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An analytical study of the dramatic criticism of Joseph Wood Krutch as published in "The Nation", 1924-1952

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An analytical study of the dramatic criticism of Joseph Wood Krutch as published in "The Nation", 1924-1952

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Content AN ANALYTICAL STUDY >t OF THE DRAMATIC CRITICISM OF JOSEPH WOOD KRUTCH AS PUBLISHED IN THE NATION, 1924-1952 by Gordon C. Green f • i A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Communication) June 1959 UMI Number: DP22307 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI DP22307 Published by ProQuest LLC (2014). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 4 8 1 0 6 -1 3 4 6 U N IV E R S IT Y O F S O U T H E R N C A L IF O R N IA GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY PARK LOS ANGELES 7, CALIFORNIA ph. 0 (W ' s * G nn This dissertation, written by .......... Gordon Green.......... under the direction of hXs....Dissertation Com mittee, and approved by a ll its members, has been presented to and accepted by the Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of D O C T O R O F P H I L O S O P H Y Dean Date. ..195.9 TABLE OP CONTENTS Chapter I. INTRODUCTION...................... . . . Statement of the Problem Importance of the Study Limitations of the Study Definitions of Terms Methodology Statement of Organization II. ACTING AND ACTORS ....................... Superior Acting Limited or Inconsistent Acting Personality Acting Inferior Acting The Personal Element in Criticism of Acting Summary III. EXPERIMENTAL AND REPERTORY THEATRE . . . Experimental Theatre Groups Repertory Theatre Expressionism Summary IV.‘ MUSICAL COMEDY AND R E V U E ............... The 1920's The 1930's The 1940's Summary V. A COMPARISON OP THE CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN THEATRE WITH THE CONTEMPORARY EUROPEAN THEATRE.......... ..................... The German Theatre The Russian Theatre The French Theatre The English Theatre Summary Chapter , VI. THE EFFECT OF SOCIAL CONVENTIONS AND MORALS UPON CHARACTERS AND THEMES IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN DRAMA ..................... Stereotyped Characters Marital Infidelity Prostitution Theology "Success" and Materialism War Summary VII. THE THESIS OR PROPAGANDA PLAY ............... The 1920's The 1930's The 1940's Summary VIII. A STUDY OF TRAGEDY AND COMEDY AS CONTEMPORARY DRAMATIC FORMS . ..................... . Tragedy Comedy Sentimental Comedy Melodrama Summary IX. PLAYWRITING ..................... .......... The Thesis or Propaganda Play The "Well-Made" Play The Play Copied From a Former Success The Play Adapted From Another Medium The Topical Play The Biographical Play The Play of Ambiguous Emotion Summary X. SHAKESPEARE AND SHAW ....................... Shakespeare in "Modern Dress" Shakespeare Misinterpreted Plays With Serious Faults Plays More Effective Read Than Performed Plays More Effective Performed Than Read Plays Effective Both Performed and Read Plays Most Contemporary in Their Appeal Shakespeare vs. Shaw ...Shaw 1 s Better Plays _ ....... ........ Chapter Shaw's More Conventional and Lesser Plays Shaw's Plays of Optimism Shaw's Plays of Pessimism Summary XI. O'NEILL, BEHRMAN, AND ANDERSON Eugene O'Neill S. N. Behrman Maxwell Anderson Summary XII. IBSEN, CHEKHOV, BARRY, RICE, HOWARD, SHERWOOD, ODETS, MILLER, AND WILLIAMS ........ Henrik Ibsen Anton Chekhov Philip Barry Elmer Rice Sidney Howard Robert Sherwood Clifford Odets Arthur Miller Tennessee Williams Summary XIII. CRITICS AND CRITICISM Disagreement Among the Critics Bad Reviewing Good Reviewing Summary XIV. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS Introduction Summary Conclusions Suggestions for Further Research BIBLIOGRAPHY I I CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ! For a study of the significant and formative period ; of the modern Broadway stage, this investigator has chosen j the criticisms of Joseph Wood Krutch. Probably no reviewer \ nas covered this entire span of time as continuously and as perspicaciously. He was the drama critic from 1924 to 1952 j f ’ or The Nation, a periodical issued weekly. For 28 years he Wrote his weekly impressions of the theatre in New York. j Jloday Krutch still shows an active interest in the theatre and contributes articles to such journals as Theatre Arts. Through the years he has written several books on the thea- ; tre. However, his latest works have been concerned with ! life in the Arizona desert, where he is now living. ; Krutch is not only a drama critic and a naturalist but a scholar and teacher as well. After completing his ! doctorate in 1923 at Columbia University, he became a lec turer at the New School of Social Research in New York from j b.932 to 1935- Later he returned to Columbia University as aj professor of English from 1937 to 1943* In 1943 he was j named Brander Matthews Professor of Dramatic Literature at i the same University and served with distinction in this j capacity until 1952. During his academic career, he was a.1- < : So an associate editor for The Nation from 1924 to 1932 and j ; President of the New York Drama Critics Circle, 1940-1941. Among his more important books, outside the field of natural! 1 21 science, are The Modern Temper, American Drama Since 1918. j i • ' ’Modernism1 1 in Modern Drama,^ and The Measure of Man.^~ which1 j won the National Book Award. I i Statement of the Problem Based on an examination of over 800 articles of dra matic criticism written by Joseph Wood Krutch for The Nation!, | ' ■ — this study attempts to describe the significant attitudes jtnd opinions that the author held regarding the Broadway i theatre during the period that he was drama critic for this I i magazine. The greater emphasis is placed upon the critic's , major concepts and ideas; however, some comment is made upon, nls observations on less important aspects of the theatre since they help reveal more fully his own particular point j of view as a critic. The purpose of this study is: (1) to | offer an insight into that period of the American stage when; ^Joseph Wood Krutch, The Modern Temper (New York: ; larcourt, Brace and Co., 1929)• ! ^Joseph Wood Krutch, American Drama Since 1918 (rev.: ed.; New York: G. Braziller, 1957 )• j ^Joseph Wood Krutch, "Modernism" in Modern Drama i (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1953). i i ^Joseph Wood Krutch, The Measure of Man (indianapo- i OLis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1954). ! it was transformed from a relatively insignificant and sec- j pnd-rate theatre to one of the first theatres in the world, , and to see how the criticism of Joseph Wood Krutch reflected that change; (2) to determine the critic's criteria or stand--- ards of judgment concerning such important elements of the theatre as acting and playwriting with reference to individ ual actors, performances, playwrights, and plays; (3) to jbrace any attitudes or prejudices regarding various phases pf the theatre which the critic may have held over the years and which may have reappeared noticeably in his drama column; and (4) to point out any exceptions or changes in his gener al theories and convictions during his 28 years as drama j critic. Specifically this study also attempts to answer the following questions: (l) What were Krutch's opinions con- ' 2erning% the experimental and repertory theatres? (2) What bid the reviewer think of the contemporary French, German, j Russian, and English theatres and how did he compare them I with the American theatre? (3) What did he believe the ef- j feet was of American morals and attitudes upon dramatic jcharacters and themes? (4) What were his criteria for clas sifying tragedy, comedy, and melodrama in connection with [ modern drama? j i Importance of the Study i If it is true that a study of the past makes the » i present more meaningful and understandable, an examination j of the New York stage from 1924 to 1952 is Important for an i appreciation of the contemporary American theatre. It has j ! pnly been since the twenties that the Western theatre has | taken the American stage seriously. Before then it was ; i largely imitative. Today American plays are performed, in j translation as well as in the original, throughout the world; New York has become one of the most important theatre cen ters in the world. ■ The theatre depends perhaps more upon its critics than any other art form. Broadway critics, for example, have considerable influence in deciding the success or fate Of a play through their judgments written in newspapers and ; j magazines which are read by thousands of prospective theatre- i goers who are reluctant to spend several dollars on the out-i ;3ide chance that the play will please them; hence, they read^ the reviews, and the critics have become a great power in the American theatre. According to Herman Shumlin, a suc cessful showman for more than a quarter of a century, "When ! 1 I start work on a play I tell myself I'm producing this for 1 only seven men, . . . there is no question that the critics ; C can make or break a play." The critics themselves are , aware of their power. i The Mirror's Robert Coleman ("My readers consider me| a . . . shopper for them"), the Journal-America's John McClain ("My duty is to tell my readers whether or not a! 5 i Stanley Frank, "The Seven Dictators of Broadway," The Saturday Evening Post. 229:28, April 13, 1957, Pt. V. ' i show is worth the price of a ticket") and the World-Tel-j egram and Sun1s William Hoawkins ("My role is informa- I tive . . . as is any good shopping service") . . .6 The article from Time containing these remarks went on to ^ay that whatever their standards there was no doubt that critics counted at the box office; and that even though pro ductions had been known to survive lukewarm reviews (e.g., Wish You Were Here, Kind Sir. Kismet) and fail despite good reviews (Billy Budd. Take a Giant Step), they were the ex- 7 oeptions rather than the rule. In another very important way the theatre is depend ent upon its critics: the recording of the theatre for those who are not there to see it. While the work of the painter,j ^culptor, or writer may be viewed again and again, long aft er the period of its creation, the result of all those spe- j cial art forms that come together to produce the theatre-- the writing, acting, stage designing, costuming, lighting, etc.--must be recorded in some way if it is to be known by j ;hose who did not catch the performance as well as by future! generations. Photographs could be taken of the sets, the costumes; 4nd the actors; but the theatre is not simply a visual art. Phonograph discs, or tape recorder, could record the sound j of the actors’ voices; but the theatre is not simply an aud itory art. ^ntil plays are recorded on sound track and i 'P- " ■ ....... ' lir “ ' " ‘ ... - - I . ' — Seven on the Aisle," Time, 63:44, March 1, 1954. ^Ibid., p. 46._____ __ _ j movie film or some kind of video tape, the theatre is depend ent upon the critics to record their effort for posterity, because of the time element and expense, it seems likely « I • f that contemporary theatre-goers will continue to read the : professional critic!s account. The position of the critic, 1 in other words, does not seem to be threatened in any near future. A play may sometimes be studied as a piece of dra- j jnatic literature, but most plays were intended to be per formed and to be witnessed, not to be read. Even the works ; f ; of the greatest playwrights were written as scripts for the i i living stage and not as literature. Shakespeare, for exam- j ole, never intended that his plays should be read, only per-; j j formed. Reading a play is not the same thing as watching | j ; jits performance. Since it is impossible to recreate all the; j blements of past productions, the next best thing is to readj the accounts of eyewitnesses who have taken the trouble to j write down their impressions. From these reports one is stble to get some idea of former performances. In many cases! these "criticisms" are all that remain of the art of a past ! theatre or a former production, even one which was in exist-; pnce only a few years ago. | As a trained theatre critic and scholar of dramatic ! [literature, Krutch observed the New York stage during its I i j f j Important formative period; his opinions offer an excellent j i : t guide and history of that era. The fact that he was a j ! Weekly rather than a dally reviewer Indicates that his re flections might contain more thoughtful and significant ob- ' nervations than those written by the daily critic who writes, under greater pressure. The weekly reviewer has the oppor- I I fcunity of expressing second thoughts. Also, Krutch's back- ; ground as a scholar and authority in dramatic literature and; philosophy and his catholic interests help to provide him with the ability to cope with such a universal and popular art form as the theatre. This universality of the theatre is recognized by Krutch. Perhaps, indeed, the theatre is the only true catho lic temple still standing. Those who assemble in it are; worshiping some of the oldest gods and confessing a faith fundamental enough to be shared by those who go to' different churches, vote for different candidates, and accept different philosophies.® j Bis opinions are worthwhile based as they are upon a broad ■ and literal viewpoint. Until now there has been no major study devoted to iCrutch as a drama critic. Considerable work has been done in recent years in the field of dramatic criticism. Inves- ' tigations on such critics as Brooks Atkinson,9 John Mason ^Joseph Wood Krutch, "Theatre," Theatre Arts, 40:83,! February, 1956. j 9jerry McNeely, "The Criticism and Reviewing of Brooks Atkinson" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University; bf Wisconsin, 1956). J 10 11 IP Brown, Stark Young, and William Archer have been made.' The relative Importance of Joseph Wood Krutch in the field of dramatic criticism warrants a study. i Limitations of the Study j This work has been limited to the 28-year period during which Krutch was the drama critic for The Nation, and it has been further limited to his weekly column. His books; i on the theatre have been purposely excluded since not only do the articles cover practically all the same material as lis books but a great deal more as well. Also, in working j solely with the articles as primary sources, rather than j jtfith the books, the analyst is better able to study the j pritic and to make his own selections and observations from I ' i the vast amount of dramatic criticism written by Krutch. Most of the emphasis is limited to the more significant as- ; oects of the theatre, such as the more reputable playwrights; plays, and actors. Since the reviewer had relatively little} i :o say about directors, producers, and scene designers, 1 •^Dorothy Skriletz, "An Analysis of the Dramatic Criticism of John Mason Brown as Published in the Saturday Review of Literature" (unpublished Master's thesis, Bowling ; dreen State University, 1951). ■^Bedford Thurman, "Stark Young: A Bibliography of His Writing With a Selective Index to His Criticism of the j Xrts" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University, L954). ! i Paul E. Cairns, "William Archer as Critic of Mod- j ern English Drama, 1882-191^-" (unpublished Ph.D. disserta- j jbion, University of Michigan, 1956). j there is little concerning these important people. j 1 Definitions of Terms j Criteria.--As used in this study, the word refers to the standards of judging or rules or tests by which the critic tries the various arts or elements that make up the theatre production and/or those things pertaining to the theatre. i Criticism.--The word for the purposes of this study ' does not necessarily imply unfavorable criticism or censure. It means simply a critical observation, judgment, or review. Methodology ! The investigator spent some six months giving his full time to the reading of several hundred articles of dra-! 1 1 matic criticism written by Joseph Wood Krutch for The Nation-. There was no intention of making notes of the whole bulk of j bhe criticism. This would have made the study too unwieldy ! and inclusive to be of much use. What seemed to be more | permanent, such as the critic's writing on all the New York j productions of Shakespeare, Shaw, and O'Neill, including comments on the playwrights as artists and philosophers, was- i carefully set down. The investigation seemed to divide itself naturally j jnder certain headings which were significant. The art of j acting and of actors formed one area. Playwriting, plays, I and playwrights made up another. The latter area was so j extensive that several sub-divisions had to be set up. 1 plough interesting material was written about the Broadway revue and the development of the musical comedy that a sepa-j rate classification was established for that type of theatre; The experimental, off-Broadway, and repertory theatres lent , themselves to a common area of study. Krutch*s on-the-scene; observations of the European theatre in 1928 led to a re vealing comparison between the American and European thea- j fcres. American morals and attitudes and their influence on ‘ the American drama were related to stereotyped characters pid themes in American drama. The thesis or propaganda play peoame a separate area. ; After reading and writing and thinking about the ; t criticism of even a few years it became apparent that j Krutch*s opinions and observations formed certain criteria I bf judgment. These standards by which he rendered a judg ment or opinion were noted. ; Statement of Organization : i Chapter II deals with acting and actors; this in cludes some general remarks on good and bad acting, and some specific comments on particular actors as illustrations of j j Krutch*s criteria of acting. The reviewer's reflections on the experimental, off- Broadway, and repertory theatres are given in Chapter III. j The development of the Broadway review, operetta, and musical comedy is shown in Chapter IV. _ j j A comparison of the American drama and theatre with ' that of the European is made in Chapter V. American morals and attitudes as they have influenced the themes and the characters for American drama over the 1 1 years are covered in Chapter VI. j Chapter VII treats the thesis or propaganda play; many of these plays were based on Marxian or Left-wing ideas. Chapter VIII contains a description of various types; Df plays, such as tragedy, comedy, sentimental comedy, farced melodrama, and burlesque. A discussion of playwriting and the reasons, accord ing to the critic, for the success or failure of many Broad-! way plays are found in Chapter IX. The plays of Shakespeare and Shaw are dealt with in Chapter X . The plays of O'Neill, Behrman, and Anderson are in- : sluded in Chapter XI. ; The other playwrights whose plays have appeared on i the New York stage and have indicated that they might have a; permanent place in dramatic literature are covered in Chap- i ter XII. What Krutch had to say on the subject of critics and ■criticism is stated in Chapter XIII. j Chapter XIV is a summary of the findings of this re-j i bearch; it consists also of a few comments of the reviewer ! (concerning the future of the American theatre. J CHAPTER II ACTING AND ACTORS Krutch had definite standards or criteria for judg- , ing acting. He felt that the usual type-casting in which the actor simply played himself was no real test of the ac- j tor's art. The theatre conditions of Broadway lent them selves to a realistic style of acting in which performances were as good as a casting director’s card file. The New York stage lacked such repertory groups as the Old Vic and ( bhe Moscow Art Theatre where actors could learn their trade j j - j lay playing many roles. Under the usual Broadway conditions,! | ; which this critic deplored, the actor tended to play the same role.over and over again; only the title of the play j changed and the actor never grew in stature as a craftsman. ; There was little opportunity for the reviewer to observe an i actor creating what he considered was the touchstone of good acting--an original performance of a traditional role. A traditional role is a historical or classical role from a play which is a permanent part of dramatic literature! I • ’ I The role has usually been performed by the best actors of j former generations. Hamlet is the best example. The supe- j rior actor will take into account the way in which the role ! Was treated by famous actors whom he has seen or at least read about and will add or contribute something of his own; ; In other words, he assimilates the tradition of the part and; inakes an original contribution when playing it himself. The reviewer had watched the Moscow Art Theatre in Moscow and in New York, and he compared the American with ; bhe Russian conception of the actor’s art. He reported that the Russians regarded temperament and imagination as aids to perception but that they made expression a matter of consid- sred effects planned by the intelligence and executed by a < body trained to respond to the mind which manipulated it.'*' In the play, Granite. directed by Richard Boleslavsky, he j noted that every moment, every accent, and every stage pic- j bure had been deliberately planned with reference to a totali affect and in harmony with a pre-determined style. His only1 regret was that this genuine theatrical art was not applied ; to better material. When faced with a choice, Krutch always; I preferred a first-rate play acted in an ordinary hit or miss 'American fashion” to an artificial and inconsequential playj such as Granite, superbly acted in the artistic method of i 2 the Moscow Art Theatre. With him the play was more impor- ; j bant than the acting. 1 The observer objected to the stage personality j i _ _ j ^Krutch, "On Make-Believe and Acting," The Nation, j 124:350, March 30, 1927- ; 2 1 Ibid. J ^taking precedence over the play. He felt that the actor ; should he dominated hy the play and not the other way around. The Moscow Art Theatre was praised because it did not use j i the star system. The Neighborhood Players, said the critic j in 1926, was the single exception in America. More than any ether group in this country it insisted that acting depended not upon exploitation of personality but upon conscious con trol of the voice and body. Nowhere else do we find actors who so nearly realize; Gordon Craig's ideal of the marvelously articulated pup-; pet, who so firmly grasp the principle that a role is j something to be created by a mind which uses the body as; a sculptor uses clay, not something to be approximated as near as may_be by giving reign to the temperament of the performer. The above quotation with its allusion to Gordon Craig's I i jldeal puppet-actors expresses the reviewer's preference for j what might be termed a non-realistic style of acting. This simply means that the actor submerges his own personality ini favor of the character he is playing; he does not depend up- sn his own instincts and emotions but upon effects which are planned with intelligence and executed by a trained body. j Superior Acting Under existing conditions, Krutch had little oppor- i t bunity to witness original performances of actors in tradi- ; tional roles; hence, according to his standards, he was lim ited in his opportunities to observe what he considered was j •^Krutch, "The Lion Tamer," The Nation. 123:^09, j . October 20, 1926............... _ . _ j (the real test of superior acting. Of those few actors whom ! he considered superior, he remembered Eva Le Gallienne who I lad given an original performance of Juliet in 1930. She had broken with a "sugary tradition" and created a "strong, im- „ 4 i petuous, almost ruthless girl. I In 1934 he said of Judith Anderson, "... one of the few contemporary actresses who really act, and hence one, of the few who can actually contribute anything to a j ’straight' role which calls for more than polite behavior."^ The observer regretted that there were only a few modern plays which offered an opportunity for her particular tal ents. In the historic role of Lady Macbeth, she was ac- | claimed by the reviewer as better fitted in the role than i any other contemporary actress. . . . she has a commanding presence, something sin- isterly majestic in her carriage, and a voice capable of; ranging from a deep ominousness to that sudden stridency1 which reveals in the character a streak of vulgarity, a | touch of mere hellion, which, I think, properly belongs j there.6 j Watching Medea, Krutch reported that he was powerfully held j by the confident vigor of Judith Anderson's acting.^ j Crutch, "On Adequate Acting," The Nation, 138:56, j January 10, 1934. | ! i ^Krutch. "The Saddest Words," The Nation, 139:462, October 17, 1934. | ^Krutch, "The Evans Macbeth," The Nation, 153:547, ' November 29, 19^-1 • ' ^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 165:510, November 8, L947 • j ! In the fall of 1936 the critic witnessed two ver sions of Hamlet. The first was performed by John Gielgud; ; \ ~ ; jthe second was played by Leslie Howard. Of the two, he ; tound the latter vastly superior. He claimed that the sup- j i porting cast of Howard's company was much better and that J jthe production was less perversely eccentric. Whereas Giel-j gud’s Hamlet was frenetic, Howard's characterization was ; brooding and calm. Howard was strong precisely where Giel- j gud was weak; the former brought life to those aspects of Hamlet’s character which, in his rival's performance, did not exist. According to Krutch, Howard played Hamlet as the intellectual, the ironist, and the tender and ingenious j jthinker. The observer acknowledged that there probably were i ho perfect Hamlets, but he felt that Howard was an extremelyj interesting one. . . . the best of him is seen in the more ironical i passages, and much the same may be said of the fact that; his speech, though clear and musical, does not soar as | it might; as a result one gets more of Hamlet's subtlety! and charm than one does of his elevation.6 : A few roles might be considered, while not tradi- j bional or historical, both contemporary and classical. Such; i a role is Shaw's Saint Joan, and one actress's interprets- j tion of the part may be compared with the interpretations of! other performers. Uta Hagen's Saint Joan was regarded by j :he reviewer as an extraordinarily direct, simple, I i ^Krutch, "Leslie Howard's Hamlet," The Nation, 143: 613, November 21, 1936. Unaffected, and powerful performance. He commented that she' lacked a certain amount of the youthful fire and cocky self- ponfidence of Winifred Lenihan, who created the role in New i York and that she was less stately--"and quite properly"-- i i •than Katharine Cornell. She did suggest the country-girl ! heartiness of Joan and the Joan who realized that she had teen called upon to enact a part whose significance she could not quite understand but which she knew she had the j strength to play out to the end.^ | Some actors and actresses were deemed superior in jthe art of acting even though they were rarely or never seen i in traditional roles. Alfred Lunt was such an actor. His j ! performance in Arms and the Man was judged one of the most I perfect portraitures of his career, revealing hidden values ! I ; in the role. He made Captain Bluntschli a richly human fig-' | i ure "moving amidst the fantastic puppets who constitute the > remainder of the dramatis personae."10 j s As the bootlegger in The Easiest Way, Lunt played a j part different from those he was accustomed to play. Krutch 11 i remarked that he gave a rich and full-blooded performance. ; The critic wrote in 1928 that the actor had created \ x ^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 173:361, October 27* I951. ! 10Krutch, "These Charming People," The Nation. 121: 364, September 30, 1925* j 11Krutch, "The Easiest Way," The Nation. 