An Unnatural Pursuit & Other Pieces: A Playwright's Journal - Hardcover

Noted British playwright Gray has written a fascinating journal of the creation of his latest play, The Common Pursuit. From the satisfying moment the play was finished through its London opening, we witness the creative process from the playwright's point of view: the search for a producer, the problems of casting, the agonizing rehearsals and rewrites, and the emotional roller coaster of facing opening night and the critics. Gray's portrait of his relationship with the play's director, Harold Pinter, and his description of Pinter's directorial style, are delightful. Gray describes his terrors and insecurities in brutally frank terms and disarmingly turns back on himself the venom that sometimes mars similar accounts. The book is thoroughly entertaining and illuminating (except for the incongruous sections on the game of cricket). A remarkable, witty chronicle a quarter century after William Gibsons's comparable The Seesaw Log (1959). Daniel J. Lombardo, Jones Lib., Inc., Amherst, Mass.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From November 1983, when he finished the first draft of a new play, to the following August, when The Common Pursuit had been performed in London's equivalent of Off Broadway, British playwright Gray (Butley; Otherwise Engaged kept a diary in which he recorded the experience of reshaping and rewriting the text, selecting a director (Harold Pinter, who contributes a foreword here), producer, investors, cast and theater, going through rehearsals and the first night, and trying unsuccessfully to get the play transferred to the West End. While giving a behind-the-scenes account of the complexities of playwriting, Gray mercilessly reveals his misgivings and self-doubts and the strengths and weaknesses of his associates. He also includes articles on flops, writing for TV, his recollections of Cambridge and of literary critic F. R. Leavis, and his interest in cricket. Photos.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.