The Play and Screen
Skinner, R. Dana
THE PLAY AND SCREEN By R. DANA SKINNER Earth SWIFT upon the reverberations of Lawson's Loud Speaker comes Earth, by Em Jo Basshe. It is the second in the repertory group to be presented by the...
...They may make machines of men...
...It possessed all the "makings," one might say, of a box-office success...
...Deborah cries against the Lord...
...The Christian hymns slowly slip into voodoo chants...
...The Dybbuk took a small and isolated sect of Jews and made real drama out of the setting...
...It is the second in the repertory group to be presented by the New Playwrights Theatre and will alternate every second or third day with Loud Speaker until a third play is added to the list...
...These are proud people, all of them, but none prouder than Deborah, whose self-righteousness ill fits her to withstand the loss of her last son...
...Well—it was one of the best examples I have seen of an author becoming fascinated by an idea, or a title, to the exclusion of real feeling, genuine characterization, and effective dramatic construction...
...Cradle Song takes a convent of Dominican nuns and makes that cloistered life reflect the emotions of all humanity...
...The Commonweal requests its subscribers to communicate any changes of address two weeks in advance, to ensure the receipt of all issues...
...Nor is it easy to explain the use of Catholic holy pictures on the walls of Deborah's cabin...
...Basshe shows a definite willingness to stay within the viewpoints of his own characters, leaving the audience to draw its own conclusions and seek its own interpretations...
...A dangerous play because of its lack of spiritual proportion in dramatic terms, but, within this limitation, a powerful piece of writing...
...They pray upon and around her...
...They may make humanity aspire to be God, and so destroy itself...
...In fairness, it must be stated that the American showing gives only nine of the original sixteen reels...
...But if the Hollywood idea and the German idea must be mixed, it makes a lot of difference which is poured into the other...
...Obviously, this is neither a pleasant play nor one which is conspicuously relieved by clear understanding...
...For twenty years she has trusted in the Lord, but now she will trust no longer unless He returns her son to her...
...This is a healthy sign—a reaction, if you will, against the more recent technique of Eugene O'Neill, who, in making his symbols more and more conscious through the use of masks and various other similar devices, has weakened the inherent dramatic force of his plays...
...She does not heed Abner's warnings...
...In one respect, however, Earth is a much more skilful play than most of those which deal with cosmic religious forces...
...It does not, as the phrase has it, "go Rann Kennedy...
...It may be that the genius of Hollywood has cut out the best and left us only the most absurd parts...
...That is what Miss Akins has done in Thou Desperate Pilot, and so, "this seasick weary bark" has "now at once run on the dashing rocks...
...A distorted Christianity and a violent voodooism are locked in perpetual conflict, first one and then the other emotion sweeping the community with utter disregard of logic, the essence of the struggle being summed up in the souls of Deborah and her husband Abner...
...As the fire creeps closer and closer, even Brother Elijah loses faith...
...She will not share her food with them...
...It would be unfair to say that the same understanding is absent in Earth, but it is certainly not brought forth as clearly in dramatic terms...
...Abner accepts this as the second judgment of God, but Deborah's new-found faith vanishes as quickly as it returned...
...Here the strength of the new German technique comes into full play, with picture after picture of the stupendous power of unleashed forces, human and mechanical—the flooding of the underground city, the breaking of the giant machines, the crashing of the dreams of man, destruction, and the orgy of revolutionary hatred...
...Thereupon Deborah's faith begins to ebb from her...
...Earth is a Negro play, acted, apparently, by an entirely Negro cast, and deals with the religious emotionalism rampant in a small Negro village of the South some forty or more years ago...
...But the real objection is to the material included...
...In this story of a mythical mechanical civilization many years hence—presumably a prophecy of what we are coming to in America—the workmen live in an underground city...
...Abner is an underwritten part, the main conflicts coming between characters all equally blind to true spiritual values...
...Starting with a false idea, Metropolis pushes its weary way through a maze of sentimentalities and absurdities until it reaches the scenic grandeur of the final reel...
...They march to and from work in chain gangs...
...It does not label its symbols...
...I have seen no finer acting of its kind this winter...
...Adam Solitaire, a former play by the same author, also written about the Job theme, revealed a much finer sense of spiritual proportion, a clearer understanding of the meaning of the Via Crucis in the life of man...
...The abundant symbolism you can find in the play springs spontaneously from the poet's mind...
...The villagers crowd in...
