SOURCE: Shyer, Laurence. “American Absurd: Two Nonsense Plays by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, and Ring Lardner.” Theater 9, no. 2 (spring 1978): 118-21.

In the following preface, Shyer discusses “nonsense plays” and Kaufman's contribution to the genre.

The next few pages … are devoted neither to the presentation nor discussion of contemporary plays; rather they look back at another era in the American theater, specifically, at two of its practioners: George S. Kaufman, who spent a long and phenomenal career on Broadway as playwright, director, producer and drama critic, and Ring Lardner, whose stories and satires recorded the oddities of American life and language during the first few decades of this century. Although both the works presented here were written in the 1920's, we might, with some justification, call them new plays for both are coming before a contemporary audience for the first time—Lardner's The Gelska Cup has never...