ON A LIBRARY STAGE
SHIPLEY, JOSEPH T.
On a Library Stage THE THEATRE BOOK OF THE YEAR 1948-1949. By George Jean Nathan. A. A. Knopf. 363 pp. $4.00. THE SHOW MUST GO ON. By Elmer Rice. Viking Press. 472 pp. $3.50. THE QUINTESSENCE OF...
...Readers will need considerably less, confronted with this rapid succession of firecrackers exploding beneath the buttocks of theatrical incompetence and pretense — with an occasional grudging word of praise, when he declares The Traitor guaranteed innocently to entertain the youngster that endures in even the most venerable of us...
...By William Irvine...
...Thus, instead of discussing a bad performance, he reviews his pet dog's acting prowess...
...raids of Crimean Tartars (who ravaged Moscow in 1571 and 1572): the ambitious project of expansion to the Baltic Sea ended in complete fiasco...
...421 pp...
...It is unfortunate that the 16th century in Russia should have left us inadequate records...
...and no index, such as a good book of quotations should' have...
...Whether he is remarking that the Hartmans are "more amusing than trigeminal neuralgia...
...These are a somewhat haphazard grouping, with an even more haphazard grab-bag collection within...
...von Eckardt does not seem to be aware of...
...Tlie Quintessence of G.B.S...
...as is well known, a man of almost unheard of patience...
...Creative • Age Press...
...When I was at the height of my adult powers, I wrote play called As Far as Thought Can Reach...
...in particular we lack the documents that would satisfactorily account for the character and activity of the Terrible Tsar...
...By Hans von Eckardt...
...Whittlesey House...
...it carries him along through the entire process from acceptance to run of a new play...
...It might seem difficult to find Shaw uttering inanities, but neighbor Winsten achieves even that...
...Finally, the meritorious efforts at administrative reform of the Tsar's early years came to naught during his reign of terror...
...3.75...
...Yet another foreign language—that of Amuiu-ica...
...For instance, why "In the plays dealing with the American Revolution, no soldier has ever boon shown as having carnal desires, much less demonstrating them...
...the people were bled white...
...Neither did Ivan succeed in eliminating the upper nobility, for less than a generation after his death they plunged the country into j grievous civil war...
...but basically puritan and concerned for society's good—through the span of almost a century...
...Mark Veart teaches Russian history at Harvard...
...Ivan's excesses . and sadism are condemned, to be sure, but this condemnation does not affect the author's judgment of the political and social necessity of tyrannical rule...
...but he proceeds to All the gaps with the product of his imagination...
...then again under Peter the Great...
...Actually, Russia was the worse off for his rule...
...or that Talluluh Bankhead is always "hurrying first-aid to the script and giving it copious injections of strychnine, cod liver oil...
...Like many Western historians, and quite understandably so, he has a tendency to project patterns of Western development onto Russian affairs...
...Though this is not the place to elaborate on the technical and scholarly shortcomings of the book,, one must deplore the bad style and organization, made even worse by inadequate translation...
...but one waits a bit impatiently for them to come back from the bedroom to the theatre...
...In view of their debatable character, many judgments and statements would require backing by references to sources and literature which unfortunately this edition does not provide...
...Eckardt tries to show (very unconvincingly, from the scholar's point of view) that Ivan's only and constant aim was to introduce and implant the political concepts and practices of 16th century Europe into Russia...
...Irvine traces that career—political, personal, playful and full of plays: over fifty in all...
...From its background and beginning...
...Ivan the Terrible's reign illustrates graphically Russia's centuryold ill: the inability of her rulers to adapt their governmental practices to the ends they try to achieve...
...Edited by Stephen Winsten...
...One follows with absorption the progress of Eric Kenwood from his small town in Connecticut to Broadway, where his first play, The Clouded Mirror, goes through the throes of production...
...serfdom became the social and economic basis of the state...
...THE QUINTESSENCE OF G.B.S...
...Thus, in the chapter headed "A Few English Customs" aire such quotations as "The truth is the one thing nobody will believe...
...404 pp...
...This is one Russian historical "mystery" Mr...
...A life spent in making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing...
...But, not satisfied with this inadequately supported analysis, von Eckardt sets it in generalizations whose dubiousness may be illustrated with one single example: "Hence it is the destiny of Russian history that a man of action and superman of Russian blood should always become a despot, who, to compensate for his intellectual superiority, is compelled to behave with increasing brutality and ruthlessness, as is, indeed, unavoidable in an environment ruined for centures on end by the Mongols" (p...
...An interesting approach which could yield worthwhile results, it is also one fraught with many pitfalls...
...THE UNIVERSE OF G.B.S...
...indeed, he takes Shaw at times from the pinnacle where Shaw would set himself...
...selections from or studies of important playwrights, roll from the press more rapidly than the plays are rolled from their stages...
...A lively quartet of such varied volumes now lies upon my desk...
...THE METHODS OF GOVERNMENT used by Ivan (the oprichnina) backfired on him: the country's borders were laid open to the...
