aerobic granules were applied to the treatment of HMX‐production wastewater using a gradual domestication method in a SBR. During the process, the granules showed a good settling ability, a high biomass retention rate, and high biological activity. After 40 days of stable operation, aerobic granular sludge performed very effectively in the removal of carbon and nitrogen compounds from HMX‐production wastewater. Organic matter removal rates up to 97.57% and nitrogen removal efficiencies up to 80% were achieved during the process. Researchers conclude that using aerobic granules to treat explosive wastewater has good prospects for success.
Sex Differences in All-Cause and Cardiovascular Mortality, Hospitalization for Individuals With and Without Diabetes, and Patients With Diabetes Diagnosed Early and Late
Authors: Roche Madonna M. , Wang Peizhong Peter
Published: April 2013

OBJECTIVE

To compare risk of all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality, acute myocardial infarction (AMI) mortality, stroke mortality, and hospitalizations for males and females with and without diabetes and those with diabetes diagnosed early and late.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS

We conducted a population-based retrospective cohort study including 73,783 individuals aged 25 years or older in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada (15,152 with diabetes; 9,517 with late diagnoses).

RESULTS

Males and females with diabetes had an increased risk of all-cause mortality, CVD mortality, AMI mortality, and CVD hospitalizations compared with individuals without diabetes, and the risk was stronger in females than in males. For females, risks of all-cause mortality (hazard ratio [HR] 1.85 [95% CI 1.74–1.96]) and CVD hospitalizations (2.57 [2.24–2.94]) were significantly higher compared with their male counterparts (1.59 [1.51–1.69] and 1.92 [1.72–2.14]). Females with diabetes diagnosed late had an increased risk of CVD mortality (6.54 [4.80–8.91]) and CVD hospitalizations (5.22 [4.31–6.33]) compared with females without diabetes, and both were significantly higher compared with their male counterparts (3.44 [2.47–4.79]) and (3.33 [2.80–3.95]).

CONCLUSIONS

Females with diabetes have a greater risk of mortality than males with diabetes. CVD has a greater impact on females with diabetes than males, especially when diagnosed at a later stage. Different management strategies should be considered for males and females and those with early and late diagnoses of diabetes.
Canagliflozin Compared With Sitagliptin for Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Who Do Not Have Adequate Glycemic Control With Metformin Plus Sulfonylurea
Authors: Schernthaner Guntram , Gross Jorge L. , Rosenstock Julio , Guarisco Michael , Fu Min , Yee Jacqueline , Kawaguchi Masato , Canovatchel William , Meininger Gary
Published: April 2013

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the efficacy and safety of canagliflozin, a sodium glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitor, compared with sitagliptin in subjects with type 2 diabetes inadequately controlled with metformin plus sulfonylurea.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS

In this 52-week, randomized, double-blind, active-controlled, phase 3 study, subjects using stable metformin plus sulfonylurea (N = 755) received canagliflozin 300 mg or sitagliptin 100 mg daily. Primary end point was change from baseline in A1C at 52 weeks. Secondary end points included change in fasting plasma glucose (FPG) and systolic blood pressure (BP), and percent change in body weight, triglycerides, and HDL cholesterol. Safety was assessed based on adverse event (AE) reports.

RESULTS

At 52 weeks, canagliflozin 300 mg demonstrated noninferiority and, in a subsequent assessment, showed superiority to sitagliptin 100 mg in reducing A1C (−1.03% [−11.3 mmol/mol] and −0.66% [−7.2 mmol/mol], respectively; least squares mean difference between groups, −0.37% [95% CI, −0.50 to −0.25] or −4.0 mmol/mol [−5.5 to −2.7]). Greater reductions in FPG, body weight, and systolic BP were observed with canagliflozin versus sitagliptin (P < 0.001). Overall AE rates were similar with canagliflozin (76.7%) and sitagliptin (77.5%); incidence of serious AEs and AE-related discontinuations was low for both groups. Higher incidences of genital mycotic infections and osmotic diuresis–related AEs were observed with canagliflozin, which led to one discontinuation. Hypoglycemia rates were similar in both groups.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings suggest that canagliflozin may be a new therapeutic tool providing better improvement in glycemic control and body weight reduction than sitagliptin, but with increased genital infections in subjects with type 2 diabetes using metformin plus sulfonylurea.
Translating Peer Gynt
Authors: Arestad Sverre
Published: April 2013