123:697* December 29* 1926. jn±s most finely shaded characterization to date as Marco in | jthe Theatre Guild production of Marco Millions. "... he jnanages somehow to suggest both the gradual aging of Marco and the all but hidden wistfulness which the blindness of cis soul, dimly aware of things which it has never seen, j ~\o generates in him." As early as 1931 the observer called the Lunts the most popular "team" performing in the theatre. Neither was as good alone as the two were together. He suggested that the secret of their charm might have something to do with the fact that they embodied so well a certain romantically i comic conception of the relation between man and woman, punt was reckless, dashing, and impudent; and Pontanne was ply, capricious, and deliberately provocative. The battle was sham since neither had any intention of holding out; j I i they played the game for the game's own sake. They gave Lessons in the art of preventing sophistication from taking j the fun out of life.1^ ! Krutch commended Lunt in The Taming of the Shrew forj his ability to mistreat a handsome lady abominably for two ; ; lours and a half without losing the sympathy of the audience; He attributed this to the actor's talent for creating a | 3haracter which was high-spirited and desperate rather than j , , — j 12Krutch, "Marco Millions," The Nation. 126:105, j January 25> 1928. ■^Krutch, "sham Battle of the Sexes," The Nation, 133:650. December 9, 1931. ... .....__ .... _• merely brutal. The audience accepted all the knock-about j possibilities of the Theatre Guild's production on the ; i grounds that at least it was all for Kate's good.1^ j In Amphitryon 38 the Lunts were able to exploit the ; most distinctive of their talents— ". . . the kind of actingl which involves an almost imperceptible wink to the audience ■ and which establishes what was called long ago the paradox of the c o m e d i a n . Thus, Krutch referred to Diderot ap provingly and to the actors who were able to go successfully1 beyond realism when playing comedy. i f | Diderot had commented in Paradox of the Comedian that in playing certain roles of comedy something more dif ficult than realism was required of the actor. He had to j keep the audience reminded that he was not actually the con-i bemptible person whom he represented. For example, it became merely funny if the audience realized that he was not a bully Put some likable performer impersonating a bully. In the | case of the actor Romney Brent, the observer remarked that I I he managed to do something similar in his characterization j in The Warrior's Husband. . . . He does not step from his role or wink at the j audience. In no obvious way does he fail to lose him self in the character. But somehow or other he does ‘ manage to rob it of all trace of the unpleasant by re fusing to allow us to forget, even for a minute, that he) ■^Krutch, "A Real Shrew Really Tamed," The Nation, j 141:448, October 16, 1935- ■^Krutch, "Two Legends," The Nation. 145:539/ Novem- ' 3er 13, 1937... __... „ l6 ■ is deliberately impersonating. 1 j • | Brent appeared with Katherine Hepburn in The War rior's Husband in 1932 and for his pains, wrote the critic, ; i ! was mentioned as second in importance to an attractive girl < I j irith a good figure who was thereupon catapulted into star- j i 17 dom. 1 Krutch praised the actor for his ability to make ; j "the grand gesture with a natural ease very rare in our the atre" and to add a suggestion of self-mockery. The commen- ; tator felt that he not only gave the required suggestion of ; effeminacy but also made the character comic, likable, and 1 f t convincing. He considered that the actor was "purely com- Lc" and that he possessed an uncommon talent— "its very rar ity probably explains why certain types of artificial comedy ( nave all but disappeared from our stage.He hoped that j producers would employ this talent, which could contribute to the contemporary stage an excellence almost unknown. Osgood Perkins was singled out in The School for j Husbands and was commended for his being at home in an al- 20 i most forgotten, non-realistic style of acting. The ob- | ! server devoted a few paragraphs to him in a review written | "^Krutch, "The Comedian's Paradox," The Nation. 134: 378, March 30, 1932. ! ■^Krutch, "On Adequate Acting," loc♦ cit. | •^Krutch, "The Comedian's Paradox," loc. cit. I IQ i Ibid. ^Krutch, "On Adequate Acting," loc. cit. ' in January, 1933> In which he credited Perkins with doing ! more good for bad plays than any other American actor. j'. . . the fact that one finds oneself surprised to realize j i I that he is adding something to the script is enough to re- : 1 2T * mind one how little real acting is done on our stage. He; added, "Mr. Perkins would be a good actor no matter whom or ; what we were used to seeing."22 ! His performance as Sganarelle in The School for Hus-I bands was called "inspired." . . . he manages to suggest the three things neces- ■ sary for the full understanding of the character he is portraying: his Sganarelle is sinister, also ridiculous, and, finally, touched with that pathos inherent in the spectacle of any aging man who reaches out hopelessly j toward one of those young girls for whom he cannot help ! feeling desire.23 A performer did not have to appear in successful plays to be noticed by Krutch. One actress appeared in sev-; oral mediocre and unpopular plays and received high praise Py the reviewer. As early as 1927 he regarded Alice Brady ; as a rare actress worthy of admiration. She represented fori him those qualities which he praised in a performer. She was no mere "personality" who displayed herself in this role! or that, "and yet in each of her interpretations there was a! certain constant element of engaging and ingratiating | ' ' 1 " ' r ' ‘ 1 ' " " j 21Krutch, "Some Actors Who Act," The Nation. 136: i L03, January 25, 1933* 1 22Ibid. 1 2^Krutch, "A Joyous Revival," The Nation. 137:521, i November 1, 1933*........................ _ _] charm."2^ She had neither conventional beauty nor any of ! those artificialities of the popular star which irritated j the critic. He commented upon the delicate assurance of her blaying "equaled by no other contemporary actress" and of I ner intelligence and intensity. He further stated that he ! would like to have seen the actress in a popular play in or-j i der to have her acknowledged by the public as the great ac- j tress he felt she was. . . . During the past few years Miss Brady has ap peared in a number of plays, some good and some bad, but not even the best have proved popular, and she still waits for the opportunity which will bring her the wide j acclaim which she deserves as one of the most powerful and versatile actresses now appearing upon the stage.j Reviewing her in a dull, "well-made" play entitled | The Thief, he declared that her warm and skillful playing j gave the piece whatever humanity it had. The following j j i season he saw her in A Most Immoral Lady and judged her "the; most accomplished American interpreter of the spirit of po- j Lite comedy."2^ He continued to feel that she had not yet a role worthy of her and that she was "a constant challenge to! p O j our playwrights."^ 2^Krutch, "Intelligence vs. Intensity," The Nation, 124:152, February 9, 1927- 25Krutch, "A Well-Made Play," The Nation. 124:541, May 11, 1927- j 26Ibid. | 27Krutch, "American Comedy," The Nation. 127:694, j December 19> 1928. j 28Ibid. I Disappointed again in the play, the reviewer saw Brady as the victim of more bad luck in the Theatre Guild production of Karl and Anna. He had hoped that when she i ! i joined the Theatre Guild she would have been at least pro- t vided, with a vehicle worthy of her talents, but her first i play with them turned out to be "bafflingly disappointing In O'Neill’s Mourning Becomes Electra he finally conceded that the actress had a part worthy of her.^° But In Mademoiselle he again remarked that only Brady brought to! Life a not very well written part and made mediocre lines seem sparkling with wit. "Without her Mademoiselle would probably seem tedious; with her it is well worth seeing."^1 j Another artist about whom the commentator made only ■ I Laudatory statements was Grace George. As early as 1925 j Krutch said, "She, more perhaps than any other American ac tress, has the power to give, without any overemphasis, the | Impression of the completest womanly wit, grace, and gentil-, Ity."^2 He deemed her performance in Kind Lady "almost ^Krutch, "Bad Luck and Bad Manners," The Nation, , 129:504, October 30, 1929- ^°Krutch, "New Year Suggestions," The Nation. 134: I 28, January 6, 1932. I ^1Krutch, "Cold Cuts," The Nation. 135:465, November! 9, 1932. | ■^Krutch, "Drawing-Rooms and Drama," The Nation, ; L20:193* February 18, 1925* > perfect” and full of quiet dignity.33 actress again won; praise when she appeared in a revival of Somerset Maugham's ' The Circle in 1938. "... her performance affords a lessoni in acting which Miss Bankhead, in the far less exacting rolei I I Lf the young wife, might study with profit."3^ The observer! appreciated the fact that George was always in character ; from the moment she stepped onto the stage to the moment she| left it. Her character continued to exist when she was ap- | parently doing nothing as it did when she was the center of 1 attention.33 t Another actress who was able to interpret and enrich a part as few actresses ever succeed in doing was Ina Clairej. On more than one occasion Claire played in S. N. Behrman's I J comedies. Krutch believed that her manner had come to seem ; j ! klmost identical with the playwright1s. In that type of high comedy there were no wisecracks, but the reviewer noted that the actress managed to make many of the lines sparkle j Ln their context and to reveal the author's keen perception ' of the implications of every situation and every attitude.3^; George Kelly's The Fatal Weakness, wrote the critic,: i i . | 33Krutch, "Nightmare," The Nation, 140:554, May 8, 1935. ! ^Krutch, "The Unlearned Lesson," The Nation, 146: 513, April 30, 1938. 35Ibid, j 36Krutch, "The Talley Method," The Nation. 152:277, Vlarch 8, 1941. ! gave Claire the opportunity to prove that she was the most ; accomplished comedienne on the American stage. ; . . . Time and time again a gesture, an intonation, : or merely a fleeting expression points up or explains a I line which might otherwise fail of its intention; her intelligence as well as competence must have been a joy I to Mr. Kelly, who acted as his own director.-3' i Though Krutch preferred an actor or actress to sub- : prdinate his part to the play, occasionally he admired an | actor’s art regardless of its fitness in the play. One of ; jthese rare moments was in a review of a play, Mrs. Partridge [ Presents, in 1925. He said that Ruth Gordon contributed a ; \ j ' | portrait of a romantic flapper which had nothing to do with ^he play but which in itself was priceless.3® He later i phought better of the actress and remarked upon her progress^ in the following comment: "No one who saw her some years j ago in, for example, Mrs. Partridge Presents, would have ; guessed what she was to become capable of, but in the pres- ; i i i ent play she exhibits an admirable command of very real gifts."39 He had seen her in the Theatre Guild production | of A Sleeping Clergyman and had called her acting boldly | positive. The reviewer mentioned her crispness, assurance, j I i and firmness of outline in the three characterizations which i ! i i " .................— -T -T -.......— - ■■■■.■ - - -....... — -m— - . - T -- ^ 3^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, l64:8l, January 18, I 1947- | 3®Krutch, "Advice to an Actress," The Nation, 120: I 76, January 21, 1925- ; I ^^Krutch, "A Fig for Thistles," The Nation. 139 = 487,! October 24, 1934. ! she portrayed in the play. He credited the actress for hav ing transformed herself from an amusing farce-comedienne in- jto a dramatic actress of great power and resource. "Miss ! Gordon creates a startling human being by the toss of a head knd the indolent but assured movement of a body which seems ! so be just divining what it is capable of."^° Her appearance in The Country Wife was called an ex-1 j sraordinary personal triumph. ". . .1 can remember few ex-j mples of pure bravura in acting which equal her perform- „ in i ^.nce. He observed that she possessed unfailing comic in-: ventiveness in the most outspokenly bawdy of all the plays by the major Restoration comic writers. She played the rolej not in a straight or realistic fashion but in a highly per sonal one. As a scholar of the Restoration stage, Krutch knew that many of the roles of that theatre were written to show off the personal charms and the personal talents of in dividual actresses. Gordon rightly in this case was the Show. Limited or Inconsistent Acting The above actors and actresses received good reviews by Krutch. Many of them were judged capable of turning in original performances of traditional roles and/or were able 4°Ibid. | ^Krutch, "Love—Profane and Profaner," The Nation, ! 143:714, December 12, 1936. > _ i|2Ibid . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | to go beyond simple realism into what the critic termed a non-realistic style of acting. There were some actors and actresses, however, about whom the reviewer over the years ; [jhanged his opinions. They were considered good in some roles and bad in others, or were limited in some way. j Though Eva Le Gallienne was acclaimed for her origi nal and clearly defined work in two historical roles, Juliet, and Hedda Gabler, the commentator's first review of the ac- j tress in 1926 was not favorable. In fact at that time he ■ wrote that she was not a great actress. "She never succeeds; I i in submerging her own rather odd personality in any role, and her plaintiff voice is suitable only to baffled and j 1 143 ‘ querulous characters. ; i He was pleased with her interpretation of Camille ati •the Civic Repertory Theatre, however. This was another orig- j 1 Inal performance in a traditional part. Her characteriza tion was not a half fairy-tale princess but a woman of vary-! kng moods, now cynically rebellious, and now despairingly passionate. The play was a drama of real people and real j passions played very much as the author wrote it. In this production Camille was not, as in Lillian Gish's performance! Led gently to the Inevitable slaughter; "she fights every ! Inch of the way, . . . | I . . i .. , ... _ . . . - _ .... , — _ I ^Krutch, "Something New in Theatres," The Nation, j 123:488, November 10, 1926. I ^Krutch, "Two Camilles," The Nation, 135:513, No- ' yember 23, 1932- ...................._ _ ......_ ... J In a 193^- Civic Repertory Theatre production of Hedda Gabler, the actress was reported to have played one of her best roles. "... remarkable for its delicacy as well : j as its strength." She remembered that Hedda was a lady, by j her position and by her character. Too often, wrote Krutch,! i the character was played luridly. Hedda was dangerous for ; the very reason that her disease was not evident on the sur-j f a c e . I Judging Maurice Evans in almost entirely traditional! roles, the critic’s opinions ranged from high praise for his Hamlet and Macbeth to disapproval of his Malvolio. Strange as it appears to this investigator, the reviewer chose Evansj Hamlet over not only John Barrymore’s and Leslie Howard’s j portrayal but John Gielgud’s as well. He approved the total; production of Hamlet. directed by Margaret Webster, for sev eral reasons. First, Evans played more of Shakespeare's bext than the observer had ever heard given on any stage be-; fore. Second.; each scene was allowed the same degree of I prominence that it had in the text itself. What seemed to j impress the commentator most of all, however, was the ab- , sence of any novel or eccentric interpretation of the title } role, which would have led to a special arrangement of the 1 bext as well as the performance for the express purpose of I :naking that interpretation as probable and as satisfactory I _____ I ^Krutch, "Vine Leaves in His Hair," The Nation, 139:721, December 19, 1934. as possible. In the case of the Hamlet under review it was,; claimed Krutch, not Maurice Evans in Hamlet but Hamlet with i iifi \ Maurice Evans. ; Too much had been made of Freud and of Hamlet's in- j firmity of purpose, thought the critic. He approved Evans' J Hamlet, who had a respect for action and a capacity to act. j In describing the performance, the reviewer used such adjec-; tives as manly, sensitive, passionate, and subtle. i . . . the performance is actually better balanced ! than any other it has been my privilege to see. Cer tainly it is far more satisfactory than either that of John Gielgud, which was vastly overpraised, or that of Leslie Howard, which was given less than its due. ' It was Krutch's belief that Shakespeare's contempo- j raries never regarded Hamlet as primarily a "problem." He ; i was only as mysterious as any complex human being. Too manyj modern actors, he complained, had played Hamlet as if both | the actor and the spectator had to be in possession of some 1 unique key capable of unlocking an obscure secret. For him,! Hamlet played in such a fashion was a Hamlet explained away, and the result was a play far less rich and subtle than the text actually presented. "Perhaps no higher compliment can be paid the present production than that Implied in saying j that while it minimizes Hamlet as a problem it restores Ham-! Let as a play."^8 j ■ ~ ' " " ' ' " ” * " — | ^Krutch, "The New Hamlet," The Nation, 147:461, j October 29, 1938. ' 47Ibid. 48Ibid.. p. 462. j As Falstaff in Henry IV, Part I, Maurice Evans was ! not praised as highly by the commentator as he was when he ; j ! appeared as Hamlet; nevertheless, the observer expressed his gratitude to Evans and his director for "making Shakespeare good theatre again." Since, as he admitted, he had never | jseen a production of Henry IV before, he had no way of com- ; paring Evans’ Falstaff with that of any other actor’s inter-; j j pretation. He did, however, feel that it fell short of the j ! I Falstaff of the universal imagination. In other words, he saw more from reading the text of Shakespeare than from wit-; 2 iq nessing that production. y The critic declared that the actor was least sue- j sessful in the role of Malvolio in Twelfth Night. He said j that Evans had debased the part almost to that of a comic j butler, thereby being false to Shakespeare’s conception as well as to the interpretation of the play as a whole. i The 1941 production of Macbeth, on the other hand, j was deemed a personal triumph for Evans. Krutch wrote en- j thusiastically of the actor. . . . In him the public seems to have found for the j first time since the days of Sothern and Marlowe an ac- j tor whom it is willing to accept not merely in one role,| as it accepted John Barrymore and later John Gielgud, but as an interpreter of Shakespeare, and his Macbeth, now current at the National Theatre, is as sound and ^Krutch, "Virtue in that Falstaff," The Nation, j 148:184, February 11, 1939- ; 5°Krutch, "Twelfth Night," p. 541. j workmanlike as his previous productions.^1 ‘ Krutch repeated what he had said in an earlier review of ; I ; Evans, that the actor avoided freakishness or any new inter-; pretation--what he called "distortion"--and that he made the sensible assumption that the plays were worth acting for their own sake. In Macbeth. for example, the actor’s big ; scenes were the obvious ones, and he made no attempt to ! 'oversubtilize" the character of the hero.^2 The reviewer ! apparently made a distinction between freakishness or "dis- ■ 1 \ tortion" and originality in an actor’s creation of a tradi- ; tional role. Personality Acting I In general the critic judged personality acting to j I be among the poorest approaches to the acting art. There j were a few exceptions. He found in particular instances t ' some actors so exceptional that he praised their performance; in spite of the fact that they followed this particular ! style of acting; and of course the comedians or entertainers; Who were not considered regular dramatic actors and whose j stock and trade was "personality" were excluded from censure; I for practicing this type of acting. ! i Usually, however, he regarded as anathema the ex- j ploitation of the stage personality in legitimate theatre. ^Krutch, "The Evans Macbeth," loc. cit. 52-r>^ h The actor's play, he wrote, was a bad play. "No greater pitfall opens before the actor who has achieved a certain i jpopularity than the idea that to posture before an audience in some role flattering to his own vanity is to practice the art of acting."53 He advised Elsie Ferguson, whom he had seen in Mol- j :iar's Carnival, to stop seeking the play in which she could j 3ee herself too readily and too enthusiastically and to see j jfirst of all a sincere work "and, forgetting to a certain ^xtent her own too beloved personality, attempt to interpret. I „ Rll it. Once she had made for herself a reputation in an Emotional role, said the observer, and since then she had j been determined to be emotional at all cost. Krutch also i 1 | blamed the lack of character motivation and the lack of audij once belief in the play for her unconvincing performance. j ". . .no one can possibly care a whit because the play . . I Is about as near to any relationship with life as the marblef- fcopped and plush-covered elegance of the scene in which it „RR takes place is near to beauty. Above all, however, he felt the responsibility was Ferguson's for picking a bad Rg play with what she mistakenly thought was a good part.-' l An obvious display of vanity and egoism on the part j of actors was objectionable to the reviewer. j ^Krutch, "Advice to an Actress," The Nation. 120: 76, January 21, 1925* -^Ibid. 55Ibid., P- 7 5- 56Ibid. The wild gesture, the hysterical scream, and the j tearful eye become, when we understand their cause, j J somehow justified and acceptable, but they are ugly ! things in themselves, and to watch them with cold de- ! tachment is to conceive a distaste not unmixed with i contempt for those who are guilty of conduct so repul sively unaesthetic.5' Actors, remarked the commentator, were inclined to think j that the effect which they produced upon an audience was the, result of their own actions more than of the play which ex- ’ jplained them. Furthermore, they often felt that if certain i s emotional performances in a good play moved the spectators to enthusiasm they could not understand why the same trick transferred to a bad one should not seem equally impres sive.^® , In taking a stand against actors choosing bad plays j out of sheer ego and personal display, the critic reproved | Marjory Rambeau in the following manner: . . . if she insists upon ruining her career to gratify a desire for womanly nobility in the same fash- j ion that Miss Elsie Ferguson ruined hers by an inflexi- ; ble determination to play anything which would enable her to be ’ ’queenly,” she has only herself to blame.59 Irutch said that if any actor or actress appeared in a se- j cies of plays as persistently bad as those to which Rambeau ; nad lent herself, one could be sure that the performer him- j i i self had had a hand in choosing them. j . . .All enable her to be the noble and resplendent! woman who suffers with a smile. . . . very likely she j 57Ibid. 58Ibld< ^Krutch, "Miss Rambeau Enjoys Herself," The Nation, ! 123.:302, September 29 > 1926.__ _ . . . _____......... J thinks herself devoted to her art. I have no doubt that) she is one of those actresses who "feel their parts." j , But it is exactly here that the trouble lies. She feels) J them too wel'l^and too joyously to realize how preposter-i ous they are. 0 i i Most of the offenders of this exploitation of stage j personality, a type of acting which the observer found so j repellent, were women. Besides Ferguson and Rambeau he men-j tioned Tallulah Bankhead. ; She capitalized on her personality and dominated the! poles that she played, rather than letting the roles domi- i pate her. Referring to her as ". . .an actress of genuine,, if rather tenuous and decidedly decadent charm," he termed her performance in Antony and Cleopatra her victory over the' puthor.^ She also had assistance from the entire produc tion which seemed to the observer to have employed efficient- I I ky all the most elementary devices for getting between the ; play and its audience. Bankhead read Shakespearean verse in what Krutch considered was the most unsuitable manner possi-| t 6 d ble--in broken rhythms and husky tones of the blues singer.. In a revival of The Circle the reviewer accused her of not j even trying to act except intermittently. i . . . Between her occasional big scenes she either j does nothing at all or, what is perhaps worse from the ! standpoint of a performance, relies for attention upon ; 6oIbid. ^Krutch, "Wake Up, Jonathan 1" The Nation, 136:328, j March 22, 1933- ^2Krutch, "Getting the Best of Shakespeare," The Na tion ..,-145:568 .^November 20. 1937 • ................. : the casual exploitation of the charms of her voice or ! gestures or general personality.63 | I ; jn fact, his single commendation concerned her appearance ini | j The Skin of Our Teeth, in which she was reported to have givf In a "delightful performance."^ i ! i The Eagle Has Two Heads, by Jean Cocteau, was a ve- j iiicle for Bankhead. It was described by Krutch as theatri- j cal claptrap in which the actress spoke most of the lines J I - and was on stage most of the time. j . . . Obviously she is having quite as good a time j as her fans are, and there can be no doubt that her in- ; terpretation is -unique--alternating as it does a hauteur; that is as queenly as all get out with sudden, apparent ly involuntary lapses into that rowdy bonhommie which isi her natural manner.65 j j i3e remarked that her performance was similar to the one she j achieved in The Skin of Our Teeth. where she alternated be- j I i tween Lilith and a servant girl on the make, but that it i seemed more appropriate in the latter play. Bankhead, as the observer explained, treated Private; Lives as an occasion for a romp in her raucous style. The [>art of Amanda was originally written for Gertrude Lawrence, who played the part as a woman who more or less concealed ^Krutch, "The Unlearned Lesson," The Nation, 146: ! 513, April 30, 1938. i ^Krutch, "As It Was in the Beginning," The Nation, | 155:629, December 5, 1942. j ^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 164:405, April 5, ‘ 1947• ! 66Ibid. j her tempestuous promiscuity. Bankhead, on the other hand, I played the character without any deceptive outside. Since i ! it was difficult to believe that the stuffy second husband > could have been taken in, the whole "feeble little farce" seemed to the critic out of focus.^ Though English critics had heralded Elisabeth Berg- j i :ier as one of the best actresses of their time and had com- ' pared her with Eleanora Duse and Sarah Bernhardt, the Ameri-j can reporter said that she fell far short of the reputation i which had preceded her. She appeared here in 1935 in Escape . Me Never, a play which Krutch considered was a heap of the atrical rubbish. Of the actress, he wrote, ". . .an engag-j ing gamine who impishly bluffs her way from one meretriciouS| situation to another and who keeps you interested in her grotesque little self . . ."