Excerpt from The Playwright as Thinker: A Study of Drama in Modern Times
Early in 1945 The Nation commissioned me to review the published versions of a number of new plays. But the time was past for such a journal to be interested in non conformity. They refused to print the review I wrote, and it appeared, logically enough, in Partisan Review.
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Taught freshman English at UCLA for a year. And that is where he met the "German playwright Bertolt Brecht, who had recently immigrated to the United States after fleeing Nazi Germany and was unknown in this country. The two of them became close, and it was Bentley who translated a lot of Brecht's work into English and helped establish his career in America."
This is a good piece of theatrical criticism. I particularly enjoyed the chapter comparing Wagner and Ibsen. There is wonderful insight here. However, his dislike of what he terms "Broadway" shows its age (as does his disregard for O'Neill as a dramatist of note.) I can understand the lack of depth he accuses the Broadway (or commercial) stage of being. This problem persists today. It is a shame a Bentley rep theatre never came to be.