The Play
Skinner, R.Dana
22 THE .CQMMQNWEAL November 12, 1924 THE...
...This is not the ballad-singing heroism of the man who knows no fear, but it is most emphatically the sublimer heroism of the man who knows the full agony of tenor and still goes on...
...The play is a portrayal of mental filth that would find its right lodging only in quarantine...
...This is a part which has suffered in the past productions through lack of dign4 Mr...
...Whether or not it would be possible, n any other setting than the one it now occupies, to convey the same sense of mediaevul pageantry and mystic beauty remains to be no...
...The aviator falls asleep and proceeds to live through the story of Roland—strangely reminiscent of Francis Wilson in When Kiilghts Were Bold, but with the important difference that the latter was intentional comedy whereas Bewitched is meant to be serious allegory...
...Satan, or the sarccrcr, wagers with the aviator that before the night is over, he will forget the granddaughter and kiss another woman...
...That is why 1 refuse to cdl it a pacifist play...
...It is not "pretty"—and it is all very true...
...Decency has compelled the authors, even in their ovcr-sealous ajaut of realism, to omit many obvious physical details of dugout life...
...What Price Glory merely asks you a question, one that every sane man asks himself a hundred times a year, whether the glory of war is such that no other way ted be found to settle the fate of a dynasty or the control of an oil field...
...An editor of one of our conteniporary pacifistic weeklies told me that he never expects to see again this season a play equalling or approaching What Price Glory...
...There is not a man of this whole company of marines who, under the impact of fire, fails to show the most dogged heroism of which humanity is capable—the determination to obey and to do the hateful and the fearful thiriL no matter what the cost...
...He succeeds beyond apectarion...
...There is, I think, a real reason for thcir utter failure to achieve the beauty and mysticism they are aiming at—a reason quite independent of their dramatic technique or their patent inability to sustain an artistic height...
...Wagner knew this whax he wrote ?arsifal—wir.h the result that he created an enduring dramatic poem...
...atrical effort ever made in this country, marred unfortunately, by several serious lapses of good taste, and by the intrusion of stage business inspired more by Freud than by the famous mcdiaeval legend itself...
...But you will not get at the full inwardness of Bewitched unless you realize that its authors set our to perform an ambitious feat and fell into a snare that has turned thcir poem into a mocking-bird's travesty...
...The verbiage is interesting, just as a phonograph record might be interesting, because it is a transcription of language that you do not hear every day, of thoughts that men express only under great emotional strain, of moods that men experience as a nile only o~zce in £ generation...
...Ira Parsifal she is Kuadry...
...In the aviator's drcam, the Marquis becomes the sorcerer (of course) and a thinly disguised Mephistopheles...
...A remote ancctor, who also lived alone with a granddaughter, was a sorcerer...
...It is, of its kind, the most stupendous the...
...is so bathed in current materialism and pseudo-spirituality that it can not distinguish between earth and Heaven, between man and God, bctwccn the brain and souL You feel that by instinct these authors are sceking to express something quite fine and noble...
...She batt6 bravely with her part, sav~ many a situation from becoming ridkulous, shows versatility1 personal charm and exceptional diction (for Broadway) and makes us clamor to sce her in U better play...
...November II, 1924...
...Glenn Andcrs as the aviator is no better than the play in its own worst spots...
...These marines for the most pan show an ironic contempt for the realities of war...
...Sheldon and Mr...
...Be frank enough to admit that you enjoyed the hokuzn of it all—end thai you will be ready to see The Haunted House with good grace...
...He manages to throw about it some of the very glamor of heroism which the authors have tried so diligently to eschew...
...He is dangerously n~r becoming a mystagvguo—certainly a vulgar fate for so much talent...
...Without him, What Price Glory would seem far less of a play...
...It sccms ucvcr to havc occurred to the authors that even the subjective Satan hidden in each of us can only be conquered by a spiritual force which the pre-Freudian world called Grace...
...As Satan he is grotesque...
...The chief regret is to see in artist of the calibre of Laura Hope Crewes lending her ability and gracious charm to thh pcrfrwmance...
...You may still inovc forward in your chair—only that this time you will feel doubly ridiculouin because of the author's broad wink across the footlights...
...This reason is a muddled mind—a mind whkh, as a composite play-writing macbin...
...There was a note of unqualified zeal in his approval which leads me to suspect a bias of sympathy rather than calm appraisaL It is a good play, but by no means great, and while I rather resent the charge that it is a parading of pacifist philosophy, there is just enough material in it of the kind that gives the pacifist a good meal ticket to make it highly acceptable Zn the pacifist bomb-proofs...
...It i5 lUce the times, long ago, when the parlor magidan used to expose some of his own trfcks—just to make you feel humble— and would then startle you aU ovcr again by a new legerdemain...
...If its use were confined to dramatic purposes, to the furtherance of action and situation, it would help to make the impulse of the play more forceful because more tudtfut But for the most part, this verbiage, this slang of the soldier, this philosophy under fire, retards the dramatic movement, and in the case of the rather notorious blasphemies (some of which, I underntand, have now been forcibly SUfr pressed) they merely convict the authors of unconscionably bad taste...
...Of course the aviator, holding the granddaughter's talisman fast to his heart mists each onslaught and bicaks the Satanic power...
...Being of the old r6girne, the Marquis keeps the girl in the dim background...
...When opportunity offers, they drink, they curse, they gambi...
...The Miracle WHEN The Mirzcle reopened this fall, the cast included members, whose presence I found to be a distinct asset...
...Hcre we have a flash of poetic instinct of the Maetcrlinck order...
...They are afraid to accept God as the source of spiritual strength, so they substitute human love...
...The taiptadons are all very Fnudimn, supposed to be subconscious 1onginga~ evat to the threadbare Oedipus wmpla...
