Jonas Barish; Theater Historian, Shakespeare Expert

Jonas A. Barish, 76, an expert on Shakespeare and the poet Ben Jonson. A native of Manhattan, Barish attended Harvard and taught at Yale before moving to UC Berkeley in 1954. He wrote several books on theater history, including “The Antitheatrical Prejudice,” which earned him the American Theater Assn. Barnard Hewitt Award for outstanding research in the field. He retired as a professor of English at Berkeley in 1991. On April 1 in Oakland of complications of pneumonia.