The Play

...An excellent cast, directed by Mr...

...Small wonder that after the opening scene before the temple, with its brilliant color, its camels and other animals, and the Belasco-trained shouting of a great crowd, a whole section of the audience so far forgot itself as to start a round of applause when the figure of Christ appeared at last amid the waving palm branches...

...An incident that comes back to me is that of the cynical boy of eighteen or nineteen who sat behind us with his family and made certain wise remarks during the first half-hour of the play...

...Words and story of the play...

...I merely submit that whereas the Oberammergau players spend months in spiritual preparation before each decennial revival of the Passion Play, one can hardly expect to find a similar atmosphere created by Mr...

...Just where the blame lies in other directions, it is hard to say...

...Unfortunately the charm diminishes as the dry humor begins to repeat itself and the story becomes tedious...

...The pathetic little cockney who is "traveling in sardines" probably catches the spirit of the occasion best when he explains that he makes a hobby of collecting mosses "because mosses don't mean anything...

...His present fault lies in assuming that he was prepared for or equal to the task of directing a play of the Passion...

...The memory of it remains singularly vivid today...

...Men and women alike went about their tasks in a spirit of consecration, endeavoring throughout the years to bring their personal lives to a point that might render them worthy to portray such a subject...

...He does not attempt to be a Milne or a Barrie, and establishes a vein quite his own...

...Within, the arena of the Hippodrome was gaudily redecorated with murals of the life of Christ, with hanging lamps, and with draped American, French and other flags (the occasion being a benefit performance...

...The actors used no make-up, the men merely allowing their beards and hair to grow, and the women being chosen for their physical resemblance to the characters portrayed...

...Even the long arm of the tourist agencies ceased to be felt the moment one came into the village itself...

...The elaboration of crowd effects and of staging in general results in a scattering of unity to the four winds and in general tediousness...

...But certainly the glowing electric chalice (reminiscent of Parsifal) in the scene of the Last Supper, and the crudely theatrical transparencies used in the garden of Gethsemane and in the scene of the Resurrection, have nothing in common with the simple, crude veracity of Oberammergau...

...On the night of the recent opening of Mr...

...Drinkwater's humor is genuinely delicious without being too whimsical...

...If anyone has any desire to see the Passion re-created, so far as humanity is capable of doing it, and, by seeing it, to recapture that exaltation of spirit which it should bring, then by all means let that person make a pilgrimage to Oberammergau where simple faith accomplishes everything that Broadway showmanship shatters...

...The incense carefully spread in the air came, in a few moments, to have the sickening psychic smell of cheap pageantry...

...Belasco, fresh from the stupidities of Mima, and from such fairly recent productions as Lulu Belle and Ladies of the Evening...

...I blame the producers for their utter misconception of what they were doing, and for the abominable lack of taste which they displayed...

...I hope they have nothing in common with the Passion Play as actually presented at Freiburg...

...One felt this in the whole atmosphere of the place...

...There is also an essential lack of dignity in the treatment of the high priest and the Jewish officials which belittles the import of the whole story, lessening the proportions of the tragedy, and bringing the strange and mystical forces at work to the level of a cheap plotting...

...You grow suspicious only when you discover that the play is really going to center about a struggle between Thomas Greenleaf and his daughter Joan over the possibility of her marriage to a young member of the peerage...

...For the rest, there is cause for complaint on purely theatrical grounds...

...Drinkwater himself, provides a perfect medium for the play just as long as it remains a play...

...I do not blame the audience...

...Among the many characters who gather at a small English inn during a night of storm, you find at first no end of amusement...

...Souvenir program...

...A monster orchestra was gathered in the foreground, backed by a group of Russian choir singers...

...A curtain and a few smaller settings within the larger frame completed the "theatrical" equipment...

...It seems to me that the Fassnacht family, who have conducted the Freiburg play for generations, should have exercised some power of veto over such demoralizing effects...

...But why go into further details...

...The sublime Figure stood there, actually dwarfed by the surrounding showmanship to the proportions of a star actor or a theatrical hero...

...Hawkers in the lobby were shouting "Souvenir program of the play—the whole story of the play—fifty cents...

...Bird in Hand A CURIOUS charm pervades the first act of this comedy at the Morosco Theatre by John Drinkwater, the author of Abraham Lincoln and many other serious plays...

...Gest's imported spectacle, we were greeted at the door by a surging crowd of people, many in gorgeous evening dress, and hardly any in a mood other than that of a festive occasion...

...That was the mood of Oberammergau, inescapable, solemn and charged with a beauty that was more than material...

...In brief, you suspect considerable moralizing on the problem of the two generations, and before the middle of the second act—and in spite of some good slapstick comedy—your suspicions are hopelessly justified...

...At Oberammergau, the performance was entirely in the open air, on a stage almost Elizabethan in character, merely indicating the temple, the house of the high priest and the portico of Pilate's house...

...Not even the theatrical pageant which Morris Gest and David Belasco have evolved from the nucleus of the Freiburg version of the same story can blur those earlier scenes, nor make me forget that simplicity and inner zeal can bring back the days of the Crucifixion with poignancy and reverence and true beauty...

...Merry thrusts at the Conservative party, at English yeomanry, at the legal profession and at stodginess in general keep the mood bright and varied...

...Good treatment and real dramatic suspense can save even a play on two generations...

...It is impossible to enter into the motives of men without injustice...

...It is a real pity, because Mr...

...A big blue pencil might have turned this long-drawn-out affair into a gem of brief delight...

...Before long he was in tears, as completely under the spell of religious sincerity as if he had come prepared for reverence instead of ridicule...

...In this case, the quality of eventual boredom comes from lengthy repetitions...

...But the fault goes deeper than the use of a worn-out theme...

...Thank you...

...Thomas believes no good can come to her from marrying out of her station, nor from carrying on like the rest of the youngsters of today...