(In February, 1966, Modern Drama published Professor Sverre Arestad's review of Professor Rolf Fjelde's verse translation of Peer Gynt. Professor Fjelde's response to the review and Professor Arestad's reply should be of interest to readers of Modern Drama. P.M.)
The Theater Of John Osborne
Authors: Gersh Gabriel
Published: April 2013

IN JULY, 1965, JOHN OSBORNE'S NINTH PLAY, A Patriot for Me, opened at the Royal Court in London. It was his ninth play in nine years: it is a high output by current standards and its impact-failures and successes alike-has been enormous. If any dramatist under 40 years old has earned the title of a working professional, it is Osborne; and yet to judge him in that role seems curiously beside the point. It certainly does not explain the sheer magnitude of his reputation in the theater. The last decade has been the most fertile in British drama for a long time, and no one has contributed more to it than Osborne; but the importance of his contribution is more often defined in terms of its consequences than for its own sake. It undermined dead conventions and brought the sound of living speech into the theater; it introduced the anti-hero and enlarged the permissible range of subject matter; it prepared the terrain for other writers. What it did not do was to provide other writers with a language. Osborne may have supplied them with an entrance ticket, but once they were admitted they were by themselves. Unlike Harold Pinter, he has not bred imitators.
O'Neill's Use, Of Dante In The Fountain And The Hairy Ape
Authors: Amend Victor
Published: April 2013

IF HAROLD PINTER REPRESENTS THE PEAK of the post-war English drama, then that drama is not good enough. Good as he is, he nevertheless lacks that quality of greatness we so ardently desire in great plays that move us deeply. And in the phrase, "great plays that move us deeply," I have probably betrayed my own shortcomings in my response to Pinter as well as what in my opinion are his deficiencies.

There can be no doubt that Pinter is the most accomplished dramatist writing in English for the Theater of the Absurd. His nearest rival is Edward Albee, who, like Pinter, can write a play with beautifully ambiguous overtones of meaning—The Sandbox, for instance—and who is very skillful in his use of the vernacular, but sometimes, unlike Pinter, lets the words flow on in a flood. Pinter, as a playwright of the absurd, invariably prefers the tense, symbolic manner of Samuel Beckett. The tight economy of his writing emphasizes the tension in the situations of his plays. A large part of his accomplishment is his ability to persuade us that he is presenting a life-like situation in traditionally realistic terms; that is, until we are jolted into an awareness of utter absurdity. Isolated elements in his plays are intensely realistic; the combination of elements is utterly absurd.
Proust And Redemption In Waiting For Godot
Authors: Todd Robert
Published: April 2013

EVER SINCE ITS STORMY PREMIERE at the Parisian Theatre de Babylone in January, 1953, Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot has been the subject of a long and continuing series of ingenious interpretations, covering more than fiifteen languages, in which it has been variously asserted that the mysterious Mr. Godot stands for a bicycle-racer, a character in Balzac's Le Faiseur, Charles De 'Gaulle, death, and the Judeo-Christian God. Nevertheless, religious interpretations with Godot as a symbol of the redemptive God of Christianty seem to predominate. As Fowlie has pointed out, "the fundamental imagery of the play is Christian. Even the tree recalls the Tree of Knowledge." Yet, although its pervading imagery is Christian, it is not really a Christian play or even a religious one in the usual sense. Pronko, I believe, makes an important qualification: "A Christian interpretation of Waiting for Godot seems justified—or rather an interpretation that considers Didi and Gogo as reflections of a writer nurtured on Christian tradition." Too many Christian interpretations have neglected to make this distinction and have accepted the play's religious imagery on face value, ignoring the apparent indifference of Codot toward those who wait for him in a tormenting state of taedium vitae.
The Form Of The Caucasian Chalk Circle
Authors: Gaskiell Ronald
Published: April 2013

THE POPULARITY OF Weill's music to The Threepenny Opera, together with the exaggerated claims made for Brecht's work in general, obscured for some time the quality of his two or three finest plays. One of these clearly is The Caucasian Chalk Circle and, although productions are now frequent, we still seem not to have recognized quite where its strength lies. Grusha, of course, has plenty of vitality, and the anarchic humour of Azdak takes to the stage like a seal to water; but beyond this, discussion seldom goes further than surprise at the banality of the prologue or a tribute to the realism of the peasant wedding. Now certainly the play is realistic. Money is needed, almost everything has its price, and Brecht, as always, delights in irony and contradiction. He has a grasp not only of the world of the peasant—what we can touch and smell and taste—but of emotions uncorrupted by sentiment or romantic idealism. This much, however, could be claimed for a very much weaker comedy like Puntila. The distinction of The Caucasian Chalk Circle is the energy with which Brecht's realism has shaped the whole play. It is a vision personal to Brecht, nowhere explicit yet everywhere implied in the dramatic form. The purpose of this essay is to indicate those ways in which the form of The Chalk Circle (structure, characterisation, speech, etc.) expresses and defines Brecht's vision.
Book Reviews
Authors: Bowers Faubion , Flanagan John , Cohn Ruby , Mckee Mary , Vowles Richard
Published: April 2013

