A Man for All Seasons | Review of A Man for All Seasons
The following excerpt contains Kenneth Tynan's review of A Man for All Seasons, which originally appeared in The Observer in 1960. Following the text of Tynan's review is Bolt's response to certain points made by Tynan in his review; this appeared in the next edition of The Observer. Following Bolt's article is Tynan's response to it. The discussion in this excerpt centers around Tynan's contention that Bolt is more concerned with Thomas More's personal character and opinions than he is with the historical significance of More's ideas or the time in which the events chronicled in the play took place.
In A Man for All Seasons, Robert Bolt has chopped the later career of Sir Thomas More into a series of short and pithy episodes, each of which is prefaced by a few words of comment and explanation, addressed directly to the audience. Changes of scene are indicated emblematically, by signs lowered from the flies; and the style throughout inclines rather to argument than to emotional appeal. There is no mistaking whose influence has been at work on Mr. Bolt; the play is clearly his attempt to do for More what Brecht did for Galileo.
In both cases, the theme is...
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