The Play
Skinner, R. Dana & W., T.
328 THE COMMONWEAL January 26, 1927 THE PLAY
By R. DANA SKINNER Mrs. Fiske in Ghosts O NCE upon a time, when Mr. Ibsen was absorbed in mat- ters of physical heredity and had an...
...ROONRY is a new contributor to The Commonweal...
...His wish is granted--and in act two, we find ourselves within the curious brain of Goldina Quigley...
...Quigley also seeks to isolate his flapper daughter from a college-boy steward she has met on the steamer, one of those energetic lads who works his way around the world by such odd jobs instead of by joining the Marines...
...Quigley one wish, and that astounded gentlemen says he would like to get inside his daughter's mind...
...It is a little bit the kind of character you would expect Laura Hope Crews to make of Mrs...
...There are too many Henries in the field: structural- ists, functionalists, behaviorists and Freudians, each ballyhoo- ing for his particular school and, too often, neglecting or even deriding the achievements of other schools...
...Dwight Frye, Robert McWade, Catherine Doucet, and the charming Linda Watkins all play up to this nonsense admirably, with Frederic March sustaining the r61e of the heroic Chard...
...He is the author of Father Tabb: A Study of HisLife and Works...
...Proceeding to human psychology, he then takes up the various types of sensation...
...they do revive, as a matter of fact, in the same measure as this tendency to revive unites with the tendencies corresponding to present states of consciousness...
...The law governing the revival of images is cautiously stated in the following terms which cannot yet be made more specific: "States of past consciousness tend to revive...
...THEODORE MAYNARD IS an English poet and critic residing in the Umted...
...Lou~s GrNsaF_.RO is a frequent oontribtttor of poetry to Amerzcan publications...
...Hecuba I N the performance of Euripides's Hecuba at Holy Cross College, there was some music of a very remarkable character arranged for modem use by Joseph B. O'Drain and J. P. Marshall...
...Coming back to reality, he finds that the monks of the mon- astery are only brigands in disguise...
...SrSTER M. ELEArZORR, a member of the Congregation of the Holy Cross, is the author of The Literary Essay...
...FRANCIS A. L~TZ is instructor in English at Baltimore City College, and Teachers' College of Johns Hopkins University...
...The relative importance of organs and brain in sensation is still a moot question, while the seat of images, on the other hand, has been definitely located in the brain...
...Although this definitely relieves much of the inherent gloom of the play, it does not, with the present Pastor Manders, add to its sincerity...
...Then the nonsense begins...
...aN HAnLON is a poet Of Nova Scotia, and a contributor of verse to Canadian and American publications...
...After a brief introduction, the author begins the work proper with a short discussion of animal psychology giving as an established conclusion that all animals are endowed with sentient life and--though this is much less well establishedwthat none is endowed with intelligence...
...The authors, Howard Lindsay and Bertrand Robinson have given William Janney a r61e in the title part of Tommy that he handles with great cleverness and art: his impersonation of the generous small-town boy whose love affair is retarded by the overweening enthusiasm of a would-be father- and mother-in- law, is one of the recent features of our theatrical season...
...Airing and her son, as played by Theodore St...
...You have the curious feeling that this woman has a double name, and that it is spelled Fiske- Airing...
...Pure sensation, as contra~ted with perception, never occurs in adult life...
...CH,~I~S ROGER MILLRIt is an instructor in French at Harvard University and an authority on Provengal, Spanish and Italian literature, ver~o~Y:~oZA~!~ezI-ILaR~rNco~tr:a.~m~r~bo~ffOda~c~e~s foo~UPal tr~l~ lf~d~ii, e rCaa tt h~:t ~thi: magazines...
...Thanks largely to the play itself, but also to a weak supporting cast, this new Mrs...
...EDwIrr R~'AN is a member of the faculty" of the Catholic University...
...Fiske, an external power rather than an inner flame, but none the Iess moving while it lasts...
...Here the most interesting points are that there is no specific pain sense and no specific time sense while distance seems to be inferred rather than directly observed...
...And anyone who has attempted to create this illusion on a tiny stage will tell you just how admirable is his axahievement...
...John's Oswald is a very definite and fine characterization, charged with variety of expression and intensity of emotional force...
...The next time we shall hope for a better cast and a far better play than Ghosts...
...Viewed as straight theatre, it is a somewhat creaky and artificial affair which never gains the proportions of fine tragedy, and fairly reeks with old-fashioned sophistries...
