The Fervent Years [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION TO THE DA CAPO EDITION The force of Harold Clurman's personality found no stronger expression than in The Fervent Years, unquestionably the most important book in the American theatre. That force, which I encountered at the birth of the Group, convinced me to join an unknown company without plays and without money. At that time, I myself was looking for something more than the magnetism of "show business" and the glamor of stardom. Alone, I searched for these elements in my wanderings all over the world. I found them in Europe —in Max Reinhardt, Konstantin Stanislavsky, and Yevgeny Vagtangov. But in America, before the Group, theatre of these dimensions did not exist. Harold too dreamed of a greater and more compelling American theatre, as he explains in his own foreword to The Fervent Years. He saw that super-size was necessary and found it in the person of Jacob P. Adler, who could hypnotize an auditnce with his colossal quality. This was the essence of theatre Harold sought: monumental stature and universality. Clurman invited me to hear him speak. His force was powerful, mysteriously so. I could not understand its source. Harold's very voice, unlike Reinhardt's and Stanislavsky's softer tones, expressed a man of overwhelming size. Indeed, it sprang from the universal in himself and in his art. He was eagerly, crazily groping to create a world to match his vision. In comparison to Harold, other theatrical thinkers appeared infantile. vi