E. R. Sarachchandra, The Folk Drama Of Ceylon, reviewed by Faubion Bowers

Walter J. Meserve, Discussions Of American Drama, reviewed by John T. Flanagan

Guy Dumur ed., Histoire Des Spectacles, reviewed by Ruby Cohn

Haig P. Manoogian, The Film-Maker's Art, reviewed by Mary J. Mckee

August Strindberg, Open Letters To The Intimate Theater, reviewed by Richard B. Vowles
Edward Albee: Conflict Of Tradition
Authors: Knepler Henry
Published: April 2013

IN THE INTRODUCTION TO HIS EXCELLENT COLLECTION American Playwrights on Drama Horst Frenz remarks, axiomatically, that "O'Neill never founded a school." He is right, of course, if one considers school to refer to the usual stylistic or structural elements of drama. In the Marlovian or Racinian sense O'Neill did not found a school. In the sense in which his work has become engrained in the American dramatic tradition, however, he did. I do not mean the rather facile, negative sense which Professor Frenz refers to' in the same sentence: "O'Neill never founded a school, and the constant experimenting and frequent change of style, which are so noticeable in his work, characterize the work of other American dramatists as well." Mere eclecticism of theatrical modes is not the cohering element of a school or a tradition.
O'Neill's Use, Of Dante In The Fountain And The Hairy Ape
Authors: Fleisher Frederic , Frenz Horst
Published: April 2013

EVER SINCE 1923, WHEN Anna Christie was staged in Stockholm, the Royal Dramatic Theater, popularly referred to as "Dramaten," has taken a special interest in the American playwright, Eugene O'Neill. Without doubt, this theater's great success in producing such plays as Strange Interlude (in 1929) and Mourning Becomes Electra (in 1933) was to a large extent responsible for the Nobel prize awarded to O'Neill in 1936.
Linda's Role In Death Of A Salesman
Authors: Bliquez Guerin
Published: April 2013

MRS. WILLY LOMAN HAS A MORE FORCEFUL ROLE in Death of a Salesman than most commentators have thus far noted. To overlook the part she plays in her husband's pathetic downfall is to miss one of the most profound levels in Arthur Miller's subtle structuring of his tragedy. Linda's facility for prodding Willy to his doom is what gives the play its direction and its impetus.

Death of A Salesman is more than the story of one man's failure. Its theme includes the disintegration of a family in a particular social world, brought about by self-blindness and a refusal to know or to acknowledge others. It demonstrates how a fear of the responsibilities of knowledge can lead only to ruin. Miller's ironic rendering of Linda as the bulwark deserves closer examination.
Satiric Theme And Structure In Murder In The Cathedral
Authors: Kantra Robert
Published: April 2013

THE MOOT QUESTION WITH WHICH CRITICISM of Eliot's Canterbury play seems inevitably to grapple is whether in the light of its Christian and historical context it can be called a tragedy, and be valued as such. In comparing the play with Tennyson's Becket, John Peter for example puts a higher value on Murder in the Cathedral; but if Becket succeeds only in trying to be a kind of Shakespearean tragedy, yet Eliot's play would seem to suffer in comparison with it on one point: the idea of Thomas suffering a "tragic" death just does not come off. Making the same comparison, Grover Smith suggests that even though "remission of guilt, as well as retribution, comes within the scope of tragedy, one would still be nearly right in designating Murder in the Cathedral a comedy." If the play is not clearly tragedy or comedy, then it is, according to critical commonplace, something of both, modeled after Greek ritual and medieval morality.
Contemporary Japanese Theater: Symbolism In Shvsaku Endo's Ogon No Kuni
Authors: Satto Masako
Published: April 2013