...Airing--rather proud, self-confident, a dramatic heroine in her own eyes, reap- ing her present recompense for past sacrifices in a bitter scorn for Pastor Manders and all his kind, a bitterness which she makes tolerable to herself through an assumption of superior amusement...
...This is one of those times when it is quite justifiable to speak of the settings before the play--not because the play is undeserving, but because the settings are amazing...
...The Devil in the Cheese H AVING taken over the little Punch and Judy Theatre and rechristened it, after himself, the Charles Hopkins Theatre, this enterprising manager has put upon its stage one of the finest stage settings seen here in many days--referring, of course, to that first-act scene of The Devil in the Cheese, designed by Norman Bel Geddes...
...E. MEm~Xzs~ Root is apoet and instructor m modem hterature an Earl- ham College, Richmond~ Indiana...
...Are you surprised to find that the aviator-steward, Jimmle Chard, fills most of it...
...and the Troubadours of Christ, FREnERICK H. MARTENS is a critic of music, and the author of 1001 Nights of Opera...
...Not only is he less likely to be taken in by the exaggerations of a Watson or a Freud, but he will be aware that experimental psychology is not the whole of psy- chology and that rational psychology remains over, which, even as a branch of philosophy, is too frequently ignored by non-Catholic psychologists...
...In the present revival, Mrs...
...Like so many other Ibsen plays, the chief interest really lies in its revelation of Ibsen's own character and mental twists...
...Quigiey, being an incorrigible cheese addict, tries the experiment...
...Fiske's own performance would disappear...
...JOSEPHINE EMERY has been a supervisor of art in the public schools of New Hampshire...
...Airing is interesting and amusing, but not inevitable...
...ELIZABETH CASE is a graduate of Welles!ey College, and well known as a contributor of poetry and articles to current magazines...
...The play itself is by Tom Cushing, and has many moments of delightful fantasy...
...The chief novelty of Mrs...
...It is neither as entertaining as a lecture by Bernard Shaw, nor as good a play as many others Ibsen wrote, and its chief value today is as a vehicle for a stellar actress who no longer cares whether the public thinks her young or not...
...Utter nonsense, of course, but, as it happens, quite good theatre, too, so that it looks as if the hoodoo formerly inhabiting the Punch and Judy Theatre January 26, 1927 THE COMMONWEAL 3z9 might disappear along with the old name and give this inno- cent devil a long run in his cheese...
...His daughter defies him...
...and fox good dramatic measure there is the diseased son, his illegitimate half-sister, and her supposed father, Jacob Engstrand, the car- penter...
...Thus there is bite and laughter to her mono-syllables which punctuate the pastor's long private sermons--a sort of Shavian wit carried out in gesture and expression rather than words...
...Reinach and Oskar Fleischer, and made an impressive feature of the Worcester and Philadelphia presentations of Holy Cross College...
...Perhaps if Walter Ringham did not play the thank- less rtle of Pastor Manders in a near burlesque key, and if Miss Jarvis Kerr's Regina were more alive, this artificiality in Mrs...
...In it we have one of those unbelievably stupid clergymen who can be counted on to say the wrong thing on every occa- sion, and thus lead us, in good Platonic fashion, to the con-clusion Ibsen seeks...
...Or that he does deeds of most sur- passing heroism ? Or that Goldina herself is equally a heroine, whether on a shipwrecked yacht, or stranded on a South Seas island, or helping her husband to be elected president in the most naive and fantastic political campaign ever imagined...
...It is Pastor Manders who gives Mrs...
...T.W...
...and so, in Ghosts, we have an Ibsen lecture through the mouths of many people...
...In thanks for his freedom, he offers Mr...
...It was arranged in the American version from the Studies of Mr...
...Alving all her golden opportunities to puncture the balloons of opinion against which Ibsen flings his lighted matches...
...RaY...
...Fiske's performance lies in its in- trepid humor...
...A COMPLETE manual of experimental psychology has been much needed in America...
...New York should be definitely grateful for this brief return of an artist whose tech- nical abilities and controlled vitality are all too rare these days...
...Thurber and Peg Entwistle as her daughter gave very creditable performances, which were topped off by an easy rendering of the important, if not very difficult, rSle of Sidney Toler as David Tuttle...
...But when this persistent suitor lands on top of the monastery in an airplane, and the basket elevator gets out of order, so that the whole family is thrown in with him for a week, Mr...
...It represents an ancient monastery on top of a mountain in northern Greece, to which access can be obtained only by a huge basket hitched to a pulley and derrick...
...For Mr...
