Monthly Craft Book Review: The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri

Does this textbook-esque how-to book from 1946 still have any use for the modern playwright?

While perusing the used bookstore in downtown Wilmington that I often frequent, I found a copy of The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri. My first thought was, “Awesome, this will be perfect for the SubStack!”. My next one was, “Oh god, but it’s so old for a book on writing!”

There are some books on the craft of creative writing, such as Ray Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing, that have seemed to stand the test of time. Even thirty-four years later, people still know of and recommend Zen… to aspiring writers of any kind. So, I had to know— would this book from over fifty years ago still hold up? Would any of its advice be usable or even topical for the modern playwright?

I can definitely say that there are bits that I liked and that I thought made a lot of sense (especially if you would consider yourself a more “traditional” playwright that enjoys creating a three act structure, etc. and not just Being Weird Professionally like I am sometimes wont to do). Egri organizes the book into sections based on elements of a play that he feels are essential: premise, character, conflict, and “general”. He then goes into detail describing these elements, backing up his assertions with evidence from everyone from the Ancient Greeks to biologists. There are specific examples from well known and studied plays such as Moliere’s Tartuffe and Ibsen’s A Doll’s House that Egri uses to show these elements in action.

So, let’s start with the pros of this book— what I feel like a playwright could still learn from it.

The bones of this book could still be very helpful, especially to beginning playwrights. Egri outlines the very basics of playwriting elements in extreme detail, utilizing multiple examples and even answering common questions in the end of each “chapter” within the larger sections. Vocabulary is defined not just with dictionary definitions but with, once again, examples.

It is easy to see within these sections that Egri has devoted his life to the understanding of playwriting. He speaks eloquently and with confidence, and the ways in which he breaks down classic plays make a lot of sense. In depth analyses of character, premise, and conflict show that he more than knows what he is talking about. His breakdowns are also easy to follow, and I believe even someone who has never before written a play would be able to understand them. For example, Egri breaks down the idea of “premise” into an exacting formula that anyone could use to describe the purpose of their play:

character “leads to” something that suggests the end of the play.

One of his many examples of this is, “Frugality leads to waste,”. In this way he shows his idea of premise very simply as the theme or message of the play. “A good premise,” he says, “is a thumbnail synopsis of your play.” I feel that this bit in itself is helpful advice.

This book is full of little bits and bobs like this that I have cherry picked to utilize in the writing of my own plays. I liked very much what Egri had to say about character especially, even though his section on conflict is the longest and most detailed (almost a full third of the whole book!). The section on character is very focused on creating complex characters that are well suited to your premise— characters that inherently must serve it, cannot help but do so. I found this to be relevant to how I write my own plays; I often find my characters naturally go towards specific actions that end up being linchpins to the purpose of the play as a whole.

So, overall, there are some great things within this book that I believe still are useful even though the author wrote them over fifty years ago. However, there are definitely still some cons to the book.

Because it was written over fifty years ago, the plays from which he pulls his examples are almost all written by white men. They are all traditionally “canon” plays that one would read in any generic theater arts college course, so most people who are in the theater world will be familiar with them. However, if one had never taken a single course and this was their introduction to playwriting, there might be some confusion or an inability to connect with the examples.

Another unfortunate symptom of this book’s age is the way that Egri talks, or specifically does NOT talk, about women. Whenever the royal “playwright” is discussed, it is always with he/him pronouns. Egri rarely discusses women playwrights or writers, and if he does, it is always with a bit of snark. For instance, when Gloria Steinem is brought up, Egri says that her writing is great even though nobody ever knows what she’s talking about. Talk about a back-handed compliment.

It is also evident in his writing style that Egri thinks extremely well of himself, which would be fine if it didn’t often come across as either condescending or pompous. I felt as I read that I was learning something great, would get excited, only to be put off a sentence later by something such as, “If you refuse to think, the argument is over.” Yikes on trikes. Sometimes reading this book felt like being yelled at by an old man who absolutely refuses to listen to you despite the wealth of evidence on your side.

Overall, I would say this book is worth picking up for a beginner playwright, especially one who has taken a course or two about theater in general and is familiar with the vocabulary and literature often discussed in the field. This book is also easily found used, making it a cheaper option 9 times out of 10. However, if you are a more intermediate or advanced playwright, you might not get too much out of this. I enjoyed reading about another playwright’s perspective and definitely picked up a useful tidbit or two, but it wasn’t the most helpful thing for someone who has taken multiple playwriting courses already.

That’s it for this month’s craft book review! I hope it was helpful. If you’ve read this book, or any other books I’ve discussed here, message me to let me know your thoughts.

If there are any books you’d like me to read for future reviews, please let me know!

Have a good week!

~Brynn