Obit. for Martin Esslin, Guardian 27 Feb 2002

Fri Mar 1 22:52:35 EST 2002

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     Martin Esslin 
      Illuminating writer and radio drama producer 

      John Calder
      Guardian 

      Wednesday February 27, 2002 

      Martin Esslin, who has died aged 83, was a scholar and a man of action, whose wide knowledge of European literature and culture served him well during his two main careers: as a BBC producer and as a professor of drama in the United States. 

      His long-term importance, however, must lie principally in his analytical writing on the theatre. In an age of increasing specialisation, he had a refreshing breadth of vision, while his penetrating mind could quickly comprehend when something new and important was happening in the arts. He could explain the complex in a straightforward and lucid manner, and his judgments were invaluable. His book The Theatre Of The Absurd was the most influential theatrical text of the 1960s. 

      Esslin was of Hungarian origin, born and educated in Vienna, and influenced by Max Reinhardt's famous 1928 seminar in Vienna on dramatic art, where the great actor and director passed on his knowledge and techniques. He left Vienna for Britain because of the Anschluss, and got a job at the BBC, where, by 1940, he had become a producer and scriptwriter. 

      He worked for the European Service from 1941 to 1955, broadcasting during and after the war to Germany, and eventually became head of the European production department. His knowledge of European theatre led to the translation of many works into English, and, where the BBC had led the way, many theatre productions followed, often using the same versions that Esslin had made or commissioned. 

      For a large circle of European intellectual refugees from Nazism in London, the BBC became the principal means of support. Esslin knew virtually everyone in that group, and, in his quiet and efficient way, gave work and opportunities to many of them. 

      In 1951, he collaborated with Berthold Goldschmidt, who, in the 1920s, had been a rising German composer, on an opera, in English, based on Shelley's The Cenci. The work was planned for the Festival of Britain, although it was not staged until a Ger man production in 1994. 

      In 1961, Esslin became assistant head of radio drama under Barbara Bray, and, when she moved to Paris in 1963, he replaced her, retaining that post until 1977, when he moved for part of each year to the US. 

      During his time at the BBC, Esslin produced a stream of articles, essays and books, which earned him a reputation as one of the best literary journalists and critics. He advised Arts Council panels and repertory and experimental theatres, helped writers to obtain bursaries and performances, and produced a number of volumes on leading figures of the day, including the influential Brecht, A Choice Of Evils (1959), which coincided with the rising interest in that seminal figure. 

      The book that was to change his life was The Theatre Of The Absurd (1962). The title became the catch-phrase that delineated one of the new streams of theatrical writing that emerged in the early 1950s, the other being the British "angry" drama. The eclectic Esslin was interested in both, but it is for making sense of the absurdists that he is remembered. 

      "Absurdist drama" covered a wide range of plays, from Beckett to Arthur Adamov, from Pinter and John Arden to Ionesco. The last, perhaps, most deserved the portmanteau term "absurd", but Esslin used it to cover a whole range of 20th-century drama, from Genet and Arrabal to Buzzati, Frisch, Grass, Albee, Gelber and Kopit. 

      The book rapidly became a text book in universities, and led to lecture invitations, especially on the lucrative American circuit. Jewish by origin but in no way religious, Esslin liked to relate how the chairwoman of a Catholic society to whom he talked in a small American town told him, "You're just the kind of man we need in the church." 

      Esslin's writings and lectures led to his appointment as professor of theatre at Florida state university (1969-76), after which a special chair was created for him at Stanford, where he became professor of drama (1977-88). He never really retired on returning to Britain, continuing to take an active part in the theatre as writer, translator, reviewer and adviser. 

      Among his other books, between 1965 and 1988, are Pinter: The Playwright; An Anatomy Of Drama; Artaud; Mediations - Essays On Brecht, Beckett And The Media; The Age Of Televison; and The Field Of Drama. There were also the less well-known, but equally interesting, The Genius Of The German Theatre (1968) and The War Theatre Of Europe (1970). The writers he translated include Ödön von Horwath, Wedekind and Wolfgang Bauer. 

      In 1947, Esslin married Renate Gerstenberg, who collaborated with him on many translations and, indeed, was entirely responsible for some that appeared under his (well- known) name - for the sake of better sales. 

      A genial, friendly and self-confident intellectual, he was generous with his time and knowledge, an excellent conversationalist and a popular member of the Garrick Club. Like many eastern Europeans, he was politically on the intellectual right, but never allowed his anti-socialist views, which did him no harm at American universities, to cloud his judgment very far. 

      Among various honours and distinctions he received were the title of professor from the Austrian government, and the OBE in 1972. He is survived by Renate and their daughter, Monica. 

      · Martin Julius Esslin (Pereszlenyi), writer, academic and radio drama producer, born June 8 1918; died February 24 2002. 

     Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002  

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