Gilman, Richard. "Bellow on Broadway." Rev. of Under the Weather. Common and
Uncommon Masks: Writings on Theatre 1961–1970. Richard Gilman. New York: Random, 1971.
242–44.
Hewes, Henry. "A Muse of Fire." Rev. of The Last Analysis. Saturday
Review 17 Oct. 1964: 29.
A brief derogatory
review of LA that condemns it for its lack of focus and
"depressingly domestic discord."
"From Womb to Gloom." Rev. of The
Last Analysis. Time 9 Oct. 1964:
92.
A brief statement
of the content of LA that refuses even to discuss it as drama.
Essentially a dismissal of the play.
"Out of Sync." Rev. of The Last
Analysis. Newsweek 12 Oct.
1964:105.
Condemns the
production of LA and then condemns the play saying that "it
committed suicide before its assassination." Bellow fails to
dramatize his ideas. "The play's soliloquies and dialogue are not
in coherence with its ostensibly farcical action." The play is
full of "thick, clotted, unrealized ambitions."
"Sex as Punishment."
Rev. of Under the
Weather. Time 4 Nov. 1966:
85.
A brief dismissal
of the play that disparages Bellow's assessment of women
in UW.
Aharoni, Ada. "The Last Analysis: Drama and
Introspection." Saul Bellow
Journal 6.2 (1987):
36–46.
A generalized
discussion of Bellow's failures as a playwright in LA followed by a
discussion of his subsequent revisions and use of the form as an
exploration and conveyance for introspection. Provides a careful
analysis of the problems in plot, characterization, and stage
technique in the play. One of the few lengthy treatments of the
play as text.
Anderson, David D. "The Novelist as Playwright: Saul Bellow on
Broadway." Saul Bellow
Journal 5.1 (1986):
48–62.
Reviews briefly
Bellow's history of involvement with the theatre and his writings
both for it and about it. Discusses several dramatic pieces
including The Wrecker
and The Last
Analysis. Discusses the textual
evolution of LA and the character of Bummidge. Concludes with
Bellow's responses concerning his broadway career.
Bigsby, C. W. E. "The New Surrealism." Confrontation and Commitment: A Study of
Contemporary American Drama 1959–66. C. W. E. Bigsby. Columbia, MO: U of Missouri P,
1968. 93–99.
Bigsby discusses the thematic content of LA in the context
of a discussion of experimentalism and surrealism on the drama of
the period.
Brustein, Robert. "Saul Bellow on the Drag Strip." Rev. of
The Last Analysis. New
Republic 24 Oct. 1964: 25–26.
Rpt. in Seasons of Discontent:
Dramatic Opinions 1959–1965.
Robert Brustein. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1965.
172–75.
Brustein complains
of sprawling structure and lack of integrated theme and form. The
farce is too serious and dark for theater farce. Provides good
plot summary of the play. Sees the piece as anarchic to the
theater itself. Sees that Bellow has potential as a playwright
and condemns those of lesser talent who may have permanently
exiled him from attempting theater again.
Clurman, Harold. "Theatre." Rev. of The Last Analysis. Nation
19 Oct. 1964: 256–57.
Contains a review
of Oh What a Lovely War
and Bellow's LA. Complains that
farce is the wrong mode for the serious business the play
concerns itself with. Bummidge never becomes real. He remains a
"figure of verbiage." There is little logic in his process. The
play remains unfulfilled. Also condemns the producer for his lack
of style.
Clurman, Harold. "Theatre." Rev. of Under the Weather. Nation
14 Nov. 1966) 523–24. Rpt. in
The Naked Image: Observations on
the Modern Theatre. Harold Clurman.
New York: Macmillan, 1966. 45–47.
Categorizes
Bellow's plays as one act farces. Provides a detailed account of
the content and structure of UW. Claims that
the final result of the play is to stimulate curiosity rather
than gratify. Sees the play as more likely to succeed as a
commercial venture than as an artistic one.
Cohn, Ruby. "Saul Bellow." Dialogue in American Drama. Ruby Cohn. Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP, 1971.
192–97.
Discusses Bellow's play The
Wrecker, (1954). One of the few
references to this play in the literature. Complains of its
brevity, its lack of farcical savagery, and its lack of focus.
Gives a succinct plot and character summary. Claims that the
optimistic ending lacks conviction and that the audience balks at
farce containing redemption themes. Describes the chief
character, Bummidge, as "a pygmy" compared to the heroes of the
novels.
Colakis, Marianthe.
"Saul Bellow's The Last Analysis and Sophocles" Oedipus at
Colonus." Text and Presentation:
The Journal of the Comparative Drama Conference 15 (1994): 25–29.
Details the
history of LA's failure on Broadway, and the record of its
detractors and defenders. Argues that in LA Bellow had in
mind Oedipus at Colonus. Sees Bummidge as a Sophoclean character
searching for deeper values than those held around him. Provides
a very detailed comparison of both plays.
Corrigan, Robert W. "Engagement/Disengagement in the Contemporary
Theatre." The Theatre in Search
of a Fix. Robert W. Corrigan. New
York: Delacorte, 1973. 282–84.
