The Bad Infinity Eight Plays

The prolific Mac Wellman has now published a first collection of eight plays of varying lengths and preconcerns; and it seems fair to say that they are not for all audiences, even suggesting that Wellman uses such playwrights as Fernando Arrabal for recreational purposes. Surreal views of our frequently surreal society are thus the name of Wellman's game. Or, as he prefers to state things, "decay of the perceptual process, enactment of an unreal idol reality," is the danger of contemporary theatre, where the "idolatry" called "naturalism" holds sway under the tyranny that wants to "subsume all human experience under labels, definitions, and explanations and therefore to substitute rationalizations for experience." As he adds in prefacing his title play, Wellman is "dedicated to the proposition that the theatrical body and soul of the world are not to be found in propositions per se, but in the subtle dialectic of gesture and spirit, parable and pratfall, dialogue and dance."