^ ■ While he conceded that great actresses did appear in weak plays, he expected their performances to lift the plays' above the ordinary level and to give them a poignancy and a meaning which they did not have. Bergner, complained the reviewer, got out of the play only what its author had put into it. She did not transform it or make it into something better than it really was. The commentator felt that the I ; play was not only meretricious but that it was simply an | ^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 167:444, October 16, I 1948. j ^^Krutch, "Elisabeth Bergner," The Nation, 140:167, I February 6, 1935. j easily actable piece which provided the actress with an op- ; portunity to be coy, impudent, tender, defiant, and melan choly at appropriate intervals. "... its tawdry romanti- ! cism and its endless succession of emotional cliches are all i actable with the minimum of effort, . . Far from re- j yarding her as the great actress, he declared that she was simply a clever and attractive young lady. i By appearing in Jenny, Jane Cowl was thought to havei been guilty of "something very like bad manners." The play ! could please no one, insisted Krutch, except the leading Lady. She portrayed the type of woman who was able to use her sex appeal to set everything right in a disarranged fam-j ily. She was supposed to be mysterious, fascinating, bril- i Jliant, and irresistible. "She comes surrounded by an aura j pf fame; she scatters pearls of wisdom; she scintillates ■ with wit; and she promptly dazzles every man or woman who sees her.She was of course on the side of the angels, j The critic accused her of romping through the play and punc tuating her remarks with throaty, self-satisfied chuckles j which seemed to say, "Mark that I and that I and that! Was ever woman so completely irresistible before?"^''1 ' The pro- j ceedings struck the observer as more than silly; he did not ! come "prepared with incense to burn." He was embarrassed byj Ibid. j 7°Krutch, "Bad Luck and Bad Manners," loc. cit. j _ 71Ibid. _ _ _ __ ..... _ _ _ _ _ .._..J the spectacle of anyone showing off. The stars who per mitted themselves this kind of Indulgence, wrote the review-: sr, had ultimately to pay the penalty for forgetting the im-j portant fact that the theatre existed to entertain the audi-: 70 > snce, not the actors.' I There were times when the critic acknowledged the j exploitation of personality on a stage but made exceptions, j Even though he usually disliked this kind of acting, or non-i kcting, he admitted that certain performers forced him to I ! respect their artistry despite his prejudice. George Arliss' I - jvas such an actor. Regardless of the fact that the reviewer i i nad objected to performers acting idealized projections of j themselves, as was the case of Jane Cowl and others, he madej an exception for Arliss and declared him a great artist. j He is an actor at his best in something which is probably less a reasoned impersonation than a projection; of his own idealized self into a congenial role, and he j acts crisp, domineering men well because he obviously enjoys seeming one. It is a dangerous method, responsi ble for some of the worst acting in the world by players; who might be more properly described as strutting rather! than acting. But Mr. Arliss has, in addition, an art to{ control and direct, so that the element of play, proper-] ly so called, in his impersonation merely vivifies his work. Pauline Lord was the other great exception. She was called "the most extraordinary temperament to be seen in ourl ?2Ibid. ^Krutch, "The Giant Race," The Nation. 120:50, Jan-; lary 14, 1925* theatre."7^ Krutch claimed that she did not interpret a I ! . ' part as much as she lived it. She created a character which: jnad an independent existence apart from any of the roles she had played; and she transferred it almost intact from play ; to play. Out of her own temperament she produced a certain . j | tragically bewildered woman. He compared her with Charlie ; Chaplin in that the audience was more interested in her than, in her roles; she was much more vivid than any of the inci- ; jients she enacted. Both Chaplin and Lord had a "certain persistence in pathetically frustrated impulses, a certain I i i . . 7 5 hopeless reliance upon desperately gay little gestures. '^ j The critic felt that she was especially suited to j her part in They Knew What They Wanted. Her work in Spell- I bound was an example of how an actor's skill could make an ! otherwise confusing play at least interesting. "... though one is never quite certain what the piece is about j Miss Lord holds one f a s c i n a t e d . j Ordinarily the observer objected to this kind of 1 acting, in which the personality of the actor took preced- j ence over the character, but he did not do so in the case of; Lord. While he admitted that an argument could be presented^ ! ! that she tyrannized over every role instead of interpreting ; it, he reflected that every objection must be brushed aside j ----------------------------- . . j 7 Krutch, "Pauline Lord," The Nation. 125:612, No- j vember 30, 1927- ; 75Ibid. 76Ibid. i in the face of her powerful temperament.77 He regarded her ; as the finest exponent of what he termed, in a technical : sense, "illegitimate" acting. She had a highly individual, ; vivid, interesting, and appealing personality; she always sxisted even when the role she was playing did not. In Sal-> vation the actress filled in what the playwright left out. : As for the play, "it is to Miss Lord that the real credit for making it effective must be given."7® 1 A few years later in another review, Krutch again compared the actress with Chaplin. Each one seemed to him ! ; i |to be acting in a kind of continued story about himself. In i = 1 ! Distant Drums, Lord played the woman of the vague gesture j pid infinitely pathetic helplessness. Even in an unsatis- j | I factory play as this was, he found that she had an appeal ; I i jtfhich was quite independent of her lines or situations. j ". . .we believe In her even when we do not believe in the ; incidents which she is enacting."79 j Though he wrote disparagingly of the melodrama, j Eight O'clock Tuesday, in which she appeared, he had nothingj put praise for her performance. Granted that there were j many roles which were unsuited to her talents, such as ro- j i | imantic ingenues, he nevertheless felt that the casting j 77Ibid. 7®Krutch, "Actors to the Rescue," The Nation, 126: I 220, February 22, 1928. ; 79Krutch, "Worse than Death," The Nation, 134:178, I February^10, _„1932.._ ___ .. | directors had not used her enough. "Her great roles were ! dominated by pathos, hopeless courage, and intolerable anxi- sty, ..." It was his opinion that no one was able to j Look more desperately unhappy than she and that she was par-j I bicularly skilled at relating the terror and anxiety to a | I character. ; Besides dramatic actors Krutch wrote about the group! that will be called entertainers or, in many instances, co medians. The fact that stage personalities were exploited Ln such cases was excused by the critic. Bobby Clark was an jsxample. His performance in the Theatre Guild's production t i of The Rivals in 1942 was praised. ". . . it is Mr. Clark j jtfho adds the touch of genius . . . he can be incomparably the most entertaining part of the proceedings while still 0 -j remaining, as he was not before, really a part of them." Krutch noted that he possessed many of the attributes charac!- teristic of the best low comedians. He had abounding energy; and was continually adding that last straw which broke any j mood of solemnity. "He has also a delight in his own anticsj which is irresistibly contagious, and that gleam of triumph j In his eyes, that conscious delight in his own folly, which j 82 asks for and gets the response of an audience." j ! ®°Krutch, "One Kind of Unemployment," The Nation, 152:81, January 18, 1941. ^Krutch, "The Rivals," The Nation. 154:101, January 24, 1942. i In doing the classics, such as Congreve's Love for Love, Sheridan's The Rivals, and, in 1946, Moliere's The Would-Be Gentleman, Bobby Clark transformed them. According to the observer, every time the comedian appeared in one of j i them he said to himself, "Well, there goes another portion Do of our cultural heritage." 3 The greatest low-comedy actor ‘ that he had ever seen had the time of his life in a frenetic5 vaudeville recognizedly based upon one of Moliere's best i satiric farces. He was a magnificent clown using the skele ton outline provided for purposes of his own. There was little left of the play as a satire on the new rich, which the commentator thought was just as well; as originally j jwritten it was so entangled with seventeenth-century concep tions of what was and what was not proper for a man not bom ja gentleman that it would have been rather difficult to dis entangle the part which remained good sense from the part which any modern audience was bound to see as mere snobbery.: "As a matter of fact, Mr. Clark becomes, not a butt of the piece but its hero--a fabulous embodiment of self-willed en- jergy whom any audience is bound to love and envy as it does ; I 5 Charlie Chaplin or any other great clown." , j As for the comedian improvising and making over | i jMoliere into something of his own, the reviewer pointed out ^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 162:108, January 26, | 1946. ! 84Ibid. I that Moliere himself was originally only a writer of skits for players. Clark had merely reduced one of the more elab-; orate pieces to something like the sort of thing its author j I I Wrote at the beginning of his career. "... thus Moliere is i ! f f i e | Dack where he started from. i A1 Jolson gave a large public what it wanted--a style which combined sentiment with frenzied rhythm. He represented, said Krutch, a phenomenon of cultural history. I A hysterical rendering of "Mammy," for example, resulted in j audience reaction which was described as "filial devotion j : Immistakably orgiastic."88 He confessed that he preferred a different type of funny man: one who kept in character. j . . .Mr. Jolson, like Messrs. Cantor and Jessel but! unlike Bert Lahr or Ed Wynn, belongs to the school which! loves to mingle sentiment with clowning and depends a i good deal upon appeals to intimate personal loyalty with! many references to family affairs.°7 Reviewed in a Cole Porter musical, Leave It to Me, ! Tictor Moore was regarded as too affecting to be funny. "His anguish, his bewilderment, and his shyness are so real I that I cannot laugh at them with a clear conscience, . . . " The observer explained that the comedian was too convincing;; there was too much nature and not enough art in him for his ; 88Ibid., p. 109- 88Krutch, "A1 Jolson and His Mammy," The Nation, 151:281, September 28,.1940. 1 87Ibid- 88Krutch, "Attention Dies Committee," The Nation. 3.^7:573, November 26, 1938. .................... taste. He was the eternal victim who got slapped and who did nothing about it. In his display of mild hopelessness he was "... the most heartbreaking clown of our genera- L j i i 89 bion. One quality which the commentator appreciated in j jBophie Tucker was her ability to tip off the audience that j her soul was not being lacerated and that one might laugh atj 1 i her without feeling like a heartless wretch. In watching j her in Leave It to Me, he decided that she was a comedienne of art who could put one at his ease.^0 | Not only did the critic report that Bill Robinson i ! iras an incomparable dancer, he called him one of the most i i authoritative comic actors in the country. Seeing him in j Memphis Bound, a "swing" version of H.M.S. Pinafore, he I < j • : stated that Robinson had that rare power of commanding at- s i tention. ". . .he needs only to lift a finger to focus | „Q1 every eye upon him. No serious actor playing, wrote Crutch in 1945, had that power; only two or three comedians,; | uch as Ed Wynn, approached it; and only Bobby Clark could ! 92 i ?eally challenge comparison with Robinson. ' Among the "professional fools" which the reviewer ^Krutch, "Throttlebottom Redivivus," The Nation, 150:716, June 8, 1940. ^Krutch, "Attention Dies Committee," loc. cit. ^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation. 160:705, June 23, 1945. 92 Ibid. noted in 1931, he chose Ed Wynn as the most satisfying to ; his mind and soul alike. "No one can exceed him in solid, : Impenetrable asininity, but no one can, at the same time, bei jnore amiable, well-meaning, and attractive."^ The comedian cultivated the defects of awkwardness, stupidity, and inco herence and made himself the glorious epitome of that par- ; jfcicular type of mental deficiency which flowered in the ful- Ly developed blunder.^ i In comparing him with other comedians, he discovered; Wynn to be superior. Charlie Chaplin, complained the re porter, had a streak of pure sentimentality which was highly distasteful. The charm of the Marx Brothers was their sheer: I uninhibited brutality. Americans were oppressed by the ex- : ! travagance of their own chivalrie tradition, said the criticj 1 ' ! jthus it was that the Marx Brothers were the funniest when jthey treated women with casual insolence. Ed Wynn, on the Lther hand, would never be rude. "He means so well and one j i ! kikes him so much that one often hopes against hope that, „ Q R just for his sake, something will turn out as he intended. j He complimented the comedian for having that rare ability to! i i i q6 out on a "clean show" without being offensive about it. j In reviewing Hooray for What, he wrote that Ed Wynn > i ^^Krutch, "Fools," The Nation, 133*582, November 25/ 1931 * ! 9^Ibid. 95Ibid* I ^Krutch, "New Year Suggestions," loc. cit. ! I had never been funnier than in that Lindsay and Crouse musi-- pal. He was impressed with his comic ability for committing! jthe worst blunders at the very moment when he was trying ! i hardest to get through a room or a sentence with the minimum pf mishaps. "Puns and bulls perversely happen in the midst j of the general helpless incoherence, and he has always the ■ air of being at least as surprised as the audience is."97 j While thousands of people in the theatre with no aptitude i were trying to acquire grace and poise and competence, Ed Wynn was divesting himself of these qualities. He was per- ! _ : i i fecting the skill of getting hopelessly entangled in his ef forts to tell a story. ' ■ . . . the intended point . . . grows steadily more j obscure until, by what appears to be a glorious inad- ! venture, a disconcerting point, apparently as far from j the speaker1s intention as it^was from the hearer's ex- j pectation, suddenly emerges.9® : Crutch credited him with being the Perfect Fool. Inferior Acting In general the observer reported that the standard j i or level of acting in this country was poor. The system of I jtype-casting was not alone to blame for the inferior condi- . tion of the art of acting. The players themselves, thought 1 I ! the critic, were also to blame. He complained that most ^Krutch, "Laughing Gas," The Nation. 145:693, De- I member 18, 1937* j ^Krutch, "The Fool Made Perfect," The Nation. 151: , 345, October 12, 1940. j actors were content merely to walk through a part, whereas j It was part of an actor’s job to invent the gestures appro- ' priate to a particular type of character, to fill the pauses! with eloquent expressions, and to discover bits of business ; | jflrhich would heighten the effectiveness of the scene.^9 Minor roles, he said, often gave the effect of being; well played because the card index of the casting director was sufficiently elaborate to enable him to locate the type which was called for. As for the leading players, the re viewer wrote that ' ’adequate" was about the best that could be said of most of them. In 1933 he commented that something ! over four thousand persons had appeared on the New York stage the season before. He declared, "Hardly a dozen of them book the trouble (if they had the ability) to create a char acter."100 | The following year, 1934> he again reported about the relatively few actors who deserved anything more than j "adequate" from the drama critics. Krutch repeated his ob servation made in 1927 that it was difficult for a reviewer Ito know anything about acting because the Broadway theatre j (afforded almost no opportunity for comparing the interpreta tions of two performers in the same role and because of the i (system of type-casting. Nevertheless, he ventured the re mark that there were probably not a dozen players of either I ' 1 1 1 1 1 1 "" ' ......... '“"'ti ' r'" ' ' "r"Tl ' " ” " ......... T-nrnnn-rr 1 ' { j 99Krutch, "Some Actors Who Act," p. 104. j 100Ibid. __ ...__.. _.. ___... j sex capable of giving an original conception of a character ' and projecting it in such a way as to give the spectator an insight which another performer would have failed to give.101 The critic complained of the inconsistency in the quality of American acting. All too many actors--including many very good ones--, seem to me to act only by fits and starts. They rise to1 their big moments--perhaps even to their lesser ones— but they cease to exist when there is not a specific scene to demand something of them, going out like can- j dies between the moments when there is a definite occa- ! sion for shining.102 j Dorothy Gish in The Bride the Sun Shines On was an example j>f an actress who rose to every crucial scene but seemed al most insignificant in the moments between. "... she has aj j i |ray of appearing to come suddenly to life when something definite is expected of her."103 He attributed this to the 'fragmentary technique" of the movies where she received her| ! ; first training. j American actors relied chiefly upon temperament and j imagination which were endowments of the good amateur, noted; j the observer. They followed their instincts and had a j I child's gift for ingenuous make-believe, but it led not to art at all but merely to temperamental indulgence. "... j our actors have for the most part been content to remain j 101Krutch, "On Adequate Acting," loc. cit. j 102Krutch, "For the Defense," The Nation. 142:55, | January 8, 1936. 1 103Krutch, "Westchester and Washington," The Nation,■ 134:54, ^January 13., 1932,....„... J what they always were--more or less clever improvisers who may not inappropriately be compared to those musicians who play by ear."10^ What the commentator claimed to see on the! | ; j - toerican stage was something which was half the actor him- j i 3elf and half the character he was supposed to be playing. The nearer the two happened to be identical, or the nearer i i jthe actor came to a mastery of his art, the less insistent , juras the effect of the two superimposed images.10- * j Katharine Cornell is an illustration of an actress j of uneven and limited ability who achieved a place of high position on the American stage. Krutch reprimanded her for appearing in slight plays. Why, he asked, if she aspired toj a high place in the contemporary theatre, did she devote twoj beasons to The Green Hat and then appear in a play as obvi- ! I j pusly unimportant as The Letter?10^ He also objected to her; I ' Ln Sidney Howard's Alien Corn. ”... her performance does ; not escape a certain monotony of woe. She suffers too con- j binuously and with too persistent and too loving a graceJ'10^ In the earlier years of her career, the critic had j Pound the actress to be excessively radiant and unpleasantly Luggestive of a type of woman too obviously looking for a j 10^Krutch, "On Make-Believe and Acting," loc. cit. 10^Ibid. j 10^Krutch, "Ibsen Again," The Nation. 125:431, Oc- j tober 19, 1927- 10^Krutch, "A Genius on Main Street," The Nation, 1 136:300, March 15. , 1933, ._ .... . _ _.... J convenient pedestal. He felt that her Juliet was pictorial-; ly effective but not emotionally profound. As Saint Joan, ; he considered that she gave her finest performance. "... her Joan could hardly be better."10® She played the role more as a peasant and less as the embodiment of girlish con secration than her predecessor, Winifred Lenihan, had in her, able creation of the role.10^ While Guthrie McClintic's production of Antony and j J Cleopatra suggested visually the grandioseness inherent in j I • the public importance of the two lovers, the observer was ; jiisappointed in the total effect of the production. He thought that the greatest fault lay in the acting, and that j the weakest performance in the play was Cornell's interpre- j tation of Cleopatra. He noticed that she was better in con-1 | ] I | jtemporary roles; she made an admirable Candida and was ex- ; I j bellent in the modernized Antigone, but Krutch discovered ler disappointing as Juliet and even less satisfactory as I Cleopatra. "Indeed, it would appear that the closer she ap-j / { proaches the grandest style the more obvious her limitationsj Decome."110 Though the actress was said to have suggested the j queen's "infinite variety," from coquettishness to regal j 10^Kruteh, "Shaw's Classic," The Nation. 142:392, I Yiarch 25, 1936. 1 1Q9ibid. ' 110Kruteh, "Drama," The Nation, 165:655, December ! 13, 1947. _ _______ _ ....... .....J splendor, she never got beyond the suggestion and was "not j really any of them." The reporter commented that the visual: effect, as with all her performances, was admirable--"she knows how to dress, how to pose, how to move"--but she sim- : j | ply was unable to speak Shakespeare's lines with even moder-' j ate effectiveness. Whole sentences were not even intelligi-^ i ble; she seemed to fail to put the stress upon the words ; irhich should receive it if the sense were to be made clear ; ! ! fnd her voice did not carry well. He further stated that ; she resorted to shouting, which did not make her lines any more intelligible. "Sometimes it seemed almost like the performance of a singer singing in a language she did not ] i ; ! imderstand. And without a Cleopatra who is a lord of lan- j 111 guage the play must fail." The classical role was the j rest which Krutch often put to the actors; if they failed, j ;hey were considered limited. Occasionally other writers became bold enough to criticize the critics. In 1937 Mary McCarthy wrote two ar- ; ricles for The Nation in which she accused the reviewers of j Incompetence in dealing with the criticism of acting. She ; remarked that they spent too little time discussing the ac- j tor and the art of acting. The critic answered McCarthy in ! tis regular drama column. He defended his giving greater j ! attention to play analysis than to performance analysis on ! i the grounds that recent drama had introduced novel subject 1 li:LIbid. matter and points of view which invited elaborate discussion! He also suggested the possibility that acting was less dis- pinguished than it formerly had been. Besides, he repeated, a critic had a difficult time learning about acting since he i rarely had an opportunity under the Broadway system to see a i>art acted by more than one person. It was difficult for | j phe observer to know whether or not a given actor was get- | j ping out of a part all that was possible to get. J j . . . The overworked adjective "adequate" may not I convey very much, but perhaps it often conveyed all we could be expected to know--namely, that the actor in ' question realized the obvious possibilities of the part. Whether or not genius might be able to discover more is a question not to be answered until genius has tried.112 Finally, he declared in the defense of reviewers, the critic wrote for the average playgoer rather than for the actor or student of acting, and both the critic and the playgoer were more interested in the total effect of a pro duction than in a technical analysis of acting.11^ The Personal Element in Criticism of Acting In criticizing acting Krutch seemed to indicate that ne was not on so sure a footing as when he commented upon playwriting. For example, in a review of Tobias and the Angel, a Federal Theatre Project in 1937* he wrote, ’ ’Even the acting seemed just what it ought to be. I suppose it is) 112Krutch, "Miss McCarthy and the Critics," The Na tion. 144:573, May 15, 1937- 113Ibid. not really very good; probably it is amateurish and unpol- ! 11 4 1 ished. But I like it. Acting, in the final analysis, then, was a question of personal opinion. At least this | britic was consciously aware of this. j j While John Gielgud’s Hamlet has been thought to be i i <Dne of the outstanding Hamlets of the present generation, i | j the drama critic of The Nation was of quite a different j opinion. He not only objected to the total production of j Hamlet in which Gielgud appeared but disliked the actor's ; performance in the title role as well. He said that the ' whole thing lacked the atmosphere of wonder which he felt must surround the play if it was to mean anything at all. ; i He accused Gielgud of having no conception of his part subtler than director Guthrie McClintic's conception of the ; play. j : j . . . He has a mellifluous voice and a graceful, al-^ most femininely graceful manner; but he will be chiefly ; remembered, I think, as the only actor who ever under- ; took to play Hamlet "like Niobe all tears," as opt so j much the "melancholy Dane" as the "weepy" one.11- 5 j Though Krutch granted that the harassed and hysteri-j ual Hamlet played by the actor might have been "appealing," j it was not, in his estimation, all or even the most impor- , bant part of Hamlet. The significant fact about Hamlet, j wrote the reviewer, was that he was a thinker and an ironistl i l1-^Krutch, "The Taming of a Shrew," The Nation. 144: | 544, May 8, 1937- ■^^Krutch, "With Hamlet Left Out?" The Nation, 143: I 500, October 24, ..1936. ... I Disappointed in Gielgud’s performance, he complained that j Hamlet's intellect and irony were hardly suggested and that j he saw only a dejected young man who finally worked himself ; j l i f t up to a hysterical blood-letting. Even the famous solil-; oquy struck him as completely out of character with the Ham let that the English actor was portraying and seemed a set piece which was embarrassingly "got through." | Laurence Olivier received an even more censorious review than John Gielgud when, in 1940, the former appeared \ in a production of Romeo and Juliet. The reviewer disliked 1 ! „ both Olivier and his co-star, Vivien Leigh. . . . the two ptars somehow manage to make Shakespeare's lyric tragedy keem a foolish and feeble play."11^ He complained that 6livier was even worse than Leigh. His voice, he elaborated., I I was so cultured and polite that it carried the faint sugges-i | tion of a lisp; his strange posturings in tights were con sidered to be so deliberate and exhibitionistic as to be al-i most indecent; and his whole conception of the role appeared; ;o be that of a ballet dancer. | . . . he leaps continually about the stage and tops j off every important speech either by some sort of pirou ette or by extending his arms high above his head in a j gesture which is not a lifting of the hands to heaven j but a sort of voluptuous stretch.Ho j To say that acting is a question of personal opinion) ll6Ibid. i ■^^Kruteh, "Drama," The Nation, 150:661, May 25* 1940. ll8Ibid. ______ __ | does not mean, in this writer's mind, that one person's ! opinion is as good as anyone else's. After witnessing sev- : jeral hundred plays and watching several hundred more per- j ] | jformers with a critical eye, the professional reviewer is | * more apt to have better judgment than the average person. i i ' I I ! The reader does not have to agree one hundred per cent with ; the reviewer's judgments, but he should agree a sufficient | number of times to give those opinions some kind of validityi Summary In retrospect several things seemed evident. For one thing, Krutch preferred a non-realistic style of acting. This was particularly true in the realm of comedy. He cred-j Ited Diderot for going beyond realism and establishing the concept of the paradox of the comedian. Krutch singled out the Lunts and Romney Brent as contemporary exponents of this! xind of acting which never allowed the audience to forget that the actors were impersonating. Victor Moore was an ex-; ample of a comedian who was too convincing and too natural; ais lack of art made it difficult for the critic to laugh at bhe actor's misfortune. I Krutch considered that theatre conditions of Broad- j way tended to perpetuate the realistic style of acting in which the actor was type-cast to play himself over and over ^.gain. He regarded this state of affairs as unhealthy and bne which promoted poor standards in the art of acting. The| reviewer preferred the atmosphere developed by repertory j groups in which the actor was trained to play many different! kinds of roles, as well as in different styles of acting. \ There appeared to be a contradiction between his i j general conviction that the real test of a superior actor i I was his ability to make an original contribution in a tradi tional or classical role and his specific remarks concerning! i Maurice Evans' interpretation of Hamlet and Macbeth. The ;ritic commended Evans for avoiding any new or novel inter- | pretation of Hamlet and Macbeth. On the other hand, he ! praised Eva Le Gallienne for her original performances of ; Juliet, Camille, and Hedda Gabler which broke from an earli er tradition. : | i J He was not always consistent in his attitude toward personality acting. Krutch seemed to have a particular | prejudice against women performers who displayed themselves i in flattering roles. He did, however, excuse George Arliss [ for appearing in roles which tended to be projections of his own idealized self; and he made an exception for Pauline ford whose unique personality dominated all the characters she portrayed. Krutch made allowances for Bobby Clark's changing Moliere to suit himself on the grounds that Moliere; * himself was originally a writer of' skits upon which actors j improvised. 