Calls Bellow a
great comic artist like Chekov. Deals with Bummidge in
LA as a
modern-day Hamlet. He concentrates on the spoof, farce and
burlesque in the play.
Malin, Irving. "Bummy's Analysis." Saul Bellow: A Collection of Critical
Essays. Ed. Earl Rovit. Twentieth
Century Views. Englewood Cliffs, N J: Prentice, 1975.
115–21.
Discusses Bummidge
as one more of Bellow's "autodidacts." Provides an intensive and
theoretical analysis of the play and its central protagonist.
Concludes that the final effect of the play is mixed and that "we
dangle between different worlds?ours and his, Bellow's and ours."
Calls it a powerful, shrewd and funny play.
McCarten, John. "Look,
Ma, I'm Playwriting." Rev. of Under the Weather. New
Yorker 5 Nov. 1966:
127–28.
Comments on
LA as a
disaster and complains that UW is another
example of Bellow's "getting an education in public" and earning
as he gets one. Critiques the female characters in the play
disparagingly, but does give a fairly thorough plot summary.
Concludes that Bellow never persuaded him that the participants
were "worth a second thought."
Opdahi, Keith M. "The Mental Comedies of Saul Bellow."
From Hester Street to Hollywood:
The Jewish–American Stage and Screen. Ed. Sarah Blacher Cohen. Bloomington, IN:
Indiana UP, 1983. 183–96.
This is probably
the definitive article thus far on Bellow as playwright.
Describes thoroughly the Jewish influence in the Bellow
plays.
Philips, Louis. "The Novelist as Playwright: Baldwin, McCullers,
and Bellow." Modern American
Drama: Essays in Criticism. Ed.
William E. Taylor. Deland, FL: Everett/Edwards, 1968.
145–62.
Reviews the
critics' comments on Bellow as playwright. Provides a character
analysis of Bummidge in LA
and a short production account. Deals
primarily with Bellow's literary ideas in the play. Concludes
that Bellow as satirist is defeated by his own earnestness.
Prideaux, Tom. "Don't Let Bellow Get Scared Off." Rev. of
The Last Analysis. Life
30 Pet. 1964: 17.
Accuses Bellow of
failing to recognize some of the almost childish truths of the
theater?a play cannot ever meander like passages in a novel. Sees
Bellow as one of the long line of American novelists who give the
theater one try and give up. Claims that one can never really
sympathize with Bummidge because he is never really in
trouble.
Schloff, Aaron McK. Sun Sets on 'Miami Stories': American Jewish
Theater Presents Three Forgettable One-Act Plays." Jewish Week 207.48
(1995): 43.
Reviews a current
performance of Bellow's "The Wen" at the American Jewish Theater.
Describes the plot and characters and the other two plays being
performed with "The Wen." One is based on Malamud's "The Magic
Barrel," and the other is Lawrence Klavan's "If Walls Could
Talk."
Sheed, Wilfred. "Weathering the Folly." Rev. of Under the Weather. Commonweal 18 Nov.
1966: 199–201.
Siegel, Naomi. "Not
Enough Belly Laughs." Metro West
Jewish News 49.13 (1995): 53.
Briefly reviews
Bellow's "The Wen" currently being performed at the American
Jewish Theater under the title "Miami Stories." Calls the three
plays schmalz rather than zest, and accuses them of being
sophomoric. However, does find Bellow's play the evening's
winner.
Smith, Dolly. "Move Over, Menander: Bellow Has Gone from New
Comedy to the Sublime." Saul
Bellow Journal 7.1 (1988):
3–14.
Describes a clash
within Saul Bellow between tradition and desire with the result
that in LA Bellow posits a new comic theory of sublime.
Argues that in addition to Menanders' formula for comedy, which
involves the renewal of life, Bellow's comedy adds the dimension
of the sublime as well. Provides an analysis of the play from
this perspective and articulates six major elements of Sublime
Comedy, using examples from plays mentioned in other Bellow
texts, such as HG. Concludes that altered audience expectation
because of this new formula accounted more for the play's failure
than any inherent problems.
Taubman, Howard.
"Theater: 'Last Analysis of Saul Bellow Arrives." New York Times October 2, 1964: 30.
Describes
LA as a
wildly untidy play with a flood of antic-imagination, mad
rhetoric, comic fantasy, and improbabe but serious farce.
Commends Bellow for his daring and freshness, his sensibility and
his viewpoint that is both earthbound and airborne. Notes the
plays flaws as undifferentiated voices, dense language, illogical
plotting, and demented bravura leaps from one scene to another.
Describes the plot, applauds the undercurrent of feeling and the
rhetorical fireworks. It is the product of a mind capable of
disturbing his audience, and who is at once sportive and
serious.
Weales, Gerald. "Saul
Bellow and Some Others." The
Jumping Off Place: American Drama in the 1960's. Gerald Weales. New York: Macmillan; London:
Collier-Macmillan, 1969. 195–223.
Provides a
detailed account of Bellow's interest in the theater and a
production history of LA.
Describes it as one of the "most fascinating
and funniest plays to turn up in the 1960's." Gives a detailed
and intelligent critical analysis of the play.