...The personal affairs of producer and angel, author and star, of all the crowding aspirants and parasites, are given enough flavor of temperament and sex to make them seem real persons...
...A contemporary example of such writing can be found by the English reading public in the translation of Hans von Eckardt's biography of Ivan the Terrible (1533-1584...
...But here is much of the Shaw whose life-work has been to drive wedges into closed and complacent minds...
...the administration was seized by a rapacious and politically irresponsible class of service nobility...
...Nathan declares that he is...
...Actresses famous as great personalities are chiefly those who have had or have the manners of charwomen9" The historical approach takes such forms as tracing themes or incidents or blunt ("obscene") expressions that have shocked audiences through twelve plays, from Sopho of 1900 to the childbirth onstage in A Neiv Life of 1943...
...Strong in the direct slam, with neatly explosive figure, Nathan is also adept at the historical and the irrelevant approach...
...This, however, is sign of an objectivity that lends power to this thorough portrait, in vivid language, of a scrawny, bearded vegetarian who "has managed to combine the exciting notoriety of a movie star with the sedate glory of a great author long dead...
...Every period of strain in relations between the West and Russia has produced a crop of rather poor books purporting to explain the "mysteries" of Russian historical development: this was true in the second half of the 16th century, when Europe fancied itself threatened by the rise of Muscovy...
...HANS VON ECKARDT — perhaps because he was writing in 1941 Germany—presents the life of the "first Russian Tsar" as an apology for his bloody dictatorship...
...4a spite of this, even in the haphazard and inept collection, four hundred pages of Shaw must contain many striking and challenging passages...
...EVEN MORE OF THAT SHAW-his life if not his own words—is contained in The Universe of G.B.S-, which seems to me the best of the numerous biographies and critical studies of the playwright...
...Each time the Germans contributed more than their, share of emotional, superficial, artd /often ignorant commentaries about the Empire of the Tsars...
...is a collection of extracts from Shaw's works," under such general heads as "I Was a Child...
...However praiseworthy their ' programs may be, the result of their management has been invariably a worsening of popular life...
...Even more provocative in the theatre than Nathan has been George Bernard Shaw, the subject of two recent books...
...To a certain extent, such procedure might be justifiable, for every historian must also be something of an imaginative writer...
...The plays are, of course, the greatest points of interest...
...5.00...
...But the true scholar never allows his imagination, however rich or subtle, to stray beyond the boundaries set by his material evidence: Mr...
...The most provocative of the three or four annuul surveys of the New York theatre is unquestionably that of George Jean Nathan, l'enfant terrible among our critics...
...Reviewed by MARK VEART IN SPITE OF AN INCREASED scholarly interest in, and study of, Russia, quantity still prevails over quality in books devoted to Russian history...
...Health," "Animals," "War," "Bear in Mind...
...von Eckhardt is not easily restrained by such considerations...
...The resistance against this enlightened program was very great, centering mainly around the upper nobility which even resorted to treason: Ivan then had no choice but to use tyranny and terror to maintain the integrity of state and power...
...This last interpretation Is (for obvious reasons) enthusiastically shared by contemporary Soviet historiography...
...and he thinks less of some of the plays (for instance, fu Good King Charles's Days) than I. and other critics...
...His book takes the reader behind the scenes...
...This fact is admitted by the author in his brief (and very inadequate) bibliographical, note...
...or that Sartre's profundity "enjoys all the depth of an oculist in the digging for u cinder on the eye's outer surface...
...the ideas are often paradox...
...5.00...
...Reviewed by JOSEPH T. SHIPLEY EVERY SEASON THAT FABULOUS INVALID, the theatre, produces not only its quota of plays, but its goodly quota of volumes...
...The latter is used when boredom at a play induces relieving fancies...
...monkey gland extract and Crosse and Blackwell's chowchow...
...and reached significant proportions during the diplomatic crises of the Crimean and Balkan Wars...
...237...
...He lists 55 items that have been sources of wonder to him in the current theatre...
...that he wanted to change the time-honored mould of Russian thoughts and customs: At the same time, the Tsar was carrying out a process of social levelling, destroying the old nobility, which our author calls the feudal class, thus identifying it with that of Western Europe—a highly debatable approach...
...The style is usually sledgehammer...
...Its author, William Irvine, is as far from idolatry of his man as Shaw is of Shakespeare...
...they are analyzed and compared with acute understandig, and many auto-, biographical associations...
...A 16th Century Russian Despot IVAN THE TERRIBLE...
...The final quotation in the volume reads: "When I was a child, my governess made me read a book called The Child's Guide to Knowledge...
...stories that borrow the glamour of the playhouse...
...It is therefore particularly regrettable that von Eckardt's grounding in Western European history is not more solid either...
...439 pp...
...Summaries of the season...
...Alfred A. Knopf...
...EQUALLY IN LOVE with the theatre — and often enough the target of Nathan's shafts —is playwright Elmer Rice, who this season has come forth with a novel, The Show Must Go On...
Vol. 33 • February 1950 • No. 8
