Adamov's writing is a desperate attempt to relate to the world around him, to find a way of adjusting to the nightmare of living. The dramatist himself is the subject of his plays, and every one of his works, whether a part of his personal theater or of his political commitment, is a representation of the deep and vital concerns of the playwright. Looked at in their totality, his plays are an extraordinary account of a man and his alienation and separation, for, basically, this is a theater of separation. (p. 153)

It is not by accident that his plays … are, in one form or another, dream plays, which come from the world of nightmares, the real world of the dramatist. In all of his writings, the characters are people who have lost or are about to lose the battle with life. In this mélange of masochism, remorse...