1 When an actor failed in a classical role and was un-j j able to speak Shakespearean verse effectively or intelligi- \ bly, as in the case of Bankhead and Cornell, the critic was I inclined to judge the actor limited and inferior. In damning Gielgud's interpretation of Hamlet, jKrutch showed that he had the courage to reject a majority of critical opinion and to defend a minority judgment. CHAPTER III EXPERIMENTAL AND REPERTORY THEATRE Before World War I, the American theatre offered nothing except mediocre copies of prevailing Europein stylesl Though active and profitable, the New York stage failed to i produce any important theatrical literature of its own. "If j : England, with her Jones and Pinero, lagged behind the rest of Europe during the period of Ibsen, the United States lagged as far behind England.""*' American playwrights be- | I Longed to the school of the "well-made play" and their playsl I were framed in the surface realism of David Belasco. The outward realism of the Belasco kind was little concerned with the inner truth of the play. American drama, stated John Gassner, remained feeble until after the first World j War. "Even the kindest critics must concede Its decided in-j t 2 ! feriority to European plays." j The beginnings of what Francis Fergusson termed "The American Theatre" date from the end of World War I and the ; J I old Provincetown Players. According to him, it was not j j ___________________________________________________; _____________; ^Allardyce Nicoll, World Drama (New York: Harcourt, j Brace, and Co., 1949), p. 763. ! ^John Gassner, Masters of the Drama (New York: Ran- ! lorn House, 1940), p. 631. until the Little Theatre movement reached the United States from England and Ireland that Americans were no longer con tent to leave the theatre to Europeans and to the special jtribe of show-people.^ . . . New movements in our theatre always begin in more or less explicit opposition to the taste, the standards and the working conditions of the entertain ment industry. The Little Theatre movement sought an alternative to Broadway and all it stands for; so did the socially conscious theatres of the thirties, and so does the present "off-Broadway" movement. The history of our theatre for the last forty years may.be under stood as a succession of non-commercial theatres which failed, but in failing provided a much-needed shot in the arm--new artists, new ideas, new plays— for the commercial theatre which we have always with Though the immediate impulse of the Little Theatre j movement came from England and Ireland, explained Fergusson, Americans began to look beyond to the great repertory thea tres of the Continent. Copeau, the Moscow Art Theatre, Reinhardt, and the ballet visited this country, and the j young people of the American theatre went abroad to study with the masters. The refugee theatre artists began coming from Europe, such as Richard Boleslavsky and Maria Ouspen- skaya, who introduced local actors to the strict and suggest tive techniques of the Moscow Art Theatre. "It was argued I that we ought to have such theatres in this country, enjoy- ' lng the same sort of intelligent support as music and j ^Francis Fergusson, The Human Image in Dramatic Lit-; erature (New York: Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1957), P • 5^ ! ^Ibid.. pp. 5-6 . 1 strictly us . painting enjoy.’ ’^ i i In 1915 two important experimental theatres made 1 i bheir appearance: the Washington Square Players and the 1 Provincetown Players. Between 1916 and 1918 Eugene O'Neill j 3aw his famous one-acts of the sea performed and, in 1920, j nis first major work, Emperor Jones. During these same years, wrote Allardyce Nieoll, a group of playwrights with j j b'Neill at its head took the New York theatres by storm. ; | | Ihnong the new dramatists were Elmer Rice, Philip Barry, Max-; tfell Anderson, Paul Green, George Kelly, and Sidney Howard. ; 'By the mid-twenties their works were ousting nearly all 6 other dramas from the stage." Their success was in no small way due to the existence of new or experimental thea tre producers. As Mordecai Gorelik described the situation, the dramatist's choice of theme and his treatment of that theme were determined by theatrical producers. . . . Dramatists write with the expectation of in teresting not just the playmarket in general, but spe- j cifically George Abbott, the Theatre Guild, Guthrie McClintic, the Playwright's Producing Company or the j Group Theatre. The mere existence of the Group Theatre,j for example, causes certain types of plays to be com- ; posed which would not otherwise be written.' | Along with the creation of new and native drama, | there was a new interest in scene design. The first exhibi-| tion of American stage settings opened in 1919. The j 5Ibid., p. 8. 6Nicoll, op. cit.. p. 766. ^Mordecai Gorelik, New Theatres for Old (New York: Samuel French, 1940), p. 21. experimental work of Robert Edmond Jones, Lee Simonson, and | Norman Bel Geddes was shown. ; i I The English critic, Nicoll, stated that the American1 effort in theatre between the two wars surpassed anything i Accomplished during these same years by any other country. Though he considered that Bernard Shaw was the greatest j playwright of that period and that his work alone gave the ! Anglo-Irish drama a position of major importance, he ad mitted that the totality of the American contribution to the! theatre between 1920 and 19^0 went considerably beyond the Q British or French contributions of the same decades. Joseph Wood Krutch observed and wrote about this im portant period in American theatre history. His comments on the significance of these new and experimental theatre group i in America have been confirmed by later critics writing on j the subject. Though the influence of the off-Broadway thea-i tre was perhaps most effective during the 1920's, it con tinued as a force through the 1930's with the appearance of such an organization as the Group Theatre. Krutch was an I i admirer and supporter of repertory theatre, though it failed' |to establish itself permanently in New York. He was more impressed with the techniques used in expressionism than he was with the things which the techniques tried to express. ^Nicoll, op . cit.. p. 769* I Experimental Theatre Groups | Krutch was definitely attracted to the experimental, artistic, and non-commercial theatre groups. Of the less i | ! conventional theatre producers he pointed to the Neighbor- i ! hood Players, the Washington Square Players (afterward the j ^Theatre Guild), and the Provincetown Players. By 1925 these; groups had been operating for ten years, during which time j | | jfche critic said they had initiated a movement of the great- j pst artistic significance which affected show business it- 1 : a belf. John Gassner quoted Krutch on this point and re- f inarked that the commercial Broadway theatres had adopted the jiew methods of the "art" theatre.10 To the list of experi- j mental or art theatres Krutch added the Actors Theatre, the ! ! i Stagers, and the Cherry Lane Players. This new art theatre j I movement was responsible for three of the four outstanding I ! I | Kmerican plays of the 1924-1925 season, claimed the review- ; er.ll The four were What Price Glory? They Knew What They i Wanted, Desire Under the Elms. and Processional. Of the 1 last three, which were produced experimentally or off-Broad-; way, two of them were conspicuous commercial successes. The! regular commercially produced plays of that season, wrote j j ! Krutch, included only a few with merit. He mentioned Old i ^Krutch, "Summary I," The Nation. 120:672, June 10,j 1925. | 10Gassner, op. cit. . p. 638. I •^Krutch, "Summary I," loc. cit. English, starring George Arliss; Othello, with Walter Hamp- ' den; The Firebrand; and Arthur Hopkins' What Price Glory?12 1 ! ! The new group of experimental producers had discov- i ered that there was an audience for their plays. It might not have included the majority of the theatre-going public, j but it was a large and truly popular audience which was not : made up of special enthusiasts but of people who went to the1 theatre to be entertained.^ These new producers, added thej critic, were responsible for the best revivals of some of i the modern classics of the theatre. They included Candida. j baesar and Cleopatra. The Wild Duck, Rosmersholm, and Dif- j I f1 rent. The experimentalists were also responsible for pro-; | I eiucing some of the classics of the past, such as The Wav of j the World. Love for Love, The Little Clay Cart, and The 14 l Critic. Among the new producing groups, the reviewer ap- ! plauded the Theatre Guild for having thought of drama in j ? terms of life rather than in terms of the theatre. "... j [ the first article of its credo embodied the belief that evenj I an unpolished verity was preferable to the most silken of I |irtiflcialities.n1^ However, he felt that the Theatre Guildj i „ ! had gone over to the enemy camp when it performed a tri- | | i fling comedy" by Molnar, a play which had been previously 12Ibid., p. 673. 13Ibid. l4Ibid.. pp. 672-673.! ^Krutch, "Made in Czecho-Slovakia," The Nation. 121: ;>5Q, November 11, 1925- produced by a commercial manager, and when the following year, in 1925* it opened its season with a much more preten-; \ i pious and even emptier play by the same author. "The Glass j Slipper." wrote the critic, "would be offensive anywhere, j i I but to find it sponsored by the Guild is like coming upon a j i -i f . \ poster by James Montgomery Flagg in the Louvre." Thus, as, par back as 1925 the observer remarked upon the increasing timidity and conservatism of the Theatre Guild as a theatre ; producer. Nevertheless, the Guild and other experimental groups had helped bring about the awakening of the American theatre. The off-Broadway theatre production activity today i (1959) is not new. Krutch spoke of it in the past tense in j 1932. j . . . Seven or eight years ago, when I first began to write dramatic criticism for The Nation, the various j minor theatres were making very important contributions i to every theatrical year. In a single season we had, for example, A Man1s Man at the Fifty-Second Street, The Dybbuk at the Neighborhood, The Dream Play at the Prov- j incetown, and The Great God Brown at the Greenwich Vil- j lage. At least three of these plays were among the most important of the year, and we had come to depend upon j the little playhouses for intelligent performances of unusual plays.17 The reviewer's complaint in 1932 was that only the Provincetown Theatre had come intermittently to life and j that the commercial theatre had absorbed what one generationj l6Ibid. i ______ ( ■^Krutch, "A Political Melodrama," The Nation, 134: 552, May 11, 1932. j of insurgents had to teach and that no new group had arisen ; to take the place of the vigorous iconoclasts who had made i ; j?oom for themselves on Broadway. He spoke regretfully of the decline within a period of about five years of the "lit-! tie theatres" of New York. By 1932 they had fallen from an • 1 ft almost dominating position to complete insignificance. ! j i j The few appearances of off-Broadway productions ! I j which did take place in the thirties were apparently often j far from satisfactory. After suffering through a perform- ; knee by a group calling themselves Actors and Playwrights, ! the critic suggested that the once famous Provincetown Thea tre on MacDougal Street, which had seen such plays as The j Hairy Ape and The Emperor Jones, be cleaned up a bit and re verted back to a stable for h o r s e s .^ Prom the thirties, however, a new group of artists did emerge who were to be an important force in the New York! theatre. They were called the Group Theatre, "an organiza- j O f) ;ion of very high aims." Off-Broadway groups have played ! j a very significant role in contemporary American theatre, j Wen though the repertory theatre failed to establish itself! permanently in New York. ; l8Ibid. | •^Krutch, "The Queen of Song," The Nation. 136:216, j February 22, 1933* ■ 20Krutch, "Empire Builder," The Nation. 139:694, De-j 2ember 12, 1934. __ ____ __. j Repertory Theatre j , Krutch was partial to a permanent repertory type of ; jtheatre and in his column he encouraged the establishment of pich a theatre in the United States. He pointed to the high; artistic standards set by repertory groups in other coun tries, such as The Moscow Art Theatre and the Abbey Theatre.; He was concerned with the future of the Civic Repertory The-- ktre, whose plays had no obvious appeal to even the more arty portion of the general public. On October 25, 1926, Eva Le Gallienne and company moved into a dingy, old theatre on Fourteenth Street. Two plays were presented the first week of its existence. Though both plays were ambitious, ; the critic remarked that Benavente’s Saturday Night was a isecond-class work while Chekhov’s The Three Sisters was a j first-rate play extremely well done. The top admission price was $1.65, and the group had no imposing list of pa- ' trons. Society could not be tempted to the shabby building, which was not even picturesque like a Greenwich Village cel lar or a remodeled horse-barn. There were no fashionably high prices. The only reason to attend such a theatre, wrote the reviewer, was the desire to see a play which had j nothing, not even sensational novelty, to recommend it ex cept its own intrinsic merits. "Never before has the thing j n-j | been tried." I i ! ! 21 Krutch, "Something New in Theatres," The Nation. ! 123:488, November 10, 1926..... ............ ___ J ‘ i j The following year he commented reassuringly, "Miss : Le Gallienne has been conspicuously concerned with the re- ; cent past and she has shown remarkably good judgment in se- | | Lecting those relatively few plays of yesterday which it o p i would be a pity for us to lose." But in the fall of 1928 ; he spoke of the limitations of the Civic Repertory. ". . . j ner sorely tried company is called upon by the exigencies of, jthe repertory to perform feats of versatility beyond their capacity."23 He: also referred to the possible financial limitations of the theatre as well as to that "... some- I , I what impromptu air which often marks the production at this p 2 i theatre." By 1933 that company had ceased to exist. j The next attempt at repertory theatre in this coun try which he discussed occurred in 1946. The American Rep- I ertory Theatre, Inc., included among its personnel such peo-; pie as Cheryl Crawford, Eva Le Gallienne, Margaret Webster, ! and Walter Hampden. Krutch maintained that the time was j ripe, that a large public had now found that old plays were : not necessarily beneath its notice. j . . . After at least a quarter of a century during which any man or woman unwilling to be regarded as pro- j vincial held firmly to the opinion that everything ex- i j cept the latest hit was merely educational and therefore! | exclusively for children who get sent rather than for j 1 ■ 22Krutch, "Dutch Interior," The Nation, 125:486, No-J member 2, 1927- 1 i 23Krutch, "The Greatness of Chekhov," The Nation, 1 127:461, October 31, 1928. j _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 2^Ibid. _ _ _ _ _ _ . . . . _ . . . j ! adults who buy their own tickets, Shakespeare, Shaw, and various dramatists in between have been enjoying real rims. ^5 : The critic felt that the publicized visits of the Old Vic Company had helped to create a local interest in repertory i i cheatre. , Judging from two productions he saw presented by the American Repertory Theatre, Henry VIII and What Every Woman ;(nows, the reviewer was assured that the plays would be com-: petently directed, competently acted, decently mounted, and | that they would not be confined to the short list of first- ! rank masterpieces but would appeal to anyone with reasonably catholic tastes. He found Henry VIII a romantic history andj Henry himself an engaging and sinister figure, though he i complained that the formlessness of the chronicle history ; was a bit trying since it lacked unity and climax. Webster,' he observed, re-animated stage tricks no longer in fashion pid, with the aid of elaborate costumes and settings, di- j 26 rected the play as a spirited and picturesque peepshow. 1 [ In the spring of the following year, the critic j 1 warned the new company against dedicating itself to a cult of the worthy second best. He objected to the revival of Sidney Howard's Yellow Jack, which he had called childish 2^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 163:593j November 23» L946. 26Ibid, _ _ ... _._ _____________ _____ _ j the first time he reviewed it, in 1934*2^ "Could we not ! have more often plays of brilliance and passion and power, and does not their absence tend cumulatively to suggest a ; tepidness which threatens to grow merely dreary?" He re- j i i i isponded to Le Gallienne’s appeal for public support of the , American Repertory Company by writing that the theatre should offer a more attractive program; that the theatre j khould not present itself as one more obligation for the | harassed citizen to assume but as an entertainment and pleasT ure to be enjoyed.2^ The appearance on the program of a dramatization of Alice in Wonderland that same spring pleased Krutch, who remarked that it was an example of the kind of j jihing which a public would attend for delight rather than j merely out of a sense of duty.^0 The Moscow Art Theatre had long been a model of rep-! i ertory theatre at its best. The observer had admired per- j formances by this group both in Moscow and in New York. j Seeing a production of theirs of Lvsistrata when they toured! shis country, he made the following comment: j . . . no such perfect union of the appeals which the! theatre can make to the eye and to the ear has been seen: 1 i ! | 2^Krutch, "Chronicle Play," The Nation, 138:341, i March 21, 1934. j 2®Krutch, "Drama," The Nation. 164:313* March 15, 1947. 29rbid. . ] 3°Krutch, "Drama," The Nation. 164:495, April 26, I 1947, _ ____ _j I before on our stage, and the sensuous warmth of their j art makes anything of similar sort which we can offer I seem painfully chilly by comparison.-^1 ’ As Krutch explained it, the Russians for years had been ac- j Customed to sing or to dance the things which other people I ! ! had said and as a result their bodies were alive and elo- | • I quent. "It is with difficulty that we teach even the ex- ; pressions of our face to speak, and at the best our bodies . are dumb. These Russians, on the contrary, are eloquent ■ even to the tips of their toes."32 He called the production! <pf Lysistrata a beautiful and exciting spectacle and a see- : jiario for a pantomime, since the language was entirely Rus- i I sian. ! i Another foreign repertory group praised by the crit-j |.c was the Abbey Theatre Players, who visited New York in j 193^* His opinion was that they had achieved the "folk equality" more successfully than any other group he had ever ^een. After seeing Barry Fitzgerald and other Irish players| In a relatively unimportant play, Tanvard Street, he ob- j ^erved that the Irish as seen through the eyes of Irish playwrights made good dramatic subjects. The Irishman loved I "high talk" and loved scenes. "Abbey plays are unusually j interesting, partly because everybody in them is so j j 31Krutch, "The Russians Triumph," The Nation, 121: j 765, December 30, 1925- | 32Ibid. ..... _..... _......... _ _ _ .._____.....J oo ; interested and so willing to show it. J ! Expressionism As Nicoll explained it, the expressionists sought to' out the representations of man in the mass upon the stage-- j the crowd emotions--rather than searching into the reaches | of the individual soul.3^ The mechanistic nature of the ! present civilization was recognized and the problems of the effects of machines upon human beings were presented. The i expressionistic style in theatre was developed in Berlin be-; tween 1910 and 1920. Dialogue was given a staccato effect, ; symbolic characters were substituted for "real" characters, ; i realistic scenery was discarded, projections and lighting ! effects were freely used, and choral groups were often em- | 1 ployed. The works of the German Georg Kaiser and of the ; Czechoslovakian Karel Capek are examples of expressionistic j drama. Kaiser's From Morn to Midnight and Capek's R.U.R. , have been performed on the American stage in translation. Expressionism made an appeal to the young, experimental the-: I atre groups in New York. ' Krutch commented in one review that the lives of 999; i out of 1,000 persons were a series of meaningless actions, controlled by no principle either outside or inside them selves, which led to no conclusion either satisfactory to ^Krutch, "The Irish of It," The Nation, 152:192, j February 15, 19^1. • 34 __ Nicoll, op. cit. , p. 795* __ __ __ them or edifying to those who watched them.35 He called John Howard Lawson's play, Processional, an example of Amer-; jLcan expressionism produced by the Theatre Guild, a com- | |3letely successful attempt to mirror this state of mind. i ! Like other expressionistic plays, it suggested both the wild, disorder of contemporary life and the emotional exasperation; J ; ^hich it produced. While the things which Mr. Lawson ex- J pressed could have been said in straightforward plays deal- i jLng with social themes, the emotional effects, explained the; Reviewer, could not have been duplicated by any drama of j j conventional structure. "What one gets from the performance fs not the particular story which the play has to tell but j j;he sensation which it gives of the cries of disorganized i j humanity orchestrated in the form of a nearly formless sym- j I j phony."-5 He did not consider it a play for the general ! | i public. The observer found the expressionistic form novel 1 l : and arresting, though in December, 1926, he mentioned "last } season" as the one during which the Provincetown Theatre had! devoted itself chiefly to "disastrous experiments in expres sionism. "37 The techniques used in expressionism, such as the radical departure from conventional dialogue and set design,\ 35Krutch, "Jazz of the Spirit," The Nation. 129:99> ! January 28, 1925- 1 36ibid., p. 100. | •^Krutch, "Nodding Homer," The Nation. 123:567* De- j cember 1, _ 1926. _ _ _ _ _ _ __ j were often more striking than any of the things which these 1 jtechniques tried to express. The critic used Pinwheel, pro-; duced by the Neighborhood Playhouse, as an example. The ‘ plot and theme were excessively ordinary, but nothing new or, startling in the methods of presentation had been omitted. : . . . Constructivist settings, fantastic costumes, stylized gestures, broken rhythms, and discordant melo- : dies--all the technical devices calculated to shock and ' surprise--are called into play. The whole bag of tricks --expressionistic, impressionistic, constructivistic, j and what not--is opened at once. . . . the result is un-: usually impudent and noisy carnival, something always surprising enough to keep the spectator wondering what will come next andoSomething which is occasionally gen- ; uinely effective.3° Expressionism, said Krutch, had one thing in common ; with classicism: it tended to represent life under its gen-! eral rather than its individual characteristics, and, like | classicism, it was continually in danger of having at its j center mere commonplace.^ Summary The fact that an important critic of the theatre, i such as John Gassner, quoted Krutch on the subject of the i awakening of the American theatre by experimental theatre producers of New York indicated Krutch's stature as an ob server of this phenomenon. This investigator, however, felt, that Krutch*s complaint that the commercial theatre had | 3®Krutch, "Fireworks," The Nation. 124:216, February! 23, 1927. j 39ibid. j absorbed the ideas and the men of the earlier art theatres ! pas unjustified. By winning their battle and, consequently,: i jthe Broadway theatre, the raison d’etre of such experimental, i \ theatres as Provincetown Players and the Washington Square j i Players ceased to exist. j Through Krutch's encouragement of the experimental ; or off-Broadway movement in his critical writings, he helped; j f c o develop an audience for the new producers. In 1925 he Reported a weakening of the Theatre Guild’s original purpose i of bold experimentation. His support of repertory theatre in this country was also constant and enthusiastic but critical. Though he con- inually sought through his column the establishment of a permanent repertory theatre in the United States, he criti cized the Civic Repertory for performing plays beyond their ; bapacity and for presenting productions which sometimes seemed to suffer from a lack of preparation and rehearsal. i Concerning the later American Repertory Theatre he wrote that they should avoid reviving second-rate plays and assure themselves of public support by offering a program of better plays. I ! J Krutch was able to see a comparison between classi- | cism and expressionism; they both represented life accordingj o its general rather than its individual characteristics, j i 3e complained that too often the techniques of expressionism! tfere more interesting than the things they tried to express.' CHAPTER IV MUSICAL COMEDY AND REVUE The comments which Krutch made concerning native mu sical drama and revue covered that period during which the | American musical comedy developed from the crude beginnings • of operetta into the sophisticated combination of plot, mu- ; sic, and dance that has reached a high degree of excellence. Interestingly enough, Cecil Smith, in his book, Mu sical Comedy in America,^ concluded that the musical comedy j jtfas not a unique American contribution to the theatre. "In j Its basic form, musical comedy is not specifically American ; I i oven now."2 He pointed out that the theatrical form in which speaking and action were alternated with musical set- : pieces and usually with dances, with some sort of plot as > the chief unifying factor, was the form of Singspiel, comic opera, operetta, opera-bouffe, burlesque, and pantomime as i well as of modern American musical comedy. "It is, in short, the form of all musical works for the stage except revue, ; ballet, and through-composed opera."3 j i I , ! J*Cecil Smith, Musical Comedy in America (New York: j Theatre Arts Books, 1950). j 2Ibid.. p. 3^9. 3Ibid. ! i The American contributions to this theatre form, ex-: plained Smith, have only been the surface improvements. Mu-: I j 3ical and dance numbers emerged from plot and characteriza- ! fcion more smoothly and spontaneously and often helped to move the plot forward. The plot materials of the Broadway musical stage have become American in varying degrees. i "Certainly the subject matter and viewpoint of contemporary musical pieces are drawn more largely from the American I i scene and from American experience than they were before the, first World War."