The Bedford Introduction to Drama

I don't know how much this book goes for anymore but while in college I've shelled out up to $150 for a book i used once. I used this book for several different theatre classes. 3 of the classes I used this book for most of the plays we had to study. for a couple others i was able to use it to fill in the blanks for other books. Only drawback is this thing is the size of a phone book. If you have to pick this book up for a class do not sell afterwards, chances are you will be able to use in another.

I love this book and how it gives the history of the plays, the period it was created in and information about the playwrights. I bought this book because my granddaughter is studying theatre and was having problems understanding the language usage of plays dating back to the Roman/Greco period and medieval times. Together we correspond over our webcams and go over the text. I actually enjoy it more than she does. Perhaps it is because I don't have to take the tests or write the papers.

I needed this book for a course I am taking and it arrived when I needed it most.

Thanks a million bucks!! When I told a few of my classmates what I spent on a 1125 page required book, one guy said "If you get in the mail, I'm gonna scream!!!!!!!!!!!!- I paid big bucks for my book $#@@*%!". Thank you, Thank you, THANK YOU. Oh by the way, did I say thank you. PS. I had an earlier version of text book, and everything I needed was there. I took a chance. In fact the book looked brand spankin new!!!

The Bedford Introduction To Drama, in its Fourth edition, has a number of virtues. Much of the selection is good, the illustrations are good and often helpful, and the introductions to each period and to individual plays are often very good. Of course, some of them are predictable: it would be nice to see some exciting Strindberg for a change; Miss Julie is really getting weary. However, it is when when we reach the second half of the Twentieth century that the quality breaks down. We find the same tired list of plays chosen for their political correctness: something on race, something for feminists, etc, etc, with very litte convincing attention paid to what has actually happened in the theatre, viewed either from the point of view of box officee appeal (which was a good enough criterion for Shakespeare), or what is likely to be historically influential. A major exception is Mamet's OLEANNA, guaranteed to stir disagreement and excitement in the classroom as it does in the theatre. Each reader will find other exceptions, but the predictability and tedium of the modern selection is disappointing. This text is widely used in classrooms, incuding my own, because there is no satisfactory alternative, but as a text for modern theatre it's a failure, and it's VERY expensive for a student's budget.