Arthur Adamov has recently turned his back upon the avant-garde and upon his early plays that embodied more than those of any other dramatist the revolutionary principles expressed by Artaud in The Theater and Its Double. Adamov's last play, Paolo Paoli …, indicates a turning to the drama of social implications with a message, written in a quasi-realistic style. (p. 131)

[Adamov's early plays] are in great part an exorcism of private terrors: … [La Parodie, La Grande et la petite manoeuvre, Le Sens de la marche (The Direction of the March), and Tous contre tous] are such plays, long, loosely constructed, almost episodic works revealing the nightmare existence within a frightening and incomprehensible police state.

In an effort to correct certain excesses of his first play, Adamov turned from La Parodie to a work on a more specific subject, with a small cast and a more controlled technique. The result...