How the other half writes plays: British theatre's most prolific writer jots down some all-too-basic tricks of his trade.(New books)(The Crafty Art of Playmaking)(Book Review)

THE CRAFTY ART OF PLAYMAKING

By Alan Ayckbourn, Palgrave Macmillan, New York and London. 125 pp, $22.95 cloth

THE CLAIMS PUT FORTH UPON THE jacket of Alan Ayckbourn's The Crafty Art of Playmaking are perhaps the most exciting items to be found in the book. "Sixty plays." "Forty languages." "The most widely performed of all living playwrights." These teasers fill us with awe and wonderment. How can one person write 60 plays, produce them all, direct many of them and live to write this book? This alone registers as one of the greatest ...

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