. . . but then, to defend him, you have to look past the page to the place for which the work was intended--the stage--to see what makes it important.

Forget about the politics. Fo mightn't want you to, just as Pinter wouldn't want you to, but what makes Fo, Pinter, and fellow Nobel-winner (if I recall correctly) Samuel Beckett important isn't the political content; it's the influence on the theatrical form. Beckett, along with Ionesco and others, introduced Theatre of the Absurd, which removed theatre from the realism that had dominated the form from Ibsen on (some credit must also be given to Brecht--another leftist, but more importantly, a cracked visionary who drew influence from vaudeville, burlesque, and clowning to create a delirious theatre of sensory assault). Fo and Pinter actually grew from this movement, but each transcended it by allowing more of the "real" world to creep in (the domestic sphere for Pinter; the socio-political sphere for Fo). The result was an entertaining but discoursive theatre that persevered even as playwrights like Mamet and Sheperd drew the tenets of Absurdism back into an apolitical, vernacular, decidedly NON-discoursive theatre.

One might say that Pinter and Fo allowed playwrights like Howard Barker and Peter Weiss to thrive in those eras where their work was most recognized.

My guess is that we might not be quibbling over this if there were a separate category for dramatic literature. As far as the politics go, the fact is that since the beginning of time, artists tended, overwhelmingly, to be "liberal" in comparison to the dominant social flavor of their respective eras. What exactly that meant must be taken in relation to the era in question, but the notion that there's suddenly some "liberal bias" to art is nonsense--not because there's not a bias, but because there's nothing new about it. If conservatives want more art, they should raise more artists . . . but don't be surprised if the industry turns them (if nothing else, gays have always been disproportionately represented in creative fields, and while gays aren't reflexively liberal, they tend to be so on social matters, at the least).

Don't forget Alfred Jarry and Antonin Artaud. Jarry's Ubu plays were some of the earliest precursors to Theatre of the Absurd, and Artaud was pretty much the only Surrealist who extended the movement into the realm of theatre with his Theatre of Cruelty theory.

I enjoy both playwrights quite a lot. I've almost NEVER seen Artaud performed, though.

Perhaps I'll have to do something about that . . .

To be honest, aside from the scenario for "The Seashell and the Clergyman", I'm not familiar with any specific plays Artaud wrote. I'm only familiar with The Theatre and Its Double. I haven't been able to find any other info on drama he wrote.