THE TIMEWORN IMAGE OF THE fumie (a representation of Christ or of the Blessed Virgin to be trampled on, used by persecutors of feudal Japan to discover hidden Christians), figures forth in a strikingly original way the intense dramatic conflict of forces-moral, political, racial, religious and psychological-that clash violently against one another in Shilsaku Endo's dynamic three-act tragedy ironically entitled ogon no Kuni (Land of Yellow Gold.) The play, which marked the well-known novelist's first excursion into drama, was first published in Bungei magazine's May, 1966 issue and produced by the Kumo players under the direction of Hiroshi Akutagawa from May 13 to 23 at Tokyo Municipal Centre Hall. With the adept use of symbolic realism reminiscent of Graham Greene's novels, particularly of The Heart of the Matter with its problem of pity versus moral obligation, and Th,e Power and the Glory with its hunted priest and Judas figure, near Nagasaki on K yilshil island, Mr. Endo places his drama of the human soul against a setting suggestive of corruption and death in a boggy strip of land (an epitome of seventeenth century Japan) surrounded by an oppressively silent sea, a land once dreamed of by Francis Xavier as a promised land of yellow gold, but where transplanted seedlings of foreign culture quickly decay in the lukewarm mire. The scene is set two years after the revolt of Shimabara (1637-8) during the Christian persecution under Iemitsu, the third Tokugawa shogun who ruled from 1623 to 1651. Although the main action of the play (the apostasy of Father Ferreira) is based on actual fact, Mr. Endo himself has stated (in a radio broadcast over NHK, May 29, 1966) that the scarcity of recorded historical data available left ample room for the full play of imagination. Thus the play is largely a creative work involving a study of mixed motives, depth psychology and situational morality.
Book Reviews
Authors: Tung Constantine , McKee Mary
Published: April 2013

Leonard C. Pronko, Theater East And West: Perspectives Toward A Total Theatre, reviewed by Constantine Tung

Thelma Altshuler and Richard Paul Janaro, Responses To Drama: An Introduction To Plays And Movies, reviewed by Mary J. Mckee
Propaganda And Art: Dramatic Theory And The American Depression
Authors: McDermott Douglas
Published: April 2013

READING THE GROWING NUMBER OF BOOKS and articles on the "social drama" of the American Depression, I am forced to conclude that we do not yet know what we are talking about. There seem to be two ambivalences which cause the student of Depression drama to spin on his heel, like Dorothy trying to get from the magical land of Oz back to the relatively familiar territory of Kansas. In the first place, there is no clear consensus about what social drama is, or about which plays are examples of it. Probably as a consequence of this ambivalence, we remain confused in our attitude towards whatever plays we think are social dramas. We are not sure whether they are good or bad, nor are we sure whether they represent a passing fancy of the period or a more stable (if less often recognized) type of drama common to several periods. Nevertheless we continue to talk about them because, as Professor Mendelsohn has said so well, "a nagging feeling remains that the protest plays provided the most exciting . . . theater of the period between the wars."
Incongruous Humor In The Contemporary Spanish Theater
Authors: Boring Phyllis
Published: April 2013

HUMOR FROM INCONGRUITY OR THE UNEXPECTED is a stock element in comedy, and a number of contemporary Spanish playwrights—particularly Enrique Jardiel Poncela, Miguel Mihura, and Alfonso Paso—have used it for new and surprising comic effects. This incongruous humor relates closely to one aspect of the theater of the absurd. Doubtless the best-known exponents of the theater of the absurd are those writing in France, headed by Ionesco. Their theater attempts to reflect the debasement of logic in the modern world; in so doing they often make use of the unexpected in language and situation for comic effect. Spanish playwrights also use these comic tools, and the Spanish theater of incongruous humor actually antedates the current French movement. Not only were Mihura and Jardiel Poncela already writing such comedies in the 1930's, but the works of incongruous humor may be traced to even earlier plays of Ramon Gomez de la Serna and Ramon del Valle-Inchin.
Bertolt Brecht And The Noh Drama
Authors: Alter Maria
Published: April 2013