^ I The whole tone of American musical comedy, observed Smith, had reflected in striking fashion the national moods,j attitudes, and interests over the past thirty years. j . . . The cynicism of the 1920's was mirrored in the) shows whose main concerns were raucous jazz, naked girls, and jibes at prohibition. The saddened 1930's, the years of the depression, produced sharp social protests,; expressions of nostalgia for better days, and idealistic: hopes for the future. The late 1940's and early 1950's j have plumped for Romantic escapism, whether into Scot- j land, the islands of the Pacific, or the United States | in the mid-1920's.5 j i The 1920's ; It seems revealing to this investigator that in 1926: ilrutch wrote that he preferred the revue to the musical com-! edy because the revue was frankly built around bodies and 6 ^ bad no stupid plot to bore the spectator. The book for thej 4Ibid., p. 350. 5Ibid.. p. 351. | ^Krutch, "Of Revues," The Nation, 122:41, January 13.^-192-6,___ ________ ___ ........ ................. early musical comedy was apparently quite bad. The musical i • pramas at that time were more often called operettas; a die-; tlonary definition of operetta is "A musical-dramatic work ’ with slight plot, cheerful music, and spoken dialogue."? The "slight plot" seems to hear out Krutch's contention. i T q \ The reviewer found the revue less pretentious. Its music, j .ie said, was frankly no more than the music of the dance, ' Dut it offered the swaying body and the nimble limb as com- | pensation. He saw nothing shocking about the increasing nudity. "What was called in my boyhood 'a leg show' has all; the vulgarity of the keyhole, but the frank nudity of bodies brained to rhythm has its genuine b e a u t y . j One of the chief reasons for the popularity of the j revues was that of all forms of theatrical entertainment-- i this was before television--they required the least active j participation on the part of the audience. ■ . . . there is no plot to follow and no characters j to remember . . . it gives one a pleasant, almost Orien-; tal, sense of magnificencevto see so much endured for ; one’s mere entertainment. ''All the .performers are in a I ^Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary (Springfield, ]Vlassachusetts: G. and C. Merriam Co., 1953)* P* 588. Q According to Bernard Sobel, a revue is "A musical production, more like a variety show except for its fixed bast, made up of a series of sketches, songs and dances; a pevue is akin to a musical comedy but lacks any given plot." Bernard Sobel, The Theatre Handbook (New York: Crown Pub lishers, 1950), p. 661. ^Krutch, "Of Revues," loc. cit. ! state of ceaseless, almost epileptic activity.10 ! i j The first musical comedy which received an enthusi- : ^.stic review from the critic was one sponsored by Oscar Ham-; merstein II, entitled Sweet Adeline. Most musical comedies,! | » l wrote Krutch, were guilty of pseudo-gentility, fourth-rate j sm, and "tinkling little tunes." "Refined" always : seemed to him the most damning adjective which could be ap- ‘ plied to a musical show.11 This was written in 1929 when j the operetta was more common than the Hammerstein musical. [The reviewer disliked the operetta-type musical; he pre- ; I f erred the more elementary musical revue--"When speed, naked ness, and noise are glorified with abandon which character- j izes the most frenzied of our revues, I revel sedately, and j npi am not bored unless the producer aspires to better things." , However, when Hammerstein aspired to something better in the; way of a more intelligent book, he approved and recognized j something superior in the American musical entertainment j field. ! Sweet Adeline (September 3> 1929) made no use what- ! ever of the appeal of bare skin, noted the critic, and it i ! had a plot which was being remembered at least half of the ( [time. Two striking features marked this musical as superior! ! . . . - . - ! 10Krutch, "Bigger and Better," The Nation, 122:6l6, j June 2, 1926. I 11Krutch, "Mauve Decade--with Music," The Nation, 1 129:310, September 18, 1929- ; _ 12 Ibid- - .......................................... to others he had seen: . . . (l) The librettist exhibits some signs of that1 intelligence and wit which seem generally denied those who compose librettos; and (2) several of the performers! are possessed of talents first-rate in their kind in- ! stead of being, as the stars of semi-serious musical comedy usually are, merely people whose voices are not j good enough for opera. In this new kind of musical Krutch saw a quality which was j almost literary, "a kind of sophistication quite different from that . . . of the rowdy review."1^ He referred to this new type of musical comedy of Hammerstein's as a "witty operetta."1* * The 1930's Not only the musical comedy but the revue as well ! was changing. Flying Colors (September 15, 1932), produced | t by Max Gordon, belonged to a newer tradition of good taste I i and refinement. . . . Scorning the dreary pomposity of the typical Ziegfeld exhibition no less than the deafening vehemence; of the Shubert revue, it undertakes to beguile us with ; graceful dancing, well-mannered comedians, and sets j which are soothingly rather than exasperatingly ingeniusl If lavishness be the keynote of the Follies. and noise j be the keynote of the Scandals, then taste is the key- ! note of the typical Dietz revue, and it is taste which is conspicuous in nearly every scene of Flying Colors. While Krutch considered it first-rate, he questioned how far i 13Ibid., p. 311- l4Ibid. •^Krutch, "Holiday Fare," The Nation. 130:22, Janu ary 1, 1930. l6Krutch, "Ridi, Pagliaccio," The Nation. 135:318, October 5# 1932. one could refine a species of entertainment which originated with the burlesque show. . .if Plying Colors has a j fault, it is exactly the fault of being almost too impecca bly chic."1^ Shubert's Pollies in 1936 was an attempt to revive he tradition of the Ziegfeld Follies. The extravagance andj expense were evident. The reviewer's objection was that it Lacked spontaneityj entertaining on that lavish a scale 1 f t seemed too serious a business. Though the newer type of hevue had made him discontented with the older type, it was evident that in the 1930's Krutch had not yet fully accepted bhe more polite and refined revue. The same year in which Shubert's Follies appeared, L936, the critic reviewed On Your Toes (April 11, 1936). He noted that a newer kind of tone was creeping into the musi cal . The newer pace was a sort of polite saunter and the fiewer musical mode was a confidential, insinuating, almost |.ndolent melody which had lost the blatancy of jazz. He at tributed this to the influence of the kind of entertainer who flourished in the politer night clubs of the city. . . the result of it is that the revue which was born of burlesque and vaudeville is tending more and more in the 17Ibid. •^Krutch, "The Follies Must Go On," The Nation, 142 231> February 19, 1936. I j direction of a much more intimate kind of entertainment."^ ' The commentator felt that the days of breath-taking speed, dazzling color, and deafening noise were over. Though he < j j jiid not venture a decision as to which style was better, he i hid think that the newer one had a more limited appeal than the older and that this might account for the ill-success j I p r y phat many of the musical shows were suffering that season. Other causes might have been the depression, the growing popularity of the motion picture musicals, and the fact that the revue was in a period of transition and failed to please a large and popular audience. Another element often found in the newer type of mu-j sical in America was satire. This was not new in world the atre history--The Beggar^ Opera contained a great amount ofj 3atire--but it was relatively new in the history of the j American musical comedy. The satire in Of Thee I Sing (De- ■ member 26, 1931) was referred to as savage. j . . . Kaufman and Ryskind are dealing bludgeon-like ! blows because there is an anger in the air which makes j them seem justified, and the audience roars its approvalj of slogans like "Vote for Prosperity and See What You Get" in a fashion which suggests that its rage might be | ominous if,it were not, for the moment, released through: laughter.21 i pit was doubtful, commented the reviewer, whether there had j j ...... ! •^Krutch, "Polite Revue," The Nation, 142:559* April! 29, 1936. | 20Ibid. ! p 1 Krutch, "Westchester and Washington," The Nation, 134:56. January 13, 1932_,_. _ .... ........_. _ _ ____ ever been a time before when the general public had found ! pleasing so raucously contemptuous a treatment of the whole I ! spectacle of American government from the President to the i p p Supreme Court.^ i Krutch favored such satirical musicals as The Three Penny Opera (April 13* 1933)* a contemporary version of The ; ! ! Beggar1s Opera. He called it a brilliant work, though some ■ i i ' ! pf the reviewers gave the production what he felt was a "tepj kd reception." After seeing a Somerset Maugham play and The' Three-Penny Opera in the same week, he reflected on the fact; jthat a large portion of intelligent and talented men poured jsuch scorn upon themselves, upon their times, and upon man | i himself. He wondered whether any previous age in man's his-i j I tory had ever reviled itself as bitterly as this one had.2^ i Occasionally Krutch disagreed with practically all (the other critics. He cast a negative vote for Porgy and j ; Bess (October 10, 1935), an American opera with music by j beorge Gershwin. He thought the production too elaborate Jand the total effect not unlike something produced in Holly-: wood when they were determined to outdo themselves. The story seemed to him romantic and "colorful" rather than con-j vincing, superficial rather than emotionally penetrating. 'Picturesque pageantry and music were used to cover up j 22Ibid. [ 2^Krutch, "Maugham at His Best," The Nation, 136: 512, May 3, 1933- i dramatic deficiencies. The critic conceded that he had no equipment for musical criticism, but he ventured the opinion; that the opera was lacking in memorable melodies and dramat-, :Lc effect. He felt that the production was mechanical rath-; er than imaginative. j . . . The various assaults upon the spectator’s feeling have been arranged with all the elaborateness of] a military campaign. Literature, music, dancing, and ' pantomime converge upon him. His senses are bewildered ! and almost taken by storm.24 ; While any of the above arts had had the ability to move the : observer before, the combined forces of all these arts failed to impress him in Porgy and Bess because he claimed that generalship was no satisfactory substitute for feeling j pnd imagination. j \ | j The robust music and honest low comedy of Kndcker- ] pocker Holiday (October 19* 1938)> on the other hand, ap- ] pealed to Krutch. He called it the first musical show in i years in which no one went to sleep in the middle of it. yiaxwell Anderson wrote the book and Kurt Weill composed the nusic for that unusual 1938 production. It was a renewal of i t i that tradition of musical comedy which assumed that sophis-j tication" was less important than liveliness. While ap- ! plauding Knickerbocker Holiday, he took the opportunity in j his review to deplore the pernicious anemia of the average musical show. ________________________________ j ok ! Krutch, "Dissenting Opinion," The Nation, 141:519, October 30* 1935* . . . Ordinarily it is no longer even vulgar, and ! refinement has meant only the gradual elimination of one element after another until nothing is left except a | collection of plain young ladies listlessly chanting de-| liberately casual words to affectedly casual tunes. 2 5 j The music of Richard Rodgers was commended in a mu- i i I i sical version of The Comedy of Errors entitled The Boys froml Syracuse (November 23, 1938). The reviewer commented that \ | ; the score was fuller and more ambitious than that of the ' I usual musical comedy. Many of the songs he considered gen- j 26 uinely original. 1 ; ! The 1940's j During this period the musical comedy in America de-; I ' veloped a high degree of sophistication and style. In 1941 ! | i there appeared on Broadway what was perhaps the finest musi-| cal until that time. Lady in the Dark (September 2, 1941) j enjoyed a rare combination of talents: Moss Hart wrote the ! book, Ira Gershwin wrote the lyrics, Kurt Weill composed the; i nusic, and Gertrude Lawrence was its star, assisted by Danny, £aye. The observer was pleased with the production, which 1 le said expressed faultless showmanship and was not a series; 3f events but a whole.The transitions between realism ; and fantasy were smooth, and the scenes of fantasy were ! I •^Krutch, "A Good Beginning," The Nation, 147:489, November 5, 1938. 2^Kruteh, "New Wine and Old Bottles," The Nation. i 147:638, December 10, 1938. j 27Krutch, "Darkness Visible," The Nation. 152:164, j February 8, 1941.......... ............. _ _ _ _ J especially impressive. i . . . they achieve more completely than any recent j musical comedy or operetta I can remember that mysteri- | ous thing called style, and . . . the style includes both satiric and psychological overtones which give new meaning to otherwise conventional routines.2® Though all the talents contributed toward its suc cess, the critic suspected that Kurt Weill's music might I ! liave been the most important and most original element in the show. He regarded the music as the most effective that j ne had heard in the theatre for a very long time--"delight- ! fully unhackneyed, expressive, and evocative."2^ I When a musical did not appeal to Krutch, he some times complained of its "sophistication” and good taste and j i stated that he preferred the cruder revue. Such was the j base in reviewing George Abbott's Beat the Band (October l4,j J ■ . - - - | j j jl942). He commented that he had no fondness for such polite; and plot-ridden musical comedies and that he frankly pre- j I Jferred the more orgiastic revue. He confessed a prejudice kgainst what he termed the "sophisticated operetta.This prejudice against the more complex musical comedy was to change by the middle and late 1940 1 s. j Oklahoma! enjoyed the longest run of any musical j piece in Broadway’s history. Rodgers and Hammerstein, wrotej Smith, created the first all-American, non-Broadway musical 28Ibid. 29Ibid. ! 8°Krutch, "Drama Note," The Nation, 155:^58* October 31, 19^2. ; comedy "independent of the manners or traditions of Viennese; comic opera or French opera-bouffe on the one hand, and | Forty-fourth Street cliches and specifications on the j bther.''^1 ; I Some of the things which surprised the reviewer ; about Oklahoma ! (March 31* 19^3) were that it strove for j good taste, that it was an "operetta," not a revue, that it ; had a romantic story, and that it was vastly entertaining atj the same time that it was fresh. He acknowledged that he found most American operettas which strove for good taste i tedious beyond endurance and that he considered most of i i Broadway's musical shows were good in the degree that they j were rowdy, slapdash, and orgiastic. "We do the Bert Lahr- Bthel Merman sort of thing better than it was ever done be- f fore . . ."32 With Oklahoma!, wrote Krutch, a fresh source ! of local color was discovered, not from the night club or a i mythical kingdom but from the wild and woolly West at the j I turn of the c e n t u r y . j He called Oklahoma I one of the most lively, enter- | taining, and colorful musical comedies he had ever seen. He! reported that Richard Rodgers' music was original and tune- j ful, Oscar Hammerstein's lyrics were witty, Agnes deMille's j i_______________ _ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ■ 31Smith, op. cit. , p. 3^3- j 32Krutch, "High, Wide, and Handsome," The Nation, j 156:572, April 17, 1943- 33ibid. choreography was both beautiful and comic, Rouben Mamoulian's direction set a vigorous tempo, the sets were interesting, and performers--such as Celeste Holm and Alfred Drake--were I first class. The critic predicted a long run for Oklahoma1 . , j The forties were a rich period for American musicals. j i Carousel (April 19, 19^5) was regarded by the observer as | ; not only second to Oklahoma' . among all the current musicals ; of that season but, by comparison, the very best of the oth-j crs seemed limping, childish, mechanical, and tawdry.35 Rodgers and Hammerstein, noted the critic, seemed to find their best inspirations in rustic rather than urban back grounds, though both of them grew up in New York City. He ] also remarked that both men were at their best when writing j I and composing something fresh, cheery, and youthfully inno- j cent. Oklahoma I was their best musical, he said, and a more1 buoyant story than Liliom was needed for their best and most i ^characteristic work. j The three best lyrics and the three best melodies, j ( :naintained the reviewer, were all gratuitous additions quite) independent of the mood of sentimental pathos which had been 1 [ set by the playwright Molnar in Liliom. Two of the tunes, j I - I : "June Is Bustin’ Out All Over" and "This Was a Real Nice j piam Bake," were similar in their spirit of hearty cheerful-] Less to "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning" from Oklahoma 1; and a! i_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ I I 3^+ibid. ---- 1 I ____35^-r^ Ch D r a m a The Nation, 160:525, May 5, 19^5 » j third tune; "There’s Nothin’ So Bad for a Woman," was in the; manner of the comic songs from that same musical of the West.36 His main criticism of the production was of the di- i rector, Rouben Mamoulian, who over-crowded the stage. j . . . Being a specialist in handling crowds, he seems always anxious to exhibit his virtuosity and to ! complicate the maze by adding a few more figures. And with it all, the groups begin to be too studied, too ob viously effective to be really so.3' j The controversial Allegro (October 10, 1947) re ceived a negative reaction from Krutch. As far as he was Concerned, the Rodgers and Hammerstein offering for 1947 was 'tedious beyond endurance." He wrote, "Lack of humor is notj in itself fatal; lack of spirit and passion and joy certain-! JLy is."36 He reported that the musical comedy was only pre-j itentious and languid and that what was intended to be seri- ; i pus was only sentimental and platitudinous. The plot con cerned a young man who realized just in time that worldly ; success was not worth what it cost in dignity and self- respect. According to the critic, it was a morality play in! which nothing fresh or new was said. He added that the pro-! i duction was fearfully expensive and fearfully elaborate, : i ! I with crowds of performers and many scenic devices. Not one j 1 36Ibid. 37Ibid. 1 ... .. t 38Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 165:567. November 22,! 1947. .... | •3Q of its songs sounded as good as half a dozen in Oklahoma I He concluded with the remark that some of the critics had | hailed Allegro as a masterpiece. | South Pacific (April 7, 1949) was more happily and gratefully received. Not since Oklahoma 1. claimed the re viewer, had Rodgers and Hammerstein had so good or so happy a score. Though South Pacific was somewhat more convention-, kl and did not delight him as Oklahoma I had done, it did possess a freshness, a sense of style, and an air of sincer- x . 40 ity. As the musical comedy developed into such artistic hows as Oklahoma I and South Pacific, Krutch changed his po sition from the twenties when he stated that he preferred a kevue built around bodies with no "stupid plot" to bore the spectator. Summary While Krutch reflected the taste of the 1920‘s by preferring the plotless revue over the more complex musical somedy, he was able to recognize the superiority of the more intelligent book in Sweet Adeline (1929), a Hammerstein mu sical . s ! He was also able to detect the increasing refinement and good taste of the revues of the 1930's which he ^Ibid., p. 568. > ^°Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 168:480, April 23, J attributed to the influence of the night club entertainer. It is this investigator's opinion that Krutch wrongly blamed; the use of the more polite form of revue for the lack of j kuccess of many of the musicals of the 1935-1936 season. j The country was suffering from depression, and the motion ! pictures were replacing the legitimate stage as the popular I entertainment. A ticket to a Hollywood musical was less ex-' pensive and less bother to obtain that a ticket to a Broad- j i way musical. The critic's prejudice against more refined and so- ; phisticated musicals continued into the early 1940fs, even though he acknowledged the excellence of Lady in the Dark j (l94l). From the time of Oklahoma 1 (1943)* however, he rec-j ognized not only that good taste could be entertaining but ; 1 that the more mature musical comedy form was superior to the; orgiastic revue. The American public, as well as Krutch, ; j changed their predilection for the revue in favor of the mu-j sical comedy. People like Weill, Rodgers, Hart, and Hammer stein, who set newer and higher standards on the New York musical stage, were at least partly responsible for the j change in taste of the American public from the 1920's to j the 1940's and 1950's. j Evidence of the reviewer's independent judgment was | seen in his criticism of Porgy and Bess. Differing from the! :najority of critics, Krutch reported that a superficial sto-j ry had been smothered in spectacle and that the over-all | production was mechanical rather than imaginative. CHAPTER V A COMPARISON OP \ THE CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN THEATRE WITH THE CONTEMPORARY EUROPEAN THEATRE ! i | The European theatre in this chapter refers to the j four main national theatres in Europe of the twentieth cen- , bury: (l) the German theatre, (2) the Russian theatre, (3) jbhe French theatre, and (4) the English theatre. There has I I been no attempt to rank them according to importance; they j p?e simply discussed in the above order. The first two Eurot pean theatres, the German and the Russian, were observed I | firsthand by Krutch when he made a visit and a study of them ciuring the spring and summer of 1928. The comments on the German and Russian theatres refer entirely to that period inj the late twenties when the critic was in Europe. In Berlin he compared American acting with German acting; and he commented upon Piscator, his propaganda plays; and the ingenious new stagecraft inspired by the Communist j j theatre of Russia. ) I ; In Moscow the reviewer described the revolutionary j I stagecraft, which had been copied in Berlin and in New York,I I and pointed out the differences between Piscator’s "Russian"; theatre and the real Russian theatre. He remarked upon the isolation of the Russian theatre from the theatres of the West, upon its censorship, and upon its complete political j or propaganda purpose. He reported on two interviews he had, had with important men: one with Eisenstein of Russian j cinema fame and the other with Lunacharsky, Commissar of Ed-; ication and head of all state theatres. Also, he reflected : upon the influence of the Russian theatre upon the American ; bheatre. The last two European theatres, the French and the i ; iSngllsh, were analyzed over a much longer time span: in the case of the French theatre, from 1927 to 1948, and in the j case of the English theatre, from 1929 to 1949. Krutch's j ! 1 observations were those he made in New York after witnessing, French plays, usually in translation, and English plays, many of which had been former London successes. He judged i the theatres of these countries from the French and English ; plays which appeared on Broadway. i i The critic compared the French violence of the Grandj I Guignol with the violence found in American drama, and he 1 compared French with American farce. He also described the , i i i Existentialist attitude and the drama of Jean-Paul Sartre. i I j His comments concerning the English theatre were | i naturally more extensive since he saw many more English I 1 i plays than he saw of any other European country. The review er contrasted English with American drama in terms of their ■ relative degree of passion and violence. He wrote of the difference between the New York and the London audiences. ; J i finally, he compared the English plays of crime and terror | with those of America. ; ! 1 [ The German Theatre While visiting Berlin in 1928, Krutch reported that ! modem German dramas were no better than those found at home! j 3e discovered, however, that German actors were far superior to American actors. He called the German school of acting "the most striking and admirable feature of the German thea- 1 tre. Whereas in America the actor was primarily a person I i i who exploited his personality, "part bathing beauty or j mountebank," in Germany the actor was regarded as an artist,) 1 ;iot as a public pet. i . . . He is esteemed as a great writer or a great musician is esteemed, and he is expected to justify this1 attitude toward him by practicing a genuine art. People, here do not "go on the stage" simply because they happen] to be pretty girls or "interesting looking" men. They j study acting with the same seriousness that any other art is studied, and the result is not only that various j great actors are produced but that the general level of j competence is far higher than that in the United States. ; In America the system was based on type-casting, trusting to! I ! nature to supply the deficiencies of art, but, said the Critic, the system did not work. Nothing the observer saw j in the Berlin theatre seemed to him so worthy of study by i ■^Krutch, "Piscator and the German Tradition," The 1 Nation. 126:644, June 6, 1928. ( 2Ibid. ....__......... _ _,_J New York producers as its tradition of great acting, which j was still kept up even when there were few new plays worthy i of it.3 ; During that same 1928 visit to Europe, he referred jbo Erwin Piscator as the most-discussed figure in the the- j [ ^ J atrical world of Germany. Krutch regarded him as "an en- ! ibhusiastic Communist" whose productions served to some ex- 4 ! tent as revolutionary propaganda. | I | I In the hands of Piscator the dramatist’s script be- ; came no more than a scenario upon which the director exer cised his own ingenuity. He used every mechanical and elec- trical device that modem stagecraft had developed in order j o surprise the audience continually with unexpected and I grotesque effects, "not, as, for instance, Reinhardt used j t j them, for the purpose of creating a sustained illusion."3 In Piscator's productions a loudspeaker, fixed high up on bhe proscenium, might interrupt the proceedings now and thenj with raucous comments; from time to time screens descended j { and films, sometimes animated cartoons, were projected upon ! I hem; and at other times the whole stage moved "in some way ! or other." Die Abenteuer des braven Soldaten Schweijk used a series of moving bands to shift pieces of scenery back and jforth or to act as tread-mills upon which the actors walked, j while a cinema panorama moved in the opposite direction across the back of the stage.^ i i | n 1 n ■ ~ 1 " T r _ - i r r ' ■ ■ ' i r ' “ 1 i r _ n 1 1 " " i n m r ' " ' r " ~ l \ , 3Ibid._____ _4Ibid., p ..643 •_____ 3Ibid.