Since 1950, when The Bald Soprano was first produced in Paris, Romanian-born Eugène Ionesco has joined forces with such playwrights as Samuel Beckett, Arthur Adamov and Jean Vauthier as leaders of modern French drama. Though this is the first volume of Ionesco's plays to be published in this country, he has already come to be regarded as one of the leading exponents of the experimental European theater. His plays have been revived in Paris for a steadily increasing audience, they have been produced with great success in London, and are now finding new productions in America.