IT IS OFTEN DIFFICULT TO ASSERT unequivocally that a certain writer has been influenced by another writer or by a certain school of writing. Indeed, it is not sufficient to discover even the most striking similarities in the works under consideration; it is necessary to establish beyond the level of simple hypothesis that the later writer knew at least a part of the production of the earlier writer or writers and, even better, that he held it in high regard or showed a special interest in it. Otherwise even the most fundamental similitudes cannot be related in terms of influence but only in terms of comparison. The difficulty is further compounded when not a simple relationship between two writers is at stake, but a triangular sequence of influence. Thus, at least one critic has suggested the French writer Paul Claudel (and, to a lesser extent, the Berlin stage director Piscator) as the link between the German playwright Bertolt Brecht and the Japanese Noh. John Willett points out that Claudel's 'Opera' Christophe Colomb, first performed in Berlin in 1930, shows an unmistakable influence of the Noh, which the author had come to know during his six years service in Japan as French Ambassador. It is about the same time (1928-1930) that Brecht wrote his didactic works: Der Flug der Lindberghs (The Flight of the Lindberghs), in which Willett notes significant similarities with Christophe Colomb (though not with the Noh), and two plays clearly inspired by the Japanese theater: D'er Jasager (He Who Says Yes) and Die Massnahme (Measures Taken). Since the dates seem to preclude a direct influence of the French work on the German, Willett seems to suggest that the transmission of the interest in the Noh might have followed an earlier if more devious path, that is from Claudel to his collaborator Darius Milhaud, then on to the latter's friends Hindemith and Weill, and finally to their collaborator Brecht. As for Piscator, it is true that his interest in things Oriental is m'anifested at that time by his 1930 directing of Plivier's Des Kaisers Kuli (The Emperys Coolie), where an epic staging was mixed with the exotic subject matter.
Friedrich DÜRrenmatt As Wolfgang Schwitter
Authors: Usmiani Renate
Published: April 2013

An Autobiographical Interpretation of The Meteor

Dürrenmatt's latest play, The Meteor, has proven a failure with audiences and critics alike, both in Zurich, where it was first performed in the winter of 1965, and in London, where it was premiered the following season. This may be due to the unusual theme of the play, centering as it does around the heightened sense of life developed by a dying man who keeps on mysteriously resurrecting from clinical deaths while all around him healthy men inexplicably die. The general feeling of puzzlement and rejection is perhaps best summed up by Martin Browne when he says, referring to the play's central character, the forever resurrecting Schwitter: "we are unsure whether to take this giant as fact or phantasy ... (and we) don't care." He accuses Diürrenmatt of having failed as a dramatist, since the play is not able to get its audience "involved." Maybe so. But shouldn't we, before bowing to critical opinion, bear in mind Dürrenmatt's dictum (formulated in self-defense though it may be) that "the audience, too, must be evaluated the night of a premiere. The audience fails to pass at least as often as the authors." However, it is not the intention of this article to pass judgment on the literary and dramatic value of the play, nor to discuss the perceptiveness of Durrenmatt's audiences. Rather, I would like to suggest that with the character of Wolfgang Schwitter we have at last been given (consciously or unconsciously) a comprehensive autobiographical statement by an author whose personality has been safely entrenched until now behind the fortress of his apodictic statement "I do not have a biography."
Genet And Gelber: Studies In Addiction
Authors: Jeffrey David
Published: April 2013

BOTH JEAN GENET'S The Balcony AND JACK GELBER'S The Connection use the same dramatic device, the play-within-a-play, to express similar moral positions. Both playwrights use the device to erect a "hall of mirrors," which becomes the central image of the condition of mankind. Genet's hero in The Thiefs Journal, Stilitano, trapped in its inmost maze, is the prototype of the heroes of both plays. Whether Stilitano can or cannot break out of the "hall" is irrelevant. Whether he tries or does not try to break out is central. His success is not moot, and neither is the pinnacle he does or does not reach for.
John Bull's Other Island— Yeats And Shaw
Authors: Sidnell
Published: April 2013

IN 1932, YEATS WROTE TO Shaw about the founding of an Irish Academy of Letters. Characteristically, Yeats was managing the affair and involved in "impassioned debate." In trying to persuade the founding committee to nominate for the Academy what he called "the list I wanted," Yeats was almost wholly successful. By skilful manoeuvring in committee, he managed to get all but one of his nominees accepted. The occasion was one of those on which the election or rejection of individual men would convey a sense of values: a commentary on Ireland's past and a declaration of intention for Ireland's future. It was in some ways surprising that Yeats's candidate for the Presidency was Shaw. In other ways it was the fitting culmination of the relationship that Yeats should fulfill the political and Shaw the honorific role in the creation of the new Irish pantheon.
The Futile Encounter In The Plays Of John Whiting
Authors: Lyons Charles
Published: April 2013