__ 6Ibid.j One objection which the reviewer made was that Pis- i cator never spoke the same artistic language for five min- I utes together. By combining the live actor with the two- I dimensional black and white film as a background, any possi-' bility of illusion was destroyed. His industrial settings | were not quite real but followed no understandable artistic sonvention. The critic believed that the director would ac-i ; cept no conventional system of aesthetics and had no desire j bo create an illusion. He preferred to use any means to J^ommunicate an idea, any kind of shorthand. . . . whatever else Piscator's productions may or may not be, they are undoubtedly both lively and enter- i taining and their director shows more resource than any I of the groups in New York who attempt similar things ! have ever shown.' | The Russian Theatre 1 The futuristic extravagance in stagecraft which was ; seen in Berlin, and in New York, stemmed from the revolu tionary methods of Russia. The Russians, noted Krutch, had j wished to devise a means by which the factory workers might j act their own plays in the factories themselves; hence, the j platform stage. . . . the theatre of Meyerhold is essentially one of! these platform stages moved from the factory into a j playhouse, while the theatre of the Moscow Trade Unions : . . . has a stage merely a literal reproduction of a j shop like one of those in which the workers first acted ; their revolutionary plays.° I 7lbid., p. 644. j q i °Krutch, "The Season in Mo scow— IV. Mise en Scene,"J The critic found little evidence that the Russian ; theatre was aware of the existence of the World Theatre of : ^estern Europe. In general the Western Theatre was a part i j ; <bf the amusement world and was conditioned by the tastes of j f leisure class. In Moscow the leisure class did not exist.' There was no such thing as "night life" in Moscow. "Dark ness falls upon the city as upon a provincial village."9 ’ ■'Tot a single private theatre existed in Moscow. The thea tres were controlled by the central government or by the trade unions. . . . Even Stanislavski, who, of course, frankly be longs to the old order and does not profess to be any thing but "burgeois" in his tastes, has survived as headj of the Art Theatre only by yielding; and most of his new! productions reflect, both in subject matter and in point of view, the character of the new audiences before which j he plays.10 j The only play or performances which impressed the j critic favorably were the survivals of the past, such as The I | Death of Ivan the Terrible and The Princess Turandot. He | jras not able to discover a single play written since the i I Revolution which did not deal directly with either the Revo-1 Tution itself or its effects. The subject matter of the new Russian plays was quite different from that of the West. j I ! The themes were mostly sociological, dealing with the j i The Nation. 127:40, July 11, 1928. j ^Krutch, "The Season in Moseow--I. The Scene," The■ Nation, 126:664, June 13* 1928. j 10Ibid. ! problems of the readjustment to the new society. In no sin gle play, said the reviewer, did love between the sexes play 11 in important role. There was an almost total disregard of; the individual. Even pure art did not exist. "in theory and practice alike, art as a detached and self-justifying activity is allowed no place in communist society.1 The | theatre was regarded as an instrument of education and prop-; aganda. The working masses went from shop and factory to i jthe theatres where the problems of their own daily life were; discussed. How Communism triumphed and how Communist Russia would be industrialized were the two subjects which seemed j to the observer to interest the audiences almost to the ex clusion of all others, and patriotism, either militant or jLndustrial, furnished the motives in nearly every new p l a y . 1 ^ Krutch felt that the theatre and audiences alike ( were contemptuous of what they thought were the trivial pre occupations of other Western drama. While he did see a per formance in Moscow of O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape. because it | I Implied a social protest, he was told by a play-reader that ; i i as for Strange Interlude the Russians had lost interest in that sort of psychologizing a long time ago.1^ With many of; X1lbid. 12Ibid. "^Krutch, "The Season in Moscow--II. The Plays," The Nation, 126:692, June 20, 1928. l4Ibid. the things that interested the Western Theatre, they were ' completely indifferent. They were not interested in Euro- i i pean skepticism; they wanted all the machines and all the ! | jscience that the rest of the world could give them, but they' t { preferred to make their own philosophy. j In a private interview with the great Russian film maker, Eisenstein, the reporter was told that the theatre was dead. "The people of the future will want only actuali-j ties and the movie is much more actual than the stage. le was no longer concerned with his great film classic, Po- j aemkin, which he regarded as passe. When the critic spoke with him, he was enthusiastic over his latest, October (Ten j Days that Shook the World) because he hoped it would help j destroy religion. Eisenstein thought that the only legiti- j mate function of art was a purely practical one; its purpose' was solely to produce convictions and actions. In the per- ' feet communist state, he remarked, there would be no art. i ’Bourgeois art is a vicarious fulfillment of unsatisfied de-1 | sires; Communist art is an instrument for social adjustment.j But in the perfect state there will be no unsatisfied de- I 1 sires and no more social adjustments to be made." When it was suggested that Eisenstein1s function was to kill the ! cinema, the Russian director smiled and was pleased with the) --------------------------------- j ■^Krutch, "The Season in Moscow--III. Eisenstein ! and Lunacharsky," The Nation, 126:716, June 27, 1928. ’ l6Ibid., p. 717- J idea. The theatre critic looked upon Eisenstein as represent native of the extreme aesthetic Left but not necessarily representative of either the official or general opinion in « Russia. " * ' 7 A man who did not look forward to the film maker's ! artless state was Lunacharsky, Commissar of Education and ! head of all state theatres. It was probably due more to him; tfchan to anyone else, wrote the reviewer, that the opera and j -i Q ballet had survived. The observer described him as "any cultivated gentleman" and "the good European." During the i . : interview they exchanged ideas in French. The Russian pre ferred that Communist art should be a continuation of or j logical development from the art of the past. He told i Krutch that he would soon issue a protest against the grow- j ! . i ing neglect of the classics in the state theatres and added ; that the "eternal problems" were as important to the members' of a Communist society as to those of any other. He stated j f that "Sooner or later Russian art must return to a consider ation of them."^ Besides the discussion of sociological j problems, he maintained that there should be a widening of j the intellectual horizons. The life of the workman, said j the Commissar, was inevitably narrow if his experience were j [confined to the factory alone. Lunacharsky confessed to the sritic that he was more interested in music drama than in the ordinary play. [ _ ._ 17Ibid... .. _ . i8T, . , ...Ibid. 19Ibid. J I ' .... ' *......... ' .lor The American heard that Lunacharsky had been charged! pnce in a public meeting with defending a kind of art re- ■ jf erred to as only another "opium of the people." The ob- j server found the position on art of the head of the state : I ; theatres more tenable and understandable than Eisenstein1s, ! and indications led him to believe that there would be an ; ! 20' increasing interest in art which was not simply propaganda, j I -Crutch considered Moscow "the most active theatrical center | of the world/' with the possible exception of New York. He ; krote in 1928 that in no other city would a visitor from New| i p i York have found so much that was new and interesting. The French Theatre j f Krutch did not believe that imported drama was nec- I fessarily better drama; on the contrary, he ridiculed New ! i : I i York audiences for making a play fashionable because it was ; Yrench. . . . a pair of agreeable boulevard actors and suave boulevard farce--Mozart--have become, on this side of the water, two distinguished Dramatic Artists appearing in a play which, if not exactly a dramatic masterpiece, j is at least excruciatingly "je ne sais quoi."22 ie claimed that the viewers found it necessary to admire in j i j 2QIbid, i 21Kruteh, "The Season in Moscow--IV. Mise en Scene,'i p. 41. - : 2,2Krutch, "An Elegant Comedy," The Nation. 124:46, January 12, 1927- i ! i order to give proof of an international culture, but that ' phe Guitrys were actually no more than established favorites! pf a Parisian Broadway, "as clever and as hollow in their \ j ! particular way as our own popular entertainers are in I ! theirs."23 <rhe faux bon, wrote Krutch, only appeared vrai bon. He considered the play, Mozart (December 2J, 1926), a polite musical farce not important but merely exotic. The title was pretentious, in order to give to the piece an air j Of significance it did not have. It was more fluent, more pubdued, and more "literary" than American farces were ac customed to be. . . . It is quiet where ours would be raucous, it is; well-bred where ours would be rowdy, and it is sedulous-! ly elegant. Without ever ceasing to be shallow and con-; ventional it has a superficial air pf being cultivated, ! and it is obviously sophisticated.24 j The critic remarked that Mozart had the same relationship to' the drama as elaborate perfume flasks one saw in the best shops had to sculpture. The play belonged to the world of | fashion, not to the world of art. i I In 1927 a.group calling themselves the Grove Street j Theatre dedicated itself to producing playlets from the ! Grand Guignol in Paris. Some years earlier a similar group j had had the same idea and failed. Krutch's comment was that; i | if ten or a dozen years ago the American public was too un- j sophisticated to value a bill of mere shockers, it was too 1 1 ! sophisticated for them now. His argument was that an 1 23Ibid. 24Ibid. i American audience who had seen What Price Glory? and a half ! a dozen of O’Neill's plays would not appreciate the barren | ‘ ‘ i violence and labored impropriety of the Grand Guignol. It i had seen plays in which real characters suffered real tor tures and it would find the pasteboard horrors of the cheap I French shocker absurd. . . . Given a theatre dripping with sweetness and j drenched in light like that which was once ours, and al-i most anything is a relief. After a prolonged diet com- | posed exclusively of "clean comedy," "optimistic senti- ! ment," and "wholesome drama," mere blood and mere ob- ! scenity are healthful and invigorating. . . . it is something to be reminded even inadequately that life can^ be obscene or ghastly . . . and indeed certain of the one-act pieces with which the Washington Square Players inaugurated thepmodern theatre in New York did little more than that. ^ j The American drama had matured sufficiently by 1927, and the audience had become sophisticated enough, thought the crit ic, not to be entertained by the sensationalism of the Grand i ; guignol. The writer of the shocker offended because in his ’ i j tearch for novelty in sex and murder he neglected to create j Characters individual enough or credible enough "to make us i 26 care which are to be buried and which are to be bedded." 1 Concerning French farces, the reviewer stated that j vhe characters and theme were standardized and that the ac- ; ;ion took place in a vacuum. The characters had no occupa- j I . ; tions and no opinions; they never rose above the complexity j 25Krutch, "Who's Afraid?" The Nation. 124:97, Janu- j ary 26, 1927- ! 2^Ibid. of "a jealous husband" and "a debonaire lover." No type of American play, with the possible exception of the mystery melodrama, wrote the critic, had been quite as thoroughly s I drained of content. . . . Even our farceurs are aware of the existence of those different levels of society, those different types of temperament, and those different occupations which give variety to contemporary life, and they do suggest that their material, however much it has been distorted, has been drawn from that life. But French farces are as artificial as pastoral poetry.^7 jks an example Krutch used Her Cardboard Lover (March 21, \ i |L927), a translation of a French farce which starred Jeanne | Eagels. No new characters were introduced, and there was the usual inherited set of puppets and situations. j Plays by Jean-Paul Sartre did not favorably impress j the observer. Whereas in America No Exit (November 26, 1946) jnight have been regarded as a tour de force. a sensational novelty, he acknowledged that it meant more to Parisians i jsrhose pessimism was not, as he described it, so much an in tellectual conviction as a neurotic derangement. Existen tialism seemed to him less of a philosophy than a state of mind, and less a state of mind than a state of nerves. The | aelief that the world was both evil and without meaning and , that nothing much could be done about it resulted in a com- } bination of the disadvantages of religious faith with those i ^Krutch, "Two Successes," The Nation, 124:380, « kprll 6, 1927- j 28 i of nihilistic atheism. ; While No Exit did achieve a macabre quality, it failed to sustain interest because the playwright was unable: to fill in with sufficient material to stretch the action j out beyond playlet length. It could have been presented in j half the short time now given it, pointed out the reviewer.2^’ After witnessing Red Gloves (Les Mains Sales) (De- j cember 4, 1948), the critic was confirmed in his opinion | j jthat Sartre was a sensational playwright rather than a good one, and that even his sensationalism frequently misfired i I because of his clumsy, slapdash construction. The greatest weakness in the play, he observed, was the playwright's ten-: i ! jiency to forget his original idea and to spend most of his j pime writing commonplace melodrama. The author started out j jto expand a bitter and effective anecdote but fell quickly {into cliches of a cops-and-robbers melodrama. Sartre ap peared to Krutch to have indicated in bare outline his story knd then filled in the action with scenes from any one of \ I 80 { scores of other plays. j ■ The contemporary French drama, from 1927 to 1952, ; j did not seem very exciting to the American critic. Perhaps j ! I it might be more properly said that the translations of j 2®Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 163:708, December l4,i 1946. ! 29Ibid. i 3°Krutch, "Drama," The Nation. 167:732, December 25,! 1948, . .. _ j French drama seen on Broadway during that twenty-eight-year | period and the contemporary plays he observed in Paris in ' L928 were largely unsatisfactory by his standards. j The English Theatre j j j The reviewer remarked in 1929 that during the past five or six years the American stage had been distinguished j from that of England, or France, by the bold directness with i which it had attacked the problems of life in the twentieth [ century. He thought that playwrights abroad were too afraid; | of being ridiculous to risk much, and that they took refuge 1 in a delicate ingenuity from the dangers incurred by any one who strove to be important.^1 American plays of that period1 bended to be written in a major key, founded on passion and j i violence. Krutch referred to the plays of O'Neill, as well i as such dramas as What Price Glory?, They Knew What They I i Wanted, and Hell Bent for Heaven. After viewing in New York over the years what had ! been popular successes in London, he observed that London ' audiences must have been unsophisticated and provincial to J an amazing degree to have accepted such straight sentiment, ! boarding-school farce, and "Chatauqua technique." "His ! I wholesomeness knows no bounds, and what was good enough for ' Op | bis fathers is good enough for him."° The American, on thej ^Krutch, "In the English Manner," The Nation. 129: < 504, November 20, 1929. ; ______ ^2Krutch, "Honest English Hearts," The Nation, 135: j other hand, who might have been no more profound and just as taken in by current cliches, did feel something uncomforta- j 31y old-fashioned about the usual British hit. j In a 1935 Broadway review of a former London success] f :trutch commented that the English attitude seemed to be that; a play should be praised for being sensible in attitude and j crue to the life of the average man and woman of the middle ■ ! class. But in New York, he pointed out, Americans believed ! i jbhat if a play were about completely undistinguished people,j ft ought either to say something original about them or at i Q - 2 least to say something unusually well. J Concerning the !3nglish play under review, To See Ourselves (April 30, 1935 he reported that the author said quietly what everybody knewj The following year the critic made the statement j that he thought New York audiences agreed, generally, with | 34 i London much better than they used to. He cited the sue- ! cess of Call It a Day (January 28, 1936), which starred j Gladys Cooper, as an example of a play which was as accept- ! able on this side of the Atlantic as on the other. He did j not deny, however, that a difference still remained, and he | used Love on the Dole (February 24, 1936) as an illustration! of a play of mild, musty sentiment which seemed dull and ! 377, December 7, 1932. 33Krutch, "What of It?" The Nation. 140:584, May 15, 1935• : 3^Krutch, "Empire Goods," The Nation, 142:329, March! 11., 1936...........__.. I jfatuous here but was a success in London.33 j j In the field of crime and terror, the English with ' their slower pace and simpler plots often turned out more j effective thrillers than the Americans. Krutch noted the plays of Emlyn Williams and "two masterpieces," Kind Lady i (September 9, 1935) and Angel Street (December 5, 194l). The American "mystery" plays, wrote the reviewer, got to moving so fast and to pulling so many surprises that nothing! seemed surprising anymore. Adding farce, it ended in Arsen-1 Ic and Old Lace (January 10, 1941) with a spoofing of its own horrors. The English, on the other hand, worked along other lines. In Angel Street there were no mystery and no ! i piolent twists as the action proceeded. Though one under- | Stood exactly what the situation was, the play worked on a j ! i similar premise as that of the great tragedies based on fa- j miliar legends--that the tension produced by waiting for ! something which one knew was going to happen could be great-j or than the tension of uncertainty and surprise.Never theless, the critic made the comment, in 1949, that several t English crime plays were damned here because they were too tame for American taste.37 Except for the crime plays and the occasional j 33Ibid. 3^Kruteh, "Murder by Gaslight," The Nation, 153:649,1 December 20, 1941. I 3^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 168:166, February 5, ! 1949. _ _ _ __ ................. ............_j success, Krutch maintained over the twenty-eight-year period; that the contemporary English theatre was less exciting and : Less significant than the American theatre during the same j period. The observer considered it singular when a modern English play met with any popularity in this country. j Summary j Krutch regarded Piscator as a propagandist who used j I i the theatre as a platform; and while he was aware that the German director was a clever eclectic willing to use any and all means to win audiences to his political beliefs, the critic did not recognize him as an originator of any new j system of aesthetics in the theatre. As with the expres- I sionism presented by experimental producers in New York, I :£rutch found the techniques more interesting than the ideas j i that these techniques were intended to express. Besides i Piscator's use of the theatre to propagandize and to shock, , the reviewer objected to his destruction of illusion in the theatre by not following any single, understandable theatri cal convention. Though Krutch claimed in 1928 that in no other city I would a visitor find so much that was new and interesting in! theatre as in Moscow, it would seem from his reporting that ! other than futuristic staging the Russian theatre was neith-j Lr "new" nor "interesting." A state-controlled theatre usedj Tor instructing the people was not a new idea. Cardinal j Richelieu, to cite on e example,promoted suchan idea i n j France in.the seventeenth century. Also, a theatre which, j according to Krutch, disregarded the individual and the pos sibility of love between the sexes does not appear to be a j i I j/ery interesting one. | [ I Far from considering French plays fashionable, the i i 3ritic seemed to bend over backwards in the opposite direc- j ! fcion. He found almost no merit in any of the contemporary ! French drama. French farce, he said, was shallow, preten- ; jtious, and standardized; and the existentialist plays of Jean-Paul Sartre were sensational and melodramatic. That the London stage of the present century is less imaginative and more timid than the professional theatre in j | : |Jew York is evident to anyone who has observed them. What j is more interesting is Krutch's opinion that the English j plays of crime and terror were superior to the American. | ; This preference for the English thrillers might be likened to his partiality for classical tragedy in which the tension; was greater because the outcome was known and inevitable. j He felt that the American thrillers contained too fast a j pace and too many surprises. The combination of horror and j farce in Arsenic and Old Lace was particularly objectionable. He never liked his dramatic forms diluted or mixed. j CHAPTER VI i THE EFFECT OF SOCIAL CONVENTIONS AND MORALS UPON CHARACTERS AND THEMES IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN DRAMA i The theatre reflects the social conventions and mor als of its audience. As the attitudes and mores of this audience change so do the characters and the subject matter ; in its plays. When the playwrights of a particular period | irepeat certain attitudes through a spokesman or character inj ! their plays often enough--and frequently these attitudes and characters are copied from other plays— these ideas and characters become hackneyed or stereotyped. The themes or Ideas expressed in the play are repeated over and over again> just as are the characters, until the social conventions and) morals of the audience change sufficiently to bring about a ! | different handling of the subject matter and a different setj of stereotyped characters. i Since Krutch observed the American theatre for a j {considerable period of time, he was able to detect and to | ] ; record certain changes in dramatic characters and dramatic themes which reflected the customs and conventions of the ! changing times. The force of social conventions and morals ! often resulted in stereotyped characters in drama. Among jfche conventional dramatic characters he discussed were min- ! listers, prostitutes, and female adolescents. The critic al-j jso considered prostitution and theology as subjects for : &rama. He remarked upon the change in the handling of mari-; j i jtal infidelity, "success" and materialism, and war as dramat-i i i I I Lc themes in the contemporary American theatre. i Stereotyped Characters Considering the case of the triumph of Rain (Novem- j ber 7, 1922), Krutch commented that a whole new course of popular education had been necessary. The growing distrust ; of the reformer and all his works had to be combined with ! some awareness of the intimate relationship between reli- i i „ i gious ecstasy and sexual excitement, and this awareness could only have been the result of the gradual downward seepage of the information collected by learned and remote psychologists."1 The reviewer mentioned three plays of the j L926 season which concerned the baneful influence of fanati-j ' i 3al religion and which depicted the clergyman as villain: The Virgin (February 22, 1926), Devils (March 17, 1926), and; bride of the Lamb (March 30, 1926)j He particularly admired j * the last play of the three and called it a "smashing melo- | irama" written on a formula which had a certain contemporary ■^Krutch, "Melodrama Up to Date," The Nation, 122: , 427, April 14, 1926. _ _ _ _ _ ...... _ _ _ _ _ _ ....... _ _ _ _ _. .. validity.2 J I In reviewing a musical version of Rain called Sadie : Thompson (November 16, 1944), he stated that the good bad J j j I girl and the bad good man were already becoming stereotypes j i when Maugham wrote the original Rain♦ By 1944, according to the critic, only a very courageous man would have dared to write either a novel or a play in which any prostitute who ( happened to have been around was not morally superior to anyl j - I clergyman who found himself in the same story.3 Krutch complained in a review of Ludwig Thoma’s sa- tiric comedy, Morals (November 30, 1925), that the idea that a prostitute may have a more decent sense of fair play than j a vice crusader had been changed from a paradox into some- j jthing very near a theatrical platitude. Though he did not j heny that it was pleasant to see the pompously moral trip ; up, he did say that his emotion was flowing in a well-worn j groove and that the sentiments aroused were similar to those of any devotee of conventional melodrama who applauded when the upright hero snatched the heroine from the arms of the sity-bred villain who was persecuring her. The play seemed, ks social satire, somewhat commonplace and superficial sincej it aroused no new thought and released no new emotion. j I . ; ". . .no satire upon the vice crusader can be very profound; . | 2Ibid. I ...... I ■^Krutch, "Drama,” The Nation, 159:698, December 2, ■ 1944. Which does not allow a larger place to rationalizations and ; sublimations than it does to the relatively undangerous vice; .,4 pf conscious hypocrisy. His objection to stage prosti tutes was that they tended to appear as types rather than as! 1 | persons, 1 1 too vile or too noble or too something."^ j By the thirties a new stereotype appeared: the young man who held out for marriage against the girl who was, | j kll for promiscuity, in a nice way. The prospect of manly j pontinence in American drama was noted by the observer in s ' j 1937- He suggested that it was due to dramaturgic necessity find the morals of the times. Continence or a certain amount | pf reluctance was absolutely indispensable in plays which treated of love. Somebody had to be coy if the play was to last one act, let alone three. Since it would have been un-j i I | | sophisticated to show women with such old-fashioned scruples, I • it became necessary for the men to draw back. He pointed 1 i •but that the worldly proverb might be reversed to read that ! | ! :Lt was the business of a woman to remain unmarried as long j as she could and that of a man to hold out for assurances of] honor and permanence.^ The female adolescent became a stereotype in the j . . j Krutch, "The Unco Guid," The Nation, 121:713., -De- i cember 16, 1925* I ^Krutch, "The Oldest Profession," The Nation, 126: ! 276, March 1, 1928. j ^Krutch, "And Treat of Love," The Nation, 145:356, j October 2, 1937 American drama in the 1940’s. She had become as familiar a figure on the stage, wrote the critic, as the bootlegger had once been. She was represented as a monster of sophistica- | jtion, thoroughly conversant with both Freud and Marx, in- jstantly prepared to undertake the settlement of all affairs j either international or domestic, and apparently in the in- j ipient stages of nymphomania.^ Such 14- or 16-year-olds, ! pommented the reviewer, appeared in Kiss and Tell (March 17*! 1L943), Janie (September 10, 1942), Violet (October 24, 1944), and Dear Ruth (December 13, 1944). "Perhaps it was a minor ! Character in The Philadelphia Story [March 28, 1939] which fetarted the cycle and perhaps it was Junior Miss [November j j g 18, 1941] which established the formula, . . Surround- j I \ ing the stereotyped over-clever adolescent were usually the i I i sophisticated upp.er-middle-class household and the romance ; pf a girl old enough to be taken seriously. ! Marital Infidelity j In the twentieth century, wrote the observer, mari- j i tal infidelity had developed on the American stage from the 1 Unforgivable Sin to an Annoying Habit. The question had I 1 Changed from "Is my wife guilty or not?" to "Are her infi- I • I delities frequent enough and serious enough for me to con clude, without seeming ridiculously Victorian, that she has j | ^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 159:810, December 30* ! 