Eric Russell Bentley (September 14, 1916 – August 5, 2020) was a British-born American theater critic, playwright, singer, editor, and translator.

[2] Bentley attended University College, Oxford,[3] where his tutors were J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis;[4] he received his degree in English in 1938.

He became known for his blunt style of theatre criticism, and was threatened with lawsuits from both Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller for his unfavorable reviews of their work.

Bentley was one of the preeminent experts on Bertolt Brecht, whom he met at the University of California, Los Angeles as a young man and whose work he translated extensively.

[8] Beginning in 1975, Andrei Serban directed multiple productions of Bentley's translation of Brecht's Good Woman of Setzuan at La MaMa, with music by Elizabeth Swados.

He cited his homosexuality as an influence on his theater work, especially his play Lord Alfred's Lover, based on the life of Oscar Wilde.