THE CURRENT REVALUATION OF THE PLAYS of John Whiting, done, unfortunately, for the most part, posthumously, offers us a good illustration of significant formal transitions in modern drama: the artistic reconsideration of the nature of dramatic form accomplished by the plays themselves; and the critical reconsideration of formal aesthetic structure. To a large degree, the disintegration of form, in its conventional sense, is the result of the process begun in the Renaissance with the disintegration of the conception of an ordered universe: the movement from the concept that form exists within the structure of the universe itself, which is imitated in art, to the concept that the individual consciousness is the source of any form which exists, bringing a subjective order to that which is otherwise chaotic. Correspondingly, our increasing understanding of the metaphoric process, related to our understanding of the function of the unconscious, has given us a way to respond to the subjective ordering of experience and a notion of form more complex than the conventional interaction of character and plot.
Book Reviews
Authors: Greene David , Cohn Ruby , Hogan Robert , Mcdowell  , Walker Augusta
Published: April 2013

Donald Torchiana, W. B. Yeats And Georgian Ireland, reviewed by David H. Greene

Martin Esslin, Harold Pinter, reviewed by Ruby Cohn

Micheal MacLiammóir, All For Hecuba: An Irish Theatrical Autobiography, reviewed by Robert Hogan

Ruth Adam, What Shaw Really Said, reviewed by Frederick P. W. Mcdowell

Harold Fromm, Bernard Shaw And The Theater In The Nineties: A Study Of Shaw's Dramatic Criticism, reviewed by Frederick P. W. Mcdowell

Fred Mayne, The Wit And Satire Of Bernard Shaw, reviewed by Frederick P. W. Mcdowell

Walter Kerr, Harold Pinter, reviewed by Augusta Walker
Ghelderode's Red Magic: Gold And The Use Of The Christian Myth
Authors: Fraidstern Iska
Published: April 2013

THE VISION OF MICHEL DE GHELDERODE derives its theatrical vitality from the playwright's absorption in the anhistorical memories of the folk or the popular imagination, "about what the world was like before the appearance of homo sapiens. Through the primitive legends, poetry, and dream are revealed to us the existence of former human kinds, come from the stars and gone away again, leaving evidences in stone, astronomical, or esoteric symbols."! His dramatic preoccupation with the public manifestations of these archaic, frequently unconscious relics reveals an awareness of continuous human need for sacred objects, the ritual annulments of time, and the ceremonial repetition of certain exemplary gestures that demand participation in a reality greater than the limits enforced by the individual personality.
Old And New In London Now
Authors: Kennedy Andrew
Published: April 2013

CRITICAL JARGON-HIGHBROW AND PHILISTINE IS one of the things parodied in Tom Stoppard's new one-act comedy, The Real Inspector Hound, and it would require some courage to parrot, even approximately,Moon, the second-string critic, who makes this pronouncement about the Agatha Christie-type thriller he has just been watching (from the far side of the stage where another 'audience' confronts the audience):

If we examine this more closely, and I think close examination is the best tribute that the play deserves, I think we will find that within the austere framework of what is seen to be on one level a country-house weekend, and what a useful symbol it is, the author has given us-yes, I will go so far-he has given us the human condition.

We need not then go so far as to see in the two-level action of the play "the human condition." On the contrary, the play's interest may well lie in the cheerful and seemingly amoral way in which it makes the theatre feed on the theatre withoug urging us to perceive the old analogies between the world and the stage. When, towards the end of the play, the two parodied critics one after another step on the stage, get sucked into the mad logic of a theatrical thriller and assume parts that lead to a quick death by revolver shot, nobody is likely to experience the "felt life" that is always there in Pirandello's theatricality; nor is one invited to recognize some social nightmare as in the somewhat over-obvious metamorphosis of logical-political man into Ionesco's rhinoceros. No-one, not even a critic, needs to feel involved beyond the level of a fine cerebral fal1ce. It is comfortingly classical, as though Sheridan's The Critic were performed in Alice's Looking Glass; and the element of absurdity in the play rests in the comfortingly witty dream where everything is topsy-turvy-the Inspector turns critic, the Critic inspector, and so on-and the words of a card-game are jumbled up into the familiar stage rhubarb. The point is that Stoppard is not only using absurd elements that pre-date the so-called theatre of the absurd, but he plays with the latter—parodistically.
Symbol And Substance In Tiny Alice
Authors: Mandanis Alice
Published: April 2013