1944. ; 8Ibid. I I _ i ceased to be even partly mine?"-^ j Unforgivable Sins, explained the critic, were the concern of Drama, while Annoying Habits were the concern of I | j Comedy. He argued that this age ought to be a great age of | ( I I I Qomedy, since this generation was capable of detached intel-; j Ligence and had no deep-seated convictions to guide them. : i Sour Grapes (September 6, 1926) concerned a man who i fell in love with his friend's wife. Depending upon the 1 characters and the ethos of the people involved, the tri angle could have been many things. If the society were dom- i i inated by a religious view of marriage and by a concept of 1 1 Sin, a play with the triangle as its plot could have been a j I I jfcragedy. If the society were seriously skeptical, it could j have become a problem play with "social significance." With! ! - 1 :he casually sophisticated, the play could have been a come-; dy. In a society devoid of either passions or inhibitions, triviality would have extinguished any concept of tragedy or i Sin completely--the milieu of the French farce. . . . Adultery is a sin, an experiment, a game, or a banality, depending upon the atmosphere in which it is committed; but it is always, except when it is the last, interesting, if only the atmosphere be definitely cre ated and consistently maintained. In the abstract the triangle is as bare as that famous formula which in volves the square of the hypotenuse, but reduced to the concrete it has a way of eluding formulae.10 9Krutch, "A Comedy," The Nation. 127:277, September 19, 1928. 10Krutch, "Square of the Hypotenuse," The Nation. 123:278-279, September 22, 1926. Prostitution | ; Prostitution, wrote the observer in 1928, was one of; jthose subjects so simply, universally, and directly inter- j jesting that they nearly always defeated the purpose of the t I ^.rtist who used them. The subject was at once too tremen- j jlous and too simple to lend itself to artistic elaboration. ; He compared it with Birth or Death, for "to say something in! any sense adequate leads almost inevitably to bombast, to | rhetoric, or to sentimentality." Maya (February 21, 1928), p. play which starred Aline MacMahon as the prostitute, was termed "sentimental and feeble." Theology j The subject of theology for a drama was as unpopular! with the critic as was prostitution. In 1938 he stated that! I ! he could think of no good play about God. Theology, he thought, was not a dramatic subject, even though a myth might be. Both Hotel Universe (April 14, 1930) and Philip : Barry's later Here Come the Clowns (December 7, 1938) per- 1 tained to a search for God and both were regarded by Krutch j as flops.^ He also objected to The Devil Passes (January ! i 4, 1932) because it used theology as a theme. All similar | 1 attempts, including The Passing of the Third Floor Back (Oc-j tober 4, 1909}, he considered bad. They served to ■^Krutch, "The Oldest Profession," loc. cit. ! ■^Krutch, "Prodigals' Return," The Nation. 147:700- j 701, December 24, 1938.__ i illustrate his opinion that the theology of even entertain- ! ing dramatists was likely to be excessively b o r e s o m e . ^ : | "Success" and Materialism Before the depression years of the thirties, the ; ] ’success" play made up a typical and popular genre. The Four-Flusher (April 13> 1925) was one of those American j plays which reached a happy end when the deus ex machina ap-j i proached the dejected hero and, slapping him on the back, ! said impressively, "we have decided to buy your patent. It i ought to net you 50 or 60 thousand dollars a year."1^ Crutch called the play naively innocent in its materialism. | It never wandered from its subject and never recognized the j possibility of any interest save in money. No character had) i any attribute except his fitness or lack of fitness in the race for its acquisition, and man was represented with no other passion, good or bad, save the passion for "success." j . . . Obviously the author of the piece is exactly j. on their [the audience's] own level and thinks with them. He records their manners and opinions without a sugges- j tion of disturbing insight, and he tells them what they i want to hear. . . . the play is, of necessity, what is [ called "clean," for it deals with no passion except the j passion for money, and acquisitiveness cannot be other than respectable .-*-5 | Over a year later there appeared on Broadway a 1 . | •^Krutch, "Lynching Bee," The Nation, 134:126, Janu-! ary 27, 1932. I I ^Krutch, "The Magic Million," The Nation, 120:525> i May 6, 1925. : ____■ . 15Ibid., pp. 525-526. ... J "satiric tragedy" on the theme of "success" and materialism. An audience also existed in New York who opposed the cult of' American materialism. God Loves Us (October 18, 1926) con- i pained a hero, related to Babbitt, who was not so much a fool ps a victim--"the victim of a Culture which has the force ofj i | a vast organization and the weight of incalculable material I resources behind it."1^ ' Of all the religions that had oppressed mankind, commented Krutch, none had exacted more than the religion of pommerce. Life had become too small to be significant, and 1 I Civilization had lost its way. "The hero lives his life in \ | jthe midst of all the babble about service and loyalty inci- > i * pent to the successful conduct of a business devoted to j greeting cards and wall mottoes."17 The contrast in atti- j jfcudes toward American materialism expressed in The Four j Blushers and God Loves Us, written a little over a year j kpart, was marked. j j War ! I Most plays about war, Krutch observed, were either ; jnilitantly patriotic or aggressively non-resistant; both jtypes possessed heroes willing to become martyrs. The War ! I 1 iSong (September 24, 1928), which starred George Jessel, was i j singled out as a play which had an unheroic man as the chief ^Krutch, "Things in the Saddle," The Nation, 123: 460, November 3> 1926. 17Ibid. character. No high moral fervor motivated him, but this ! I'unheroic hero" was more like most people in having a pref- j : erence for the pleasures of a quiet life. Krutch stated ; i ; that drama and literature had not concerned themselves enough with "the many quite agreeable people who have no ; j *1 O baste for martyrdom upon any altar." One of the most satisfactory war plays, considered ! I jthe critic, was Paul Osborn’s dramatization of A Bell for j Rdano (December 6, 1944). It was no expression of militant ; ' 1 i nationalism, martial courage, or even of the crude horrors bf war. Instead, it made a humane appeal that this war * ' ; should be made a war of liberation rather than of conquest. j J < I 1 Krutch wrote that it was the most effective American play toj ! „ I pome out of the war. . . . its success must mean that it j says what many want it to say."1^ Mainly the play seemed ; significant as a commentary on the American temper after three years of war. Instead of the ribald cynicism of a | I ftfhat Price Glory? (September 3, 1924), the audiences pre- I ferred a simple story of humanity which concerned the ques- j tion of whether the work of decent men would stand against ; the ruthless arrogance of the general and his kind. The re viewer commended the author for not attempting too much and j not cluttering up the play with irrelevant incidents j 1 i ! ■^Krutch, "A Cowards’ League for Peace," The Nation, ' 127:406, October 17, 1928. ! ■^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 159:781, December 23,! 19-44 __ J j ................. ............... ".. ~12I] introduced out of the mistaken notion that a good play about! o n i war should make some reference to all its major aspects. : i Summary The rapidly changing morals and attitudes of the American public following World War I made possible the ac- i ceptance of the dramatic situation of a prostitute being morally superior to a clergyman. Krutch realized, however, I | | that by over-use a paradox became a theatrical platitude. | The good bad girl and the bad good man became stereotypes byl i ; the twenties, and plays which used these characters devel oped into melodrama requiring no thought from the audience, j Krutch!s comments concerning the radical change over! the years in the treatment of marital infidelity by American; playwrights revealed the strong influence of social conven- j tions and morals upon the theatre. Rather too much hope was! expressed by the reviewer when he stated in the twenties i s that his age ought to be one of great Comedy since it was ) capable of detached intelligence, I i It was evident that Krutch was prejudiced against j pny play which used the subject of prostitution or theology.! He said that most plays about prostitution were sentimental ’ jand that theology in the theatre was boring. He also showed his antagonism for plays extolling the virtues of "success1 ' j and materialism and for propaganda war plays. He did 1 J Ibid. approve of What Price Glory? because it truly reflected the ribald cynicism of the 1920's and A Bell for Adano because it expressed the attitude that World War II was a war of Liberation rather than of conquest. As the attitudes and morals of the American people changed, they were reflected in the drama of the country. Crutch recorded those changes through his observance of the i'Jew York stage over many years. Themes, such as marital in fidelity, economics, and war, were still used, but the mood had altered— from tragedy to comedy, from unquestioning op timism to pessimism, and from cynicism to hope. CHAPTER VII THE THESIS OR PROPAGANDA PLAY j The drama has always been a medium for propaganda. The medieval church recognized that the stage could be more Impressive than the pulpit. Sermons were presented in dra- S matic form as Mystery, Miracle, and Morality plays. Ibsen, j in modern times, made stage propaganda a direct instrument for social and political reform. Woman's rights and the status of woman was presented in A Doll's House. Ghosts ! i nelped to change the public attitude toward social diseases.! After World War I, Soviet Russia formed the Workers ] Theatre which helped to spread the ideas of communism in that country. Propagandists in the modern theatre often combined such varied means as cinema, loud-speakers, the j Live actor, costume, make-up, scenery, music, and special I effects to win an audience. Remarked Bernard Sobel, "plays with a purpose don't succeed unless they are entertaining."'1 *1 Dramatists as successful propagandists must be skilled 1 craftsmen. j The propaganda play is a play which enforces a | --------- „j xBernard Sobel, The Theatre Handbook (New York: 1 Drown Publishers, 1950)> P- 641. ! ! _ .. — _______________ - -123..... — ... -.... J special point of view; its purposes are as varied as there are causes to defend, wrongs to be righted, and theories to be advanced; the propaganda play can inspire or debase, j stimulate or stultify, encourage or undermine.2 The greater: | • dramas of the world, wrote Allardyce Nieoll, contain practi-| I o cally no propaganda. The authors of better dramas might include contemporary material but they are not concerned ( with any preachments. They consider their task to be the I ! imaginative reflection of experience. Shakespeare's history! plays, for example, reflected the philosophy of the Tudors and an experience of the period, but the author was "not <14 inculcating a course of action or presenting a thesis. j Nicoll maintained that in the theatre there was a sharp dis-j jtinetion to be made between two kinds of dramatic work and j that nowhere did the distinction appear more clearly than in; an examination of recent Russian plays. Those which were I written only to educate the public were easily seen to be of; no permanent worth; the plays of more worth were those in I which an experience had been recorded. j | . . . The enduring theatre is educative, no doubt, I but it is educative not in the manner of the reasoning lecturer or of the political orator; it is educative ; only in the sense that it arouses our interests and ! I stimulates our imagination, . . .5 j I Tibia. j 3Allardyce Nicoll, World Drama (New York: Harcourt, j 3race, and Co., 1949)> p. 939- ! 4Ibid. 5Ibid., p. 940. i ; John Gassner recognized that many of the writers of j propaganda plays for the contemporary American theatre were I immature and were sociologists rather than artists. "Their ; ; I eagerness to convert the masses led them to neglect artistic; i finish, to wax rhetorical and demagogic, and to divide theirj characters into sheep and goats with scant respect for rounded characterization."^ Their emphasis on economic mo tivation and upon "dialectical materialism" tended to become! literal, stereotyped, and naive. Nevertheless, Gassner noted that every young serious writer of any power— Clifford Odets, Sidney Kingsley, Lillian Heilman, and William Saroyan {--had been affected by the ferment of anger and hope of the > i ' ! times. The worker had become Sir Galahad and capitalism the; I 4 ! big bad wolf. i j j | The Group Theatre and the Theatre Onion emerged in j the 1930’s. According to Krutch, they devoted themselves primarily to plays of social criticism from the point of i | view of the left. As the result, he said, "propaganda ! plays," "revolutionary dramas" and "plays of social signifi- I 1 j 1 I cance" came to constitute a recognized department of contem-' 7 i porary playwrighting. I As early as the 1920's Krutch had stated his objec- i tion to the thesis or propaganda play. He explained that j / ■ | °John Gassner, Masters of the Drama (New York: Ran- j 3om House, 19^0), p. 665. j ^Krutch, American Drama Since 1918 (rev. ed.; New { York: _G. Braziller, 1937)* P« 247- J the thesis play had been used almost exclusively by the rev-' olutionary Russian dramatists. The depression years of the L930’s was a period of protest in the United States; the jthesis plays were more popular on the New York stage in the ; i thirties than at any other contemporary period. These prop aganda pieces mirrored the social unrest of the country. \ The critic described the reasons for playwrights turning to politics and propaganda as well as the complete propaganda j function of the Federal Theatre's "Living Newspaper." In ! the 19^0's he discussed the limitations of the sectarian play, which was in effect a thesis or propaganda play. The 1920's ! In 1925 Krutch described the thesis play as dead be-j i pause it was a transition type intended to bridge the gap which rapidly changing moral ideas placed between leading intellectuals and even their more intelligent audiences. jche artistic possibilities inherent in the new order, he j ' - 8 1 Paid, were only beginning to be tapped. The reviewer objected to the thesis or propaganda | play largely on principle. The situation in Mariners (March! 28, 1927), written by Clemence Dane, needed no elucidation <pr commentary; however, the playwright, after giving her j audience a glimpse of great and terrible passions, expected them to be content with a commonplace moral and commonplace Q Krutch, "Establishing a New Tradition," The Nation. 120:23, January J, 1925•.......... ....................... people. The critic disagreed with Dane’s idea that she | needed to give her drama " a meaning." A passion was, dra matically, more interesting than an idea, he remarked, and aj jpact more impressive than a moral. The situation between the two leading characters--the minister and his bar maid--was | at once understandable and hopeless, "it is most powerful when it is not explained, most meaningful in its meaning- : lessness."^ The 1930's The thesis play, a type of play which had "pretty well played out in Western Europe and America," was taken i over by Russian drama. It was used for didactic purposes ! and concerned itself with nothing which did not have an im- j mediate social significance. The atmosphere which pervaded j i Russia, observed the former visitor, lent itself to this j j ;ype of theatre. While the thesis drama of Europe had be- i i come a weary and a hopeless thing, in Russia, there existed ; | 1 an intense and hopeful preoccupation with social questions. ! They believed in revolution; the old order could pass, ' and where things might change came the hope that things might be better. Abstract questions of social justice > ! ! seemed immediately significant to them. Thesis drama under ; ! the Russians became a form of melodrama, noted Krutch, with j ^Krutch, "Clemence Dane Discourses," The Nation. 1241 405, April 13, 1927. _ ___ __...... . J the villain foiled and the hero on top."^ On the other hand, :he older thesis drama of Europe had little faith that any- : ;hing would be accomplished, and its authors wrote plays frhich ended "not triumphantly or even tragically, but simply on a note of depression. "*■*■ i i The Theatre Guild production of the Soviet drama Red! Rust (December 17, 1929) was regarded by the critic as 'characteristically naive." The happy end was brought about| with childish simplicity, and the final curtain came down on! j j ^n orgy of flag-waving to convince the censor that the au- I 12 thor was soundly communistic. Krutch judged that the ap peal of Red Rust to an American audience was largely due to ! ! .........‘ j an interest in an oddity or in something unusual for the j Broadway stage. j The reason for adopting the ready-made outline of the social problem in the first place, he suggested, was the! escape afforded writers from the difficult task of creating ! interesting characters or situations. Some revolutionists j had become what they were because they had found difficulty j with themselves as individuals and had discovered in the I professional denunciation of the capitalist system a sue- j | i cessful means of running away from the selves which they 10Krutch, "Direct from Moscow," The Nation, 130:160,; February 5> 1930. ( it ip _ _ Ibid. ..... _ .._.. Ibid..... J dared not face.^^ Of himself, Krutch wrote, , . . . Thanks to an old-fashioned education I have : got in the habit of thinking that mere sensitivity, de- i tachment, elevation of spirit, or dispassionate thought . is not.only worth having but rather difficult of attain-; ment. ^ The observer felt that true courage consisted in concerning j oneself with the problems which belonged to one's own pro- 1 * fession and that the artist who turned to politics was seek-; Lng an "escape." j [ In the hands of the propagandists, art was a weapon.! The Theatre Union production of Stevedore (April 18, 1934) ! was reported to be effective both as melodrama and as propa ganda. Krutch considered that its strength was based on itsj singleness of purpose, which was to inflame the passions of its audience to a fighting hate. "Personally I should not be much surprised to hear any night that the infuriated aud-: I ^ J.ence had rushed out on to Fourteenth Street and lynched a white man just on general principles. i Black Pit (March 20, 1935), another production by ! she Theatre Union which was classified as "revolutionary j drama," was a play about the struggle between capital and 1 Labor. There was no human side in the struggle, said the j Lritic. The playwright was primarily concerned with his | ■^Krutch, "What the People Want," The Nation, 137: 746, December 27, 1933- l4lbid. : • ’ ■^Krutch, ”on the Barricades," The Nation. 138:516, ! May 2, 1934....... __.._ _ .____.___.... | cause, and there was no importance placed upon the personal-! jLties of the individuals except as they were protagonists in: an economic conflict. The play was more of a sermon, wrote ■ 1 / T ! the reviewer, than anything else. j i He also disapproved of the translation of the Pisca-I i tor version of Dreiser's novel, An American Tragedy (March j 13> 1936), because of its puerile didacticism. Economic ; justice, insisted Krutch, was only a contributing factor in the tragedy; it was not the whole tragedy. Life was too j pomplex to be encompassed within any comfortable formulas, 3ither moral or economic. The novel Dreiser had in mind, said the critic, was not an illustration of economic injus- j tice and could not properly be reduced to a geometrical dem- 17 onstration. ' I The Federal Theatre's "Living Newspaper" dealt with 1 such problems as slum housing in New York City. It was de- j voted, wrote the reviewer, to frank journalism of a new, in-} genious, and extremely effective kind. He called this kind of theatre journalism and not Art because the purpose of the performance was to convey certain bits of specific, docu mented information and to enforce certain simple, definite convictions. It was not a piece of fiction but an effective) presentation of fact. ^Krutch, "Case History," The Nation. 140:400, April 3, 1935. "^Krutch, "Dreiser Simplified," The Nation, 142:429^ April 1, 1936 . . . .. _ ..... _..... J . . . what we have here is the most successful ef- i fort to use the stage for the purpose of propaganda that! ; I have seen in some fifteen years devoted in part to ; pretty consistent grumbling against sometimes infantile ! and sometimes all too precious attempts to use for sim- j ply didactic ends an art form which was evolved for oth-i er purposes.1^ kn other words, he preferred this more direct approach to | i nandling propaganda over the method of trying to slip the : information and the argument between the lines of a conven tional play in which one was not interested at all. He noped that the "Living Newspaper" might even prevent a good : inany bad plays from being written. The 19401s The sectarian play, explained the reviewer, was lim-l Lted in its appeal. Embezzled Heaven (October 31* 1944) by :?ranz Werfel, for example, was a Catholic play. Though he Delieved that such people as Communists and Catholics were capable on occasion of writing plays with non-sectarian ap- j peal, he felt that a Catholic play, for example, might be more than merely a play written by a Catholic. | . . . when belief rather than merely a suspension of! disbelief is necessary, then the play in question is not! a play by a Catholic, Communist, Christian Scientist, or what not; it is a "Catholic," "Communist," or "Christian; Scientist" play, and as such it cannot fully succeed ex-! cept with those who accept as valid the premise on which; it rests A? ■^Krutch, "The Living Newspaper," The Nation. 146: 138, January 29, 1938. i "^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 159:598, November 11,i 1944. ' The entire last act of the play under review was set in the | audience chamber of the Vatican. Unless one could believe ! | | that the Pope actually possessed the keys to heaven, ob- j served the critic, the Pope's intercession for the peasant j 20 i woman would be meaningless. ; The doctrine which the observer decided was being preached in Goodbye My Fancy (November 17> 1948) was ex pressed by the following line of the heroine: "Never play ! PI fair with an opponent unless you respect him." The re viewer took issue with that philosophy by saying that he had nimself always assumed that one played fair out of respect for oneself, not out of respect for one's opponent. He j added that his opponents would probably consider that a j bourgeois folly. "And since I am quite sure that the real I I | left wing does not respect me, I am grateful for the warning; 1 itPP <pf what I should expect. ^ He concluded by saying that at ; i least the real Machiavelli had the good sense to recommend ] :hat the seeker for power should profess a devotion to honor; as great as his actual disregard for it. j Summary ! i As early as 1925 Krutch claimed that the thesis play! had been a transition type which was no longer valid in 21Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 167:647, December 4, * L948. j 22 I __ Ibid. __ „. _ ... ; ________ I contemporary drama. As an intellectual and an admirer of jLiterary drama, Krutch understandably had little patience With the thesis play which became obsolete as soon as its point of view or preachment became old-fashioned. Besides, : S i i ; le felt that didactic plays used for the purposes of propa- i ganda had no place in the modern theatre. Only the Commu nists in Russia and the American left-wing writers who re- j vived the form in the thirties found the thesis play useful.. The critic was perhaps too severe with native drama tists who turned to social and political problems. Krutch accused them of running away from themselves and of seeking pi escape from the work of creating interesting characters | pid situations. He felt that the artist should not concern j limself with politics but with the problems of his own pro- j Session. While many poor and mediocre plays were probably j Witten under the banner of social significance, there were i 1 ! also a number of powerful plays by such writers as Elmer j kice and Clifford Odets. I Krutch's statement, however, that economic injusticej I i could be only regarded as one of the causes of tragedy and ; jthat life was too complex to be explained by a single formu-j la seemed justified. The reviewer also objected to the ! thesis play because its appeal was often limited to those Who accepted its argument as true. ! If the stage had to be used for purposes of propa- i ganda, Krutch preferred the use of a direct, non-art form, j such as the Federal Theatre’s "Living Newspaper" of the 1930's. CHAPTER VIII A STUDY OF TRAGEDY AND COMEDY AS CONTEMPORARY DRAMATIC FORMS The fact that modern American drama tended to divide itself into two major dramatic forms, tragedy and comedy, j was considered by Krutch to be a natural rather than an ar- ! |;ificial development. It was his contention that after any ; jlrama reached a certain level of excellence there was an in evitable tendency of the drama to crystallize into formal j jjomedy or tragedy.1 Such form in the drama was not some- j ;hing artificially imposed from without. It was the shape i which a drama took when it had been thought through to the end and its pattern was revealed. . . . it is worthy of remark that the playwrights j whose names most persistently reappear in any discussion! of the possibly permanent achievements of the contempo- 1 rary drama are those in whose work the formal element is) conspicuous. It is true that Eugene O'Neill, Maxwell j Anderson and S. N. Behrman have all dealt sometimes with current topics. It is also true that they could not have been so important as they are had they not been un mistakably of our day. But it is not primarily of their; timeliness that one thinks; they are, first of all, a writer of tragedies, a poetic dramatist and a creator ofi comedies, respectively. That means that each has thought his way through his material with such thorough ness that he has been able to give it one of the forms 1Krutch, American Drama Since 1918 (rev. ed.; New York: G. Braziller, 1957)# p. 29. eternally appropriate to the drama. It also suggests | that such a process is necessary before any play can achieve permanent interest and that we have, perhaps, : been too ready to assume that intellectual honesty in j the presentation of contemporary themes is in itself I all-sufficient.2 i ; I The most permanent and satisfactory plays of contemporary ! I ! American drama contained classic form. On the other hand, ! many of the former successes which had owed their popularity) bo some novelty of theme or dramatic method were now almost j o i completely forgotten.J Allardyce Nicoll supports Krutch's opinion. j . . . The classical division of plays into the trag ic, the comic, and the satiric may have derived in ori gin from cultural and religious exercise, but the endur-j ance of these forms long after the civilization of j Athens had become merely a memory seems to indicate that) in them some peculiar virtue lies.