...It begins, realistically enough, with the arrival of an American canned goods king and his family at the monastery in search of archaeological treasures...
...In a discussion of the Weber and Fechner law of stimulus and response, he shows that this law is no longer deemed capable of precise mathematical formulation and indeed makes the generalization that "measuring counts for very little today in psychology...
...Ibsen was absorbed in mat- ters of physical heredity and had an obsession against a smug sense of duty, he concocted a play which would explain to the world just how he felt about both subjects...
...Quigley finds the situation slipping out of his hands...
...Even a real person loses caste in unreal surroundings...
...ERNEST SUTHERLANV B^TES~ formerly professor of philosophy at the University of Oregon, is a water on educational and literary subjects...
...The organization of images seems to follow two opposed orders, one automatic and incoherent as in dreams, the other coherent and partially voluntary as in the work of scholars and artists...
...Then fate intervenes...
...328 THE COMMONWEAL January 26, 1927 THE PLAY By R. DANA SKINNER Mrs...
...At any rate, Father De La Vaissi~re's work, clearly organized, clearly written, accurate, and thorough, is exactly fitted to fill the present need...
...An old bottle is dug up and on its seal is a prehistoric bit of cheese...
...translated from the fifth French edition by Rev-erend 8. •. Raemers...
...Fiske, after a long absence from Broadway, undertakes to give us a quite new interpretation of Mrs...
...Peillaube's definition of perception is adopted: "a complexus of psychological states, sensations, images, resemblances, judgments and reasonings, all referring to some actual impression...
...In the preparation of such a work, a Catholic writer has per- haps certain advantages...
...Above all, are you surprised to see how Quigley looks through his daughter's eyes ? If not, you can be sure that Quigley him- self is surprised--and that when the baleful effects of the cheese pass off, he is a much changed father...
...Maidel Turner as Mrs...
...Airing herself stands forth poignant and alive...
...The sudden strength and power of the scenes between Mrs...
...The advances in this science during the last few years have been so numerous, so many-sided, and yet so specialized that the general public is utterly confused...
...Incidentally, Mr...
...Meanwhile the plain man has wished in vain for a text-book covering the whole fidd, to which he could refer in time of need as one refers to a modern text in physics, chemistry, or biology...
...Geddes has managed somehow to give you the most unerring sense of being on a great height, surrounded by an infinite expanse of sky...
...3.00...
...John, would seem to bear out this impression...
...Out of the bottle hops the little god Min...
...Fortunately, we do have those other scenes with Oswald, and with them a flash of the power one always remembers in Mrs...
...CONTRIBUTORS OH~ MXTrgthtURR is a member of the staff of the Vienna Reiehspost...
...Fiske in Ghosts O NCE upon a time, when Mr...
...Tommy I T is certainly a pleasure to encounter on the New York stage an American comedy so clear and flawless in its character, so humorous and human in its action, so adaptable to a dean taste for honest things and honest people...
...DONALD ATTWATER, editor of the Benedictine quarterly, Pax, is a general contributor to American and English reviews...
...BOOKS Elements of Experimental Psychology, by Reverend J. De La Vaissi~re...
...Found engraved in some eighty bars of music on slabs of marble dating from the third century before Christ, it was evidently a prize-winning composition in some competition in honor of Apollo...
...It was high time that it should be translated and thanks are due the translator as well as the author, despite the fact that a few errors have crept in, such as the amusing statement on page too in regard to Goltz's famous dog whose brain had been removed, that "he had a normal gait" immediately followed by "he had lost all ability to move his fore legs...
...and A Modern Book of Catholic Verse...
...Agaimt this firm reality, Mrs...
...What are usually called "errors of the senses" are really errors of attention, association, or judgment...
...Whoever eats this cheese will have his youth restored, so runs the legend...
...A special word of commendation should be given to Lloyd Neal for his very effective playing of the enthusiastic father, and Ben Johnson was perfectly cast in his rSle of Judge Wilson...
...Louis: B. Herder Book Company...
...It was the Parados adapted from the Hymn to Apollo, discovered at Delphi in I893 by the French Archaeological School...
...M. KENNV, JR., is a reviewer of fiction for the magazines...
...Airing...
...PAUL CROWL~Y is an American eritle and reviewer for current periodieals...
...All is lost--until Jimmie Chard, now in the flesh, becomes just the hero Goldina im- agined him, and all ends happily...
...MARY M...
...States, and the author of Drums of Defeat...
...GEOaGE D. MEADOWS is an English critic, residing in the United States...
Vol. 5 • January 1927 • No. 12