THE DECLINING AUTHORITY OF Christian belief weighs heavily on many modern playwrights much as it has on poets since the Victorian period. Since "Dover Beach" artistic response to the loss of faith has often been indirect and even furtive, a kind of diffident disguising of a painful and provocative subject. Attempts to discredit Christian institutions and God Almighty have sometimes ended in backsliding statements of renascence in belief and in orthodoxy. Frequently unsure of their own heresies, the artists have presented them not as dogmatic utterances from a stage anti-pulpit, but as clever conjurer's tricks which only hint at the immense significance of the subject. This is the trouble with Albee's Tiny Alice. It is a play which invites its audience to play games like "Guess the Source" or "Find the Complex." Though titillating this is confusing, and once the curtain is down on the initial productions one may wonder if the play returns us to a theatrical tradition unaffected by its presence.
Book Reviews
Authors: Fletcher John , Block Haskell , Gaskell Ronald , Cohn Ruby , Fratti Mario , Miller Jordan , Hogan Robert , Alexander Doris , Steene Brigitta
Published: April 2013

Ruby Cohn ed., Casebook On Waiting For Godot. The Impact Of Beckett's Modern Classic: Reviews, Reflections, Interpretations, , reviewed by John Fletcher

Dorothy Knowles, French Drama Of The Inter-War Years: I9i8-39, reviewed by Haskell M. Block

John Russell Brown ed., Modern British Dramatists, reviewed by Ronald Gaskell

Phyllis Hartnoll, The Oxford Companion To The Theatre, reviewed by Ruby Cohn

Giovanna Capone, Drammi Per Voci, reviewed by Mario Fratti

John Henry Raleigh, Twentieth Century Interpretations Of The Iceman Cometh, reviewed by Jordan Y. Miller

Brooks Atkinson, The Sean O'Casey Reader: Plays, Autobiographies, Opinions, reviewed by Robert Hogan

Chester Clayton Long, The Role Of Nemesis In The Structure Of Selected Plays By Eugene O'Neill, reviewed by Doris Alexander

by Niklas Brunius, Goran O Eriksson and Rolf Rembe, Swedish Theatre, reviewed by Brigitta Steene
Jean Genet’s Mirror Images In Le Balcon
Authors: Stewart Harry
Published: April 2013

JEAN GENET'S FASCINATION WITH MIRRORS AND MIRROR IMAGES poses an interesting psychological-philosophical-literary problem for the critic. Most obviously Genet's preoccupation with mirrors is related to the question of illusion and reality, and this preoccupation has been variously interpreted as an indication of his refusal to accept reality, or his Pirandellism. Yet, to understand Genet's use of the mirror in Ie Balcon it is essential to realize that his characters, unlike Pirandello's, never confuse their image with their reality. Rather than symbols of illusion, Genet's mirrors emphasize the reversal of reality. For example, the "Bishop" wants to believe that the prostitute's sins are real in order that his image acquire authenticity and purity. However, as a real man he is terrified by the suggestion that the sins might indeed be real, for then he would be "dans un drole de petrin." The "gasman" is clearly conscious of the distinction between reality and his image as "Bishop." Although Genet seems to prefer illusion or appearance, his basic concern is not with illusion per se) but rather with mirror images that are dramatic metaphors intended to illustrate the "sophistry of the Nay." For example, a layman who pushes his role as "Bishop" to the extreme by playing the role in a whorehouse where he performs holy rites ("Benediction," "Messe," "Adoration perpetuelle," "Absolution," etc., p. 14) becomes his own opposite.
Blanco Posnet —Adversary Of God
Authors: Nelson Raymond
Published: April 2013

The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posenet, Bernard Shaw's American frontier melodrama, is very frankly a play of religious experience. Religion dominates this one-act play from start to finish. It is sub-titled "A Sermon in Crude Melodrama," and its preface opens with Shaw's comment, "This little play is really a religious tract in dramatic form." No critic fails to acknowledge that fact, although each critic quite naturally weights certain details in his interpretation more than others. Indeed, Chesterton ascribes its failure to pass the censor to the fact that "one of the characters professes a belief in God and states his conviction that God has got him." He then adds, by implication, that the play is, in its essence, "honest religion."
Rabindranath Tagore As A Playwright
Authors: Sharma Mohan
Published: April 2013

