In the essay below, Gianakaris traces Shaffer's artistic development throughout his plays, focusing on his "masterful merging of the literalism of realism with the provocative of the abstract pictorial."

While The Royal Hunt of the Sun and Equus were hailed for their spectacular dramaturgy, The Battle of Shrivings was seen as a retreat to the comfortable ease of the well-made plot and the domestic setting which worked effectively in Five Finger Exercise (1958) and Black Comedy (1967). Shaffer has since returned to the play, rewriting it as Shrivings (1974). In its present form, Shrivings demonstrates more significant affinities with The Royal Hunt of the Sun and Equus than with his earlier works. These thre...

In the review below, Kalson contends that the character of Dysart, who "embodies the central conflict which affords the play its universality, " is insufficiently developed, leaving the doctor's dilemma overshadowed by the psychological "case history."

Amadeus was first staged on 2 November 1979 at London 's Olivier Theatre in a National Theatre production directed by Peter Hall. In the following evaluation of that production, Young finds the play "unimaginative " and contends that "there is no life in Mr. Shaffer's story. Salieri recounts it in the manner of an illustrated lecture. "

[White Liars] explores the narrow gap between truth and reality, and how one eventually accepts fiction for fact. Set in a fortune-teller's booth, it shows three characters … the supposedly aristocratic clairvoyant, and two of her clients, twisting the truth to suit their wishes. I feel that it is more effective in presenting the harsh truth than was [the] original script in which a fourth character … intervened in the thought processes of the woman, and created confusion in the situati...