BIBLIOGRAPHY

Thomas, Eberle. Peter Shaffer: An Annotated Bibliography. New York: Garland Publishing, 1991, 259 p.

Annotated bibliography containing sources of discussions of Shaffer's work up to and including Lettice & Lovage.

AUTHOR COMMENTARY

Buckley, Tom. "'Write Me,' Said the Play to Peter Shaffer." The New York Times Magazine (13 April 1975): 38, 47-50.

Conversation with Shaffer in which he talks about unfavorable reviews of Equus, his personal and collaborative relationship with his brother Anthony Shaffer, and other topics.

Connell, Brian. "Peter Shaffer: The Two Sides of Theatre's Agonised Perfectionist." The Times, London (28 April 1980): 18.

A comprehensive interview with Shaffer in which he discusses his affinity for New York versus London, his early literary development, and the contrast between his existential and farcical plays.

OVERVIEWS AND GENERAL STUDIES

Chambers, Colin. "Psychic Energy." Plays and Players 27, No. 5 (February 1980): 11-13.

Summarizes Shaffer's work from Five Finger Exercise to Amadeus and includes comments by the playwright.

Cooke, Virginia and Malcolm Page, eds. File on Shaffer. London: Metheun, 1987, 88 p.

A compilation of comments by and about the playwright. Includes a brief chronology of events in Shaffer's life and career as well as a bibliography of primary and secondary sources.

Dean, Joan F. "Peter Shaffer's Recurrent Character Type." Modern Drama XXI, No. 3 (September 1978): 297-305.

An analysis of similar characterization in various Shaffer plays.

Gianakaris, C. J. Peter Shaffer. Macmillan Modern Dramatists. Basingstoke, England: Macmillan, 1992, 204 p.

Traces Shaffer's career and the development of his craft from his early radio plays through Lettice & Lovage.

Kerensky, Oleg. "Peter Shaffer." In The New British Drama: Fourteen Playwrights since Osborne and Pinter, pp. 31-58. New York: Taplinger Publishing Company, 1977.

An in-depth analysis of Shaffer's work from Five Finger Exercise to Equus. Includes a discussion of the playwright's obsession with rewrites.

Klein, Dennis A. Peter Shaffer: Revised Edition. Twayne Publishers, 1993, 261 p.

Comprehensive overview of the themes, characters, structure, and stagecraft of Shaffer's plays.

Stacy, James R. "The Sun and the Horse: Peter Shaffer's Search for Worship." Educational Theatre Journal 28, No. 3 (October 1976): 325-37.

Discusses The Royal Hunt of the Sun and Equus as works in which Shaffer "enters into the world of magic and ritual, primitivism and religious passion, in search of worship."

Taylor, John Russell. Peter Shaffer. Essex, England: Longman Group, 1974, 34 p.

A critique of Shaffer's plays through Equus, giving special consideration to the language in the plays.

EQUUS

Beckerman, Bernard. "The Dynamics of Peter Shaffer's Drama." In The Play and Its Critic: Essays for Eric Bentley, edited by Michael Berlin, pp. 199-209. New York: Lanham, 1986.

An assessment of the structure and stagecraft of Equus.

Gifford, Sanford. "'Pop' Psychoanalysis, Kitsch, and the 'As If Theater: Further Notes on Peter Shaffer's Equus." International Journal of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy 5 (1976): 463-71.

Argues that Equus is "kitsch" because "it fails the traditional Aristotelian test of tragic catharsis: purification through pity and terror."

Plunka, Gene A. "The Existential Ritual: Peter Shaffer's Equus." Kansas Quarterly 12, No. 4 (Fall 1980): 87-97

Analyzes the search for identity in Equus, finding it a characteristic concern of Shaffer's.

Simon, John. "Hippodrama at the Psychodrame." The Hudson Review XXVIII, No. 1 (Spring 1975): 97-106.

Extremely harsh review of the New York production Equus in which Simon declares: "The play pullulates with dishonesty."

Witham, Barry B. "The Anger in Equus." Modern Drama XXII, No. 1 (March 1979): 61-6.

Investigates the theatrical traditions inherent in Equus, drawing a comparison to John Osborne's Look Back in Anger.

AMADEUS

Gianakaris, C. J. "A Playwright Looks at Mozart: Peter Shaffer's Amadeus." Comparative Drama 15, No. 1 (Spring 1981): 37-53.

An assessment of Amadeus based on Shaffer's common themes of conflicting human behavior and humanity's intellectual struggle with the existence of God.

——. "Shaffer's Revisions in Amadeus." Theatre Journal 35, No. 1 (March 1983): 88-101.

Reviews the rewrites of Amadeus, and includes a discussion on Shaffer's general tendency toward revising his work.

Huber, Werner and Zapf, Hubert. "On the Structure of Peter Shaffer's Amadeus!" Modern Drama XXVII, No. 3 (September 1984): 299-313.

Addresses the "thematic organization, coherence and form" of Amadeus, "as well as the complex mechanisms of interaction between stage and audience."

Levin, Bernard. "Clearing Up the Eternal Mystery of Mozart." The Times, London (6 December 1979): 14.

Defends Amadeus against its attackers, maintaining that "lovers of Mozart… should be profoundly grateful to Peter Shaffer for the courage with which he has faced an eternal mystery, and the humility and grace with which he has offered a tentatively eternal solution to it."

Sullivan, William J. "Peter Shaffer's Amadeus: The Making and Un-Making of the Fathers." American Imago 45, No. 1 (Spring 1988): 45-60.

Offers a psychoanalytic interpretation of the play.

Additional coverage of Shaffer's life and career is contained in the following sources published by Gale Research: Concise Dictionary of British Literary Biography: 1960 to the Present; Contemporary Authors, rev. ed. Vols. 25-8; Contemporary Authors New Revision Series, Vols. 25, 47; Contemporary Literary Criticism, Vols. 5, 14, 18, 37, 60; Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 13; Discovering Authors: British; Discovering Authors: Modules—Dramatists Module; and Major Twentieth-Century Writers.