THE POET-DRAMATIST T AGORE IS PRIMARILY a mystic lyrist in the tradition of a number of well known medieval poet-saints of India, whose influence has permeated the very core of Indian life during the last several centuries. Consequently, it may be observed that these basic qualities of Tagore's poetry have colored all the other types of modern literature assayed by hinl. But before attempting any survey of his dramatic work it appears to be relevant to consider two important aspects of his work as a playwright: first, his links with the modern European drama; second, the relation between the plays and the stage for which he presumably wrote.
Preliminary Notes On The German Dramaturg And American Theater
Authors: Elwood William
Published: April 2013

THE POSITION OF DRAMATURG in the German theater is an interesting one, for academic as well as practical reasons. The Dramaturg does not exist to any large degree in theaters west of Germany, but rather east of the Rhine in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Russia, Germany, and the Scandinavian countries. Aside from the purely intellectual interest which one might derive from a study of the position, more attention should be directed to consideration of a Dramaturg in America than is presently the case. The American theater practitioner would do well to think in terms of creating such a job for our emerging repertory theater, and the professor of theater might reflect upon how the university doctoral program could be instrumental in such an endeavor.
Duerrenmatt's Physicists And The Tragic Tradition
Authors: Murdoch Brain
Published: April 2013

THE QUESTION OF GENRE IN A DRAMA BY Duerrenmatt is problematic, and the most cursory glance into the corpus of Duerrenmatt-criticism brings to light a variety of generic possibilities. The title of a recent study of The Marriage of Mr. Mississippi, for example-“Tragic Elements of a Duerrenmatt Comedy"-is significant in that it indicates the fusion of the two extremes of dramatic composition. The Physicists, which is again styled a comedy by its author, represents a converse of this formulation. The thesis proposed in this article is that The Physicists may not only be termed a tragedy in the full sense, but further, may even be seen in some respects as representing a final stage in the tragic tradition.
DÜrrenmatt's Play Strindberg
Authors: Sharp Corona
Published: April 2013

"PLAY-QUICK MOVEMENT, ACTIVITY" PLAY AREA (in the sense of freedom), play for amusement. (in the sense of pastime), sport, joke, game of chance, match, style of playing, way of acting, stageplay, drama."

This definition, rather loosely composed of variously related terms, headed the programme notes of the latest play of Friedrich Dürrenmatt, at its first run in Basel, February-June, 1969. Although prepared by further explanatory notes and illustrations, the audience was surprised by a new dramatic experience, to which some critics took exception. It is only after an overview of Dürrenmatt's concept of "play" as shown in the corpus of his comedies, that one gains a better appreciation of what Play Strindberg aims to achieve.
German Drama In Poland After World War II
Authors: Szydlowski Roman
Published: April 2013

GERMAN DRAMA WAS WELL KNOWN and often presented in Poland almost from the beginning of the permanent professional theater, that is, from the end of the eighteenth century. A large part of Poland was then under the rule of Prussia and Austria, and the ruling powers during the occupation of our country willingly spread German culture. Just before the loss of freedom, traveling companies from Germany, Saxony, or Austria often played in Warsaw, even settling for a certain time in the capital of Poland. And later appearances of German companies in Cracow or Lwow were as frequent and unremarkable as appearances of Russian companies in Warsaw.
A Word From The Silent Partner: A Book About Nemirovich-Danchenko
Authors: Hill Steven
Published: April 2013

Do NOT UNDERRATE THIS BOOK BECAUSE of its deceptive title: it turns out to provide a very valuable and eye-opening first person account of the theatrical and literary activities of Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko (1858-1943), Russian playwright and co-director with Stanislavsky of the Moscow Art Theater, in the last dozen years of his career. It was compiled from the papers of the late Serge Bertenson, who had been Nemirovich's secretary and key assistant for several years in Moscow, and who after emigrating to America kept up a steady correspondence with his former chief in the old country. Printed entirely in Russian, this book contains 119 extensive letters written by Nemirovich to Bertenson, as well as 49 letters by other Russian cultural figures, and 171 entries from Bertenson's diary on theatrical topics. These 339 documents, almost all of which are published for the first time in any language anywhere (including the USSR), are arranged chronologically from June 30, 1928, when Bertenson permanently left Russia for Hollywood, to April 25, 1943, when Nemirovich died in Russia.
Interdisciplinary Roots Of The Theater Of The Absurd
Authors: Ashmore Jerome
Published: April 2013

MOST CRITICISM OF THE THEATER OF THE ABSURD pays little or no attention to the intrinsic aspect of absurdity. The point generally overlooked is that absurdity perennially has been almost an inherent property of the thought and action of mankind. The scope of the absurd and the variety of its manifestations are the concern of what follows.