...Metropolis THERE is an increasing interest in every new German film, due to the amazing advances the Germans have made in the technique of photography...
...In its way, it is an excellent study of the evils of a purely emotional Christianity—a religion which borders so closely on voodooism that the two often blend in the minds of an hysterical people...
...A few cynics, having seen the play, might ask, "Why the opening...
...I can easily imagine the casual playgoer getting the impression that it is a blasphemous play—instead of accepting it as a story of the self-destruction that has been wrought by self-righteous pride and its emotional consequences...
...The villagers, led by their blind preacher, Brother Elijah, try to bring her back to the ways of faith...
...But one dislikes to think that real drama cannot be found wherever flesh and blood wanders on this earth...
...But the use of spirituals and chants to heighten the effect of certain scenes, and the groupings and rhythmic power of the scenes themselves display a fine sense of the theatre in the creation of a mood...
...Witness Caponsacchi as another example...
...This, of course, is a complete reversal of our experience with the labor-saving value of machinery...
...The fire spares his home and sends to his cabin door a cow, the omen of future prosperity...
...The cow disappears and is lost in the quicksands...
...But they will not crush men with machines...
...To Earle Browne is due the credit for the general direction of the play...
...Only Abner, now tied to a tree, raises his voice in supplication to God...
...But false sentimentality, artificial emotions, and the effort to make puppets do the author's bidding will devitalize the most authentic situation...
...They set up again the cross they had uprooted, and the dark night of voodoo passes, but not before Deborah, unknown to them, has killed Senon as a sacrifice...
...But, by not providing these forces with a sufficiently strong protagonist, the play fails in dramatic emphasis, not to mention spiritual truth...
...A play without roots...
...So far as the story can be told in individual terms, Deborah is being tried like a modern Job and succumbs, whereas her husband maintains his humble faith throughout...
...The picture is worth seeing for these scenes...
...A title has become its own epitaph, because a play was hung on a title instead of growing out of it...
...His prayer is heard...
...Above all, however, the acting of Inez Clough as Deborah, and of Daniel L. Haynes as Brother Elijah brought to this play something far out of the ordinary in emotional power expressed through great restraint...
...Perhaps standardization and machinery will eat all individuality from the human heart...
...Perhaps the atmosphere of a Casino on the Riviera is not conducive to real interest...
...At last she follows them to the mountain-top, in the midst of a great forest fire which the villagers believe has been sent to them from the wrath of God...
...They surround her with a ritual of song...
...Metropolis is UFA gone Hollywood...
...Thou Desperate Pilot THE past week marked the opening and closing of a new play by no less practised a dramatist than Zoe Akins, presented under the auspices of Rachel Crothers and Mary Kirk-patrick...
...But self-righteousness brings its own punishment everywhere...
...They kill her as the source of all their misery, and depart, chanting their song of freedom, leaving Abner alone...
...The villagers begin to repent their apostasy...
...What light does it throw on the much heralded vicissitudes of managers ? The theme was sexy, the situations "daring," the language unfettered, and the acting fair to good...
...Metropolis is the latest of these UFA productions to reach us, and although much heralded, and in spite of many amazingly fine individual scenes, it is, on the whole, quite the worst German film so far...
...It is rather more to the point to say, "Why the 552 553 prompt closing...
...By the light of the shooting flames, the voodoo ritual begins— an appeal to God's enemy to grant what God has withheld...
...Deborah, thinking she has won in her bargain, again becomes the self-righteous one...
...Throughout, Mr...
...She will bargain with God...
...And thus the new play, as a study in earth-bound religion, comes dangerously near the appearance of a bitter indictment of all religion and a general rebellion against all suffering and the cruelty of man under religious impulse...
...She treats the starving villagers with proud condescension...
...They are suffering their deserved fate, whereas she has been singled out for blessings...
...He is murdered by the community for holding intercourse with Senon the voodoo leader...
...They faint under the strain of their work to keep the machines going...
...Earth is the kind of production to stir considerably more interest in this new theatre than the surface eccentricities of Loud Speaker—a play of deep feeling, staged with a fine eye to drama and movement, and reflecting the ultra-modern mind only in the pervading confusion of its idea...
...But they will not make humanity a slave to anything but itself...
...The fact that Brother Elijah is blind is never forced on you, for example...
...Neither time nor place should rule a play out of popular acceptance...
...In many respects, the production itself is excellent, although made with obvious economy in scenic material...
...It was, in fact, started by the vengeful Senon...
Vol. 5 • March 1927 • No. 20
