Early in the 1950s any discussion of the current French stage was concentrated on three names uttered in the same breath—Ionesco-Adamov-Beckett—and in tones of surprised delight or indignation. (p. 196)

Today, however, the Ionesco-Adamov-Beckett trinity has lost its meaning…. Adamov defected: after having written a few plays comparable to those of Ionesco, situated in what he himself calls the no-man's-land of the theatre of the absurd, he repudiated the genre and moved in the direction of a Brechtian theatre. He thus set himself up as the head of a new "critical" drama, whose objective is the portrayal of a collective destiny, clearly situated in history. (p. 197)

[The] works of Arthur Adamov consist entirely of plays that surpass one another in a truly dialectical manner. Furthermore, he has written, parallel to his theatre, a body of texts made up of explanations, discussions, political and aesthetic stands—and remorse...