Video Flashback: Eric Bentley on THEATER TALK in 1998

Eric Bentley, revered drama critic, translator, playwright, poet, educator and stage director, passed away yesterday at age 103. Bentley's criticism is noteworthy for covering practical, aesthetic, and philosophical aspects of theatre, stemming from a belief that art must rescue humanity from meaninglessness, as well as a noted distaste for mainstream theatre, including Broadway.

He is the first translator into English of Bertolt Brecht's plays and poems, and he is credited with introducing Brecht's work to American stages in the 1940's and 50's. In Munich in 1950 he worked with Brecht on a production of Brecht's play Mother Courage and her Children. He also directed the German-language premiere of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh.

Watch him on Theater Talk from 1998 below!