...I aria almost inclined to say that in spite of the authors, it is a play that eapvires the true heroism of war more than any play of the last decade...
...Moreover~ it is well acted...
...Recall, too, that in spite of your better judgment, you often sat on the cdge of your chair and moaned with suspense...
...The trouble is, first~ that the authors laboriously explain each symbolism — it ipriup up (Satan en talks about dresm analysis to make sure that no one will miss the point) and, secondly, that the love which is supposed to conquer Satan is quite as carthly and insecure and Freudian as the temptations themselves...
...22 THE .CQMMQNWEAL November 12, 1924 THE PLAY By R. DANA SKINNER What Price Glory IT is a lamentable failing in most of us that when we go to [the theatre we make liberal allowances for any play that embodies our pet ideas...
...Recall from the dim past Seven Keys to Baldpate or from recazt times The Hat or The Bride or In the Next Room...
...The granddaughter becomes thc girl of double personality, a sweet, loving creature by day instantly enamored of the aviator (Boston ancestry included) and a temptress by night under the sorccrcr's spell...
...The pacifist play would tell you that there is no glory...
...We understand that The Miracle ito be shown in at least one other American...
...Now the real thread of drama waning through this play is the perpetual human conflict, which war exaggerates a hundred times, between sell-love and ready sacrifice...
...Itshowsyouwarasieisfought,andnoraeallas it is sung in romantic ballads and the poems of empire...
...Throughout the play, the acting of Florcncc Eldr[dgc us thc granddaughter also does much to redeem an impossible muddle...
...THE COMMONWEAL 23 Bewitched IF you can imagine Farsifal boldly setting out for the Gralzburg in a Liberty-motored airplane and handicapped by a Boston ancestry...
...During dinner, the Marquis shows his Bostonese guest an old tapestry portraying a family legend...
...It shows you what men in the midst of war think about war...
...And their thoughts are in no wise those of the political orator or of the dub ancients who discuss the fate of much younger mat over afternoon tea substitutes and mellow cigars...
...Chief among them was Mr...
...Then is no reason why this same decency should not apply to misuse of the name of God or of Christ The banning of one and the inclusion of the others displays a lack of proportion and judgment, and gives ground hr suspicion that is many other ways zeal drama has suffered through the quest for nation...
...You may acknowledge,- when the play is over, that the price of glory is stupefying, but you will never deny the glory itself—the conquest of a self that has become vastly more assertive, vastly more primitive, vastly snore degraded, vastly more destructive as an enemy, through a discipline awid a self-sacrifice that have likewise become more powerful—irresistible, in fact...
...Tbcre are two really chamkg interludes, however—the opening scene of the dream in the magic forest and the concluding scene on the mountain top...
...Perhaps the story will better illustrate my point The American avktor azshcs in an obscurc French forest and becomes the sell-invited guest of an impoverished Marquis and his charming granddaughter...
...The Haunted House AFTER you have been duly thrilled and tantalized by any mystery plays of the hsc few seasons, and if you arc now itady to havc a good laugh at your own thrills, you will find The Haunted House the correct prescription...
...they fight among themselves and indulge in barehanded love rIvalries...
...Then ensue several temptation nnes, with grcen and red lights, ghost,, trap doom, magic curtains and all the pantphernalia of a select muskal rcvicw, even to the music itself— well intentioned dsp-np that merely offends good taste...
...In it you see the double effect of war on a plentiful variety of men—disintegration on the one hand and heroic discipline on the other...
...Boroslawsky makes the Emperor stand out as a truly tragic 6gurc...
...Howard do not know it—or perhaps won't admit it—with the result that they havc produced a dramatic hodgepodge...
...But I imagine that is chiefly the fault of the authors...
...It is interesting as some of Philip Gibbs's later writings are interesting, as a revelation of things long hidden, or as a discussion of the life habits and beliefs of the Negrillos is interesting...
...Jos6 Ruben as the Marquis is delightful...
...The young knights of France who came to seek the girl's hand were invariably led to their doom—all except Roland, who resisted all the old man's enchantinents and temptations and thus broke the spell, winning the maiden's love...
...For Edward Sheldon a thorough re-reading of the Divine Comedy might prove a good mental prescription just now...
...The Werewolf twist, which New York Americtn public, The Werewolf is undoubtedly the best cnmplc ot the kind of play which should never be produced at all...
...It is, as nearly everyone now knows, the photographic and phonographic portrayal of the life of a company of marines near and on the firing lines in France...
...Without admitting it as a great play, because it is not so much a play at all as it is a record of incidents and pointed situation, I still readily acknowledge that it holds your attention in a firm grip throughout the evening, and that it leaves you with a definite contribution of thought and novel emotion...
...Boroslawaky as the Emperor...
...But even this does not, of itself, make it a great play...
...In the first place~ the true germ of drama which it contains is heavily obscured by verbiage...
...Louis Wolbein,1 whom most will remember as the Hairy Ape of Eugene O'Neill's play, has a chance here to create a character more within the normal scope of observation, a character of humor, tenderness, irony and unredeeniable toughness...
...In other words, Owen Davis has prcparcd same starpriscs of his own for you...
...if, moreover, you can picture him as possessed of a smattering of psychoanalysis, a back-woods accent, no humor whatsoever and armed only with an obtuse skull, then you will have a dim notion of the play with which Edward Sheldon (who ought to know better) and Sidney Howard (who, I am sure, does know better) have presented us...
...In Parsifal he is Klingsor...
...Ta this extent...
...the play is strong, truthful and courageous...
...The aviator has caught but one captivating glimpse of her...
...CA brief Jwmmary of many cunmuk productions wilt be givcn~ She isezt issue...
...But their confused mental judgment blacks their way...
Vol. 1 • November 1924 • No. 1
