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[This entry was updated by C. J. Gianakaris (Western Michigan University) from the entry by Warren Sylvester Smith in the Concise Dictionary of British Literary Biography, volume 8, pp. 337-356.]
With less than a dozen major productions since his emergence on the London scene in 1958, Peter Shaffer can hardly be called one of England's more prolific playwrights. But he may well be one of the most durable and consistently workmanlike dramatists of a generation which includes John Osborne, Harold Pinter, Arnold Wesker, and John Arden, all born within six years of one another. (Shaffer is actually the eldest of the group.) Only one of Shaffer's plays was not a commercial success, and all of them have engendered vigorous--often conflicting--critical response. More significant in any overall estimation is that he has so far managed to escape the categorizing labels attached to his contemporaries. After his first success, Five Finger Exercise (1958), he warned those who praised him for bringing theater back to the realistic environment of the living room: "I want to do many different kinds of theatre." Each play since has been something of a stylistic surprise.
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