^ The American critic discussed Greek classical trage dy and commented upon those few performances of this type of) brama which he had seen on Broadway. He also wrote of the kifficulty of writing tragedy today, the reasons for this, j knd of some examples of modern American tragedy. The re viewer observed that the present age was an age of comedy rather than of tragedy; he stated the reasons for this and analyzed several American comic writers and their works. j jSentimental comedy was treated separately from pure comedy j and the reasons for its popularity and failure as drama were! 2Ibid., pp. 311-312. 3Ibid., p. 311. j ^Allardyce Nicoll, World Drama (New York: Harcourt, ! Brace, and Co., 19^9), p. 9^0. ' given. Melodrama, like sentimental comedy, was not a clas- ! sical form but a fairly recent development in drama. Krutch? noted its origin and remarked upon the chief ingredients andi Limitations of melodrama. ] i Tragedy j The Daughters of Atreus (October 14, 1936) was a re-j i telling of a familiar story, from the sacrifice of Iphege- i nela to the murder of Klytaemnestra. Written by Robert Tur ney, the modernized version laid more stress upon motive and! conflict between dominant mores which enforced the duty of I revenge and a growing sense of the evil of such a code. The! observer recognized that the play would never be a "success1 ' ; until that particular kind of formalized dignity and that j particular sort of more-than-human passion were as genuine a part of American theatrical tradition as realism now was; nowever, he regarded the play as one of the most extraordi- ; nary American plays of a generation. Its significance was J due to the fact that the emotional conflicts embodied in | i Greek legends were fundamental to modern audiences, who ! found more satisfactory solutions as well as a clearer ex- j i pression in them than in any later or more sophisticated ; story. "I^b is seldom that I am moved in the theatre as on 5 ■ this occasion I was." j Krutch complimented the Old Vic Company for their j l ^Krutch, "What's Hecuba to Him?" The Nation. 143: * 530„, .October .31,. .1936........_ .. | production of Oedipus the King, Yeats’ version of the Sopho cles play, which he saw performed in New York in 1946. He thought it stylized and ritualized to the degree which the jform and spirit required, while it was left human enough for! 6 ! sufficient empathy. In a review of Robinson Jeffers' version of Euripi- j ies' Medea (October 20, 1947), he congratulated the modern . playwright for doing what the original author would have I ! ione--brought an old story up to date. The critic regarded j bhe standing ovation which accompanied the curtain at the ! performance he attended as a tribute not only to Judith An derson's acting but to Robinson Jeffers and Euripides. j Even in the days of antiquity, conservatives consid-j sred Euripides impudent and his clever modern versions of j old tales a bit vulgar. Krutch noted that history was re- ; peating itself when he heard friends of his, intellectuals, i comment that the Gilburt Murray version should have been j used instead of the new one. Of that complaint he stated i unreservedly that for stage purposes Jeffers’ version was I vastly superior. . . . Murray's translation is stilted and fuzzy. ! Its awkwardly "poetic" phrasing can hardly be spoken ex-1 cept in a poetical singsong fatal to any attempt at dra-i matic expressiveness, and its faded archaisms, though highbrows may put up with them, hang like a fog between J an ordinary audience and the dramatist who is trying to j reach them. Jeffers is, on the other hand, simple, per-! fectly clear, almost prosaic, and if he does not always 1 succeed in avoiding cliches, even the cliches can be ' ^Krutch, "Drama." The Nation, 162:700, June 8, 1946. j transformed--as Murray's poetical stereotypes could not ! --by Miss Anderson's acting.' * Except for the last scene in which Medea was carried away in a magic chariot, Jeffers followed Euripides' story, : including the order of events'. The actual words he treated ! I with the greatest freedom. He expanded or cut as he thought! fit; and when an image or a turn of speech seemed to him in effectual in English, he used another. The reviewer was j i satisfied that the Murray version gave evidence of the fact ) i bhat there was warrant in the original for the sentiment if j O not always for the words or the emphasis. Defending Jef fers, he wrote, ". . . he is only modernizing still further j a playwright who was himself notoriously a modernizer."9 1 | In an unimportant sense, even a classic was "dated."! i The techniques of Aeschylus and Shakespeare were no longer j practiced; they reflected intellectual and emotional preoc- ; uupations no longer emphasized. Krutch defined a classic as a work of art which had become superficially dated while re-: jnaining essentially valid. The important thing, he said, was that its conformity to a mode should be only an inciden tal rather than a fundamental cause of its original popular-; ] i L * 1 0 ! lty. 7Krutch, "Drama," The Nation. 165:510, November 8, 1947. 8Ibld. 9Ibid. 10Krutch, "Drama," The Nation. 174:92, January 26, 1952. As the critic described it, tragedy was fundamental-! ■ly a protest and an adjustment. . . . Only when something inevitable is involved and; only when the passion of our protest against it is in a i measure stilled does Tragedy come into being, for Trage-, dy is always, in some measure, a justification of the 1 ways of God to man.1- 1 - i There must be some flaw in man or the universe; this flaw J and its consequences must be made either acceptable or at | least tolerable to the human spirit. j Each epoch created its own tragedy, stating its pro-; jtest and the terms of its acceptance. But tragedy became more difficult to write than ever before. America and I i - j p i purope had no native heroes at once national and religiousfj ■they were forced to turn to Greece, as was evidenced by the j I ' ! translated and adapted Greek tragedies which appeared on i Broadway. Tragedies in the classical sense were almost non-1 ■existent in contemporary drama. . . . Gone with that last glimmering of religion is j that acceptance of destiny in which the Greeks rested, j and gone, too, is that sense of the dignity and great ness of human passions which made man seem to Shake- | speare glorious even in defeat. j Modem man seemed not tragic but merely pitiful. ; In writing tragedy the contemporary writer must havej some faith in man, if not in justice or God. If life were j 11Krutch, "A Note on Tragedy,1 1 The Nation, 123:646, j December 15., 1926. ! j Krutch, "What's Hecuba to Him?" The Nation, 124: 564, May 18, 1927. j ______ ^Krutch. "A Note on Tragedy." loc . cit. ___ _ J no more than the struggle of wholly insignificant people ! against unbeatable odds, it would be better "to turn one's ’ eyes from the shameful spectacle instead of endeavoring to ■ 1 114 I he-enact it in a theatre. The reviewer approved of Caro-: I line Prank's Exceeding Small (October 22, 1928) because of ai gallantry of spirit of her hero and heroine. "They go down ■ with their poor little flags still flying and the sight of them makes just bearable what would otherwise be intoler- j able."15 J Lynn Riggs, author of the folk drama, Green Grow the! Lilacs (January 26, 1931), wrote a play with a similar set ting entitled The Cream in the Well (January 20, 1941). Un-j j j ! - I |Like the former play, the second drama was what Krutch con- j tidered an attempt at high tragedy. The distinction, he ex-i I j plained, was that folk drama existed for the purpose of ex- i hibiting the "manners" of a particular scene, while high :ragedy existed for the sake of the passions portrayed. The; scene in the case of tragedy was not essential. In order I for a play to be classified as high tragedy, he insisted ;hat the passions revealed be convincingly intense to a su- | perlative degree, far beyond anything that was necessary in j i 1 another kind of play. 1 . . . We easily grant our cooperation to the writer who is managing to amuse us. We demand somewhat more if 1^Krutch, "Gallant Defeat," The Nation, 127:502, No-| vember 7# 1928. j __ 15Ibid.... _.............. _ | j he is proposing to demonstrate some truth we want to ; ‘ know. But we demand most ofVall of the author who in- I vites us to a high tragedy. An audience, said the critic, tended to resist all things I unpleasant and painful and therefore must be caught up and ' Carried away, concerned whether they want to be or not and I ] 7 j too moved to ask why they should care. 1 i Though he thought that Riggs wrote with a sincerity j and competence that held interest and commanded respect, thej i observer could not help asking what the play meant, why it 1 was written and what it was ultimately about. He considered, i ;the play not quite good enough to meet the requirements of f . j the most difficult and exacting of dramatic forms. j In passing from what might be called the heroic to j jthe civilized age, tragedy becomes increasingly difficult to; express. Man is forced to give up the thrill of great de- | cisive actions for the milder pleasures of wit. Great illu-- sions and the accompanying great passions must be abandoned.) Even in love, commented Krutch, one must keep one's head, I which meant that one must not, in the older sense, be in j love at all. ) . . . Life shrinks in importance, perhaps, and loses; some of its intensity when one realizes that it is es sentially a comedy and not a tragedy, a game to be played by prudence rather than a grandiose drama in which one may be called upon to die at any moment in de-| fense of the arbitrary demands of Honor and Duty. It isj J ^Krutch, "Tragedy Is Not Easy," The Nation, 152: ! 137> February 1, 1941. I 17Ibid. .. _ ___.. ; ..._ .. j [ robbed of its most intense pleasures and its most ex alted pains, but it gets in exchange a certain graceful ; , ease. It leaves no longer any room for the grand ges- 1 ture, and it allows no one to be great; but there is no j limit to the number of minor accomplishments which it j permits i It was a long way from the imperious lust of the j i I most seeming-virtuous queen in Hamlet to the petty schemes of the selfish wife in Craig1s Wife. The modern mind, re- I marked the critic, was becoming more and more absorbed in i brivialities. The tragic sense of life was perhaps bitterer; bhan that of any other age; man no longer failed greatly, I i like Hamlet, but, without grandeur and greatness, he failed i "in meanness of spirit and triviality of circumstance."1^ i Reading a 1925 review of a play called A Man’s Man, | bhis writer was reminded of the more recent Death of a Salesman. The hero of the earlier play was a poor clerk, struggling like thousands of his kind to hide from himself j nis knowledge of his own inferiority by an ardent faith in all the schemes for developing his personality and unlocking bhose hidden powers which the advertising pages of the popu- i lar magazines proclaimed. But, like Willy Loman, all his ambitions were mean, and even beyond his reach, for society,; as well as his own inclination, had made him a fool and a i [ -^Krutch, "Ulysses," The Nation. 120:699, June 17, jl925 • •^Krutch, "Unspacious Days," The Nation. 121:522, November 4. 1925. __ .... ____ ________ dupe.20 "Most old tragedies are at bottom confessions of a ’ faith in life: most modern ones a confession of an utter j disillusionment."2' 1 ' In a review of John Howard Lawson's Nirvana (March i 3, 1926), he made the statement that Science, if it had not j created a new world, had at least destroyed the old, and to | I many it seemed that man did nothing except wander, emotion- | ally, among the ruins. j . . . Mentally it may not be difficult to grasp the fact that God is dead and that with Him has passed away i a whole universe of emotional realities, but the Soul-- and the very necessity for employing this word is a suf-; ficient indication of the inadequacy of our adjustment to a godless universe— demands without being able to find something satisfactory to herself in the meaning less world of which science describes the disjointed ! fragments.^2 i It was the reviewer's belief that the pessimistic j preface which Robert Sherwood had written for the printed edition of his comedy Reunion in Vienna was quite in order. Pessimism and comedy belonged together. Tragedy, stated Irutch, arose out of a man's sense of his own greatness, and comedy out of a realization of his own littleness. The age I of Shakespeare was a very confident and joyous age, while the age of Congreve was a very disillusioned one, "and it j can hardly be doubted that the author of Hamlet had a con- ; siderably more joyous view of man and his destiny than the j 20Ibid. 21Ibid. I " ! I 22Krutch, "Hard Facts," The Nation, 122:295, March 17, 1926. ! author of The Way of the World was ever able to accept.; j The critic maintained that this present age ought to; oe an age of high comedy and that the most successful Ameri-; 3an playwright ought not to be Eugene 0'Neill--with his ap- ; parently all but hopeless effort to get grandeur back into I i Literature— but some comic genius "who could formulate the i ,,oii cosmic joke inherent in our predicament. I Comedy j In 1940 Krutch wrote that America’s best comic play-; wrights were Behrman, Barry, Kaufman, and Rice and that each nad a different quality of wit. The wit of S. N. Behrman ; ! was literary and not of any time or any class; Philip Barry j wrote with the idealized accent of the smartest of the best families; George Kaufman’s wit was that of Broadway and Twenty-One; and Elmer Rice's wit rested on a larger mass of people--landladies, taxi drivers, etc.--whose knowingness { 2S * was combined with an innocent unsophistication. The crit ic regarded Rice's writing as more robust, more earthy, less narrowly local, and less highly specialized in spirit. "Of the four he is the most inclusively American, and without him the quartet would represent far less completely than it : i ^Krutch, "Comedy and Despair," The Nation, 134:608, May 25, 1932. oh Ibid. ^Krutch, "Baghdad on the Subway," The Nation, 150: 136, February _ 3 * .1940 _ . „ ............_ _...... j ‘ '...... 146' does the comic spirit of this nation.' j Only a few of the greatest writers of the world have, ^ver succeeded in completely expressing the comic attitude. ; I ! i i It required, said the reviewer, a sophistication, a disillu-, j | sion, far deeper than that which could be acquired by a lit-; j ' ! fcle free thinking and a little loose talking, for it was a | difficult philosophy of life and one very easy to corrupt | with romantic sentiment. ; I . . . No one (not Goldsmith, not Sheridan, and not I Wilde) has written pure comedy since Congreve, and cer- j tainly Mr. Behrman does not do it; but he is just a lit tle bit better than most of the Americans and Englishmen! who are struggling toward it and that little bit is im portant . 27 He felt that the English-speaking theatre was still waiting for a writer with the complete clarity and strength neces sary for a perfect comedy of manners. An audience was also necessary which would find such a comedy without romantic soncessions endurable. A society from which all this might i p 8 i ultimately spring, he noted, already existed. i The characters of contemporary high comedy were tak-; en from what Krutch called "the smart bohemia"--a race of near-artists and their semi-fashionable hangers-on--and not j ■ j from "society," because the latter group was predominantly I I sentimental in its ideals if not in its practice. ° The 26Ibid. 27Krutch, "Comedy of Manners," The Nation. 124:484, April 27, 1927- _ 28Ibid, ... 29 Ibid. denizens of these well-decorated studios— as in the case of ! f ; 1 S. N. Behrman’s The Second Man--were well enough off to be ! pleasantly irresponsible. As in the case of the plays of [ bongreve, it was an ideal rather than an actual existence; i l its people ordered their lives by their minds rather than byi \ ' ! i : jbheir emotions and used prudence rather than sentiment as i „ their guide. They are the representatives of those who think as opposed to those who feel."3° | Social life on the drawing-room level was difficult j f c o put on the stage, stated the observer, since the civil- i ; ized drawing-room presupposed silence upon certain fundamen- i jfcal things and a tacit avoidance of all those direct and j [laked conflicts which constituted the natural material of i % drama. When drama did enter the scene, the locale ceased to be a drawing-room and became instead a battlefield. The true drawing-room preserved for a time the restful illusion I ! SI that life was not, in its essence, savage. j Krutch remarked in 1927 that the American theatre j lid not concern itself much with the drawing-room. j . . . Somehow or other it seems to have lost inter est in the sedulous elegance which Pinero and Jones made popular . . . Our chosen scenes are the battlefield, the; boiler room, and the dive; our chosen characters the roustabout, the bootlegger, and the roughneck.^ i 3°Ibid. | ^ K r u t c h , "Drawing-Rooms and Drama," The Nation, j 120:192, February 18, 1925- i 32Krutch, "Intelligence vs. Intensity," The Nation, j 12A:T52-,^.Rebrmry__9.,.__1927_._ _____ _ ______ _ J The only social height to which we rose was that of Babbitt j pid the suburban home. American audiences preferred the milieu of explosive profanity and wholesale carnage to that ; of polite society. The critic actually had no objection to j 1 this since it made people aware of the Infinite variety of • Life and more conscious of the meaning of the existence which lay under the surface. His only complaint was that the other genre was being neglected, and he did not wish ■ audiences to forget how effective drawing-room comedy could I pe. ; With high comedy there was a game played according to rules, instead of a pitched battle. Artificial re- j straints became more powerful than natural impulse. One did, :iot expect heroic actions or spectacular virtues. The pro- j jtagonists adjusted their lives not to truth but to conven tions which they had accepted as fundamental; theirs was a j problem of compromise. "High comedy demands the continual j { \ subordination of e m o t i o n ."33 The heroine of Lady Alone ! i (January 20, 1927), wrote the reviewer, went down in defeat j because she allowed drama--emotion--to enter her life. "To master the passions is to achieve one kind of success, to , pbey them is to achieve another; but they will not be * dallied with."3^ i While not a masterpiece, Strictly Dishonorable (Sep-1 j tember 18, 1929) by Preston Sturges was considered evidence • of the fact that a native comedy of manners was developing j j i . n this country. The dialogue was "bubbling with shrewd hu-; jnor," and the atmosphere created was one of refinement and pophistication, "such as only a very few (Philip Barry and S. N. Behrman, for example) have exhibited.He observed ■ i I jbhat this play was different from the usual American comedy j ! "of noisy vulgarity." He hoped for the time when the clas- | 3ical tradition of the comedy of manners would merge with the tradition of indigenous popular drama to produce some- i thing which would, sooner or later, be worthy to be put be- \ side the really great specimens of the genre.3^ Krutch suggested that the distinction made in the j seventeenth century between humor and wit be revived. Humor i { was the kind of thing which was funny because it was charac-j teristic of a particular person; wit was that kind of remark which was amusing in itself. Wit, which belonged to pure ! I j comedy, owed its charm to the fact that it must be intelli- j gent, "that it is funny only because the needle point of a witty phrase must always puncture some gaudy balloon of sen-; timent."3^ As representatives of these two types of comedy,; i he selected Rice as a writer of humor and Behrman as a writ-! | ; er of wit. I . 33Krutch, "A New Comedy," The Nation, 129:392, Octo-| ber 9, 1929- ! 36Ibid., p. 393* * i S^Kruteh, "The Kinds of Comedy," The Nation. 133: ! 622, December 2. 1931. ...... | ! Sentimental Comedy j j Sentimentality, wrote Kruteh, was the attitude which; arose in those who were so anxious to believe things what I ! they ought to be that they paid no attention at all to what ' j they were. This kind of attitude meant "the end not only ofj drama but of every vestige of the critical attitude toward j persons and events."33 As he saw it, there were only two j ways of dealing with life--the way of passion and the way of; intellect. Either one could accept reality and master it after a fashion, but sentiment refused to play the game at all unless it could do so with loaded dice.39 The reason for the popularity of sentimentality was j bhat it enabled audiences to feel very virtuous at the ex pense of very little effort. "The author is so anxious to get at the repentance or the reconciliation that he can hardly spare the time to allow anybody to sin or quarrel."^0: A . proclamation in favor of this kind of play was found in I Richard Steele's preface to his The Conscious Lovers. "Any-1 1 ™ , r T n i r r i r r " I thing that has its foundation in happiness and success must j be allowed to be the object of comedy; and sure it must be ' an improvement of it to introduce a joy too exquisite for j 1 i.iii laughter. The reviewer complained that this philosophy ; jseemed to have been accepted wholesale by such Spanish i I » I 3®Krutch, "Silver Lining--No Cloud," The Nation, j 129:474, October 23, 1929- 39ibid. ^°Ibid. ^1Ibid. | playwrights as Quintero and Sierra. He spoke of the "unre- ' lieved sweetness” of Quintero’s A Hundred Years Old (October; L, 1929). Sentimental comedy concerned itself primarily ; with scenes of repentance, reconciliation, forgiveness, and general benevolence. "The whole thing is one, long happy 4p ending, . . . ; In a review of a dramatization of James Hilton’s novel And Now Goodbye (February 2, 1937)* the critic ex plained that sentimental tragedy was the most popular of all, bhe forms of nursemaid fiction because one was not called upon, as in genuine tragedy, to confront himself with men greater than himself and with passions stronger than his. j "The genuine essence of sentiment is emotion without the re-j sponsibility of choice, the privilege of feeling uncritical-| I ly, of enjoying tears which really cost us nothing." D ; Rose Franken’s Claudia (February 12, 1941) was an embarrassment to the reviewer because of its obvious appeal j for the tender smile and the furtive tear. The dialogue was; I Its strongest point--easy, graceful, and genuinely amusing--! 1 i but the action, though managed skillfully, seemed to him to ; jpollow the pattern of the well-made play. Here was a play ; irhich involved a pathetic situation to be solved by every- j body being "good." The problem was a child-wife who did not) ^2Ibid. | ^Krutch, "If You Have Tears," The Nation. 144:194, j February 13> 1937- want to grow up intellectually or emotionally. The mother, ' it had been discovered, was about to die of cancer; her j 7 • 9 \ daughter reached maturity when she realized that she must be i | brave for her mother's sake. Comedies which found their fib :ial solution in pathos did not meet with the critic's ap- | oroval. ! i * The mixing of comedy and pathos, according to him, j was even less legitimate than the mixing of comedy and trag-; edy, since the two latter could at least be sharply discrim inated . . . . the mood produced by the pathetic in comedy is likely to be an ambiguous one— as the result of which tears and other outward signs of distress are actually j accompaniments of a warm glow of self-satisfaction thor oughly enjoyed by the spectator, who is more aware of j himself and his good heart than he is of the sufferings | of any fictitious hero.^ | Melodrama Melodrama, in terms of theatrical history, was de- i jscribed by Krutch as a drama accompanied by melodies. The I sntrance of the villain used to be heralded with excited | ] thumping, and scenes of sentiment were accompanied with soft! music. The original melodramas were invented for perform- i ance in large London theatres which were prevented by the 1 monopolistic system of licenses from performing any plays in the standard repertory. They were written for immediate sonsumption in auditoriums too large to permit the effective ^Krutch, "Sentimental Comedy," The Nation, 152:221, kebruary 22, ^19^1...... —.- ...... -. _ ... I use of much dialogue. The emphasis was upon spectacle and action, upon things seen rather than upon words heard. When’ these melodramas disappeared, along with the situations | j ! i • which had called them into being, the name persisted to I identify any play in which the action was conspicuously more ! f i : important than the dialogue. j The critic used the word "melodramatic" for any con temporary drama which depended chiefly upon an externalized j i l conflict, one in which the triumph or defeat of the protago nist was recounted in visual terms--such as when the hero ! arrives in time to loosen the bonds which hold his beloved i in the path of the on-rushing train. Propagandists often j i . i used melodrama as a means to get people fighting mad, but j i 2ir they never used it to make people think. I The reviewer did not usually believe in the "laws of bhe drama," saying they existed in the imagination of the pedants, but there was one law which he claimed was inviol- j able: one could not successfully play upon the mind and the, i nerves at the same time. In reviewing Burnet's Four Walls (September 19, 1927), he wrote that the author could not ex pect the audience to be interested in Spinoza when pistols j were being flashed upon the stage. When a playwright used j melodrama, all other kinds of drama ceased to exist. j . . . if thoughtfulness seems pallid to some when it! stands alone, it inevitably seems so to everybody when j ^Krutch, "What Is Melodrama?" The Nation. 138:546, ! May 9,-1934--- — __. . . _________ _ _ ...__J ] • .■ ■ ' .— “ 1541 ! 1 placed in juxtaposition to things more immediately and superficially exciting. When "thoughtful1 1 melodrama ■ succeeds it is always begause it is melodrama, never be-! ! cause it is thoughtful.46 i ! Four Walls made its appeal to the nerves, not to the mind. The critic did not object to pure melodrama as much ! as he objected to melodrama attempting to be something more.; For example, The Chase, produced in 1952, tried to combine melodrama and ethics. He seriously doubted whether this i served the best interests of either melodrama or ethics. No' one was disposed to thought while murderers were peeping i ; through windows and revolvers were being flourished in all directions. . . . In art as in life it tends to be true that j passion and violence get the attention when they have anj opportunity to bid for it and that only when they are ! recollected in tranquility can they themselves be j thought about. Melodrama accepts this fact frankly and ! generally simplifies a given situation very much as pas-; sion and violence simplify it. The villain is a villain* the hero is a hero, and when the right man gets killed we have no doubt that he should have been.47 The Chase, on the other hand, asked the spectator toj i =hink clearly in the midst of excitement, which the reviewer! i paid was asking the impossible. Raising ethical questions in the midst of melodrama resulted only in slowing down the : action and depriving the audience of one of the melodrama’s j simple satisfactions, which was a perfect identification ^Krutch, "Stone Walls Do Not," The Nation, 125:344,j Dctober 5* 1927- ' ^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 174:437* May 3> 1952.' 1 u 48 i with the hero. j Though Krutch rarely was attracted to melodrama, he [ Occasionally approved one because he considered it well done.) Such was the case of Spread Eagle (April 4, 1927), directed ; iy George Abbott. The fact that it was very effective prop-j } | aganda for a position he might have supported--an expose of j how patriotism could be used to start a war with Mexico for | | _ I the selfish interests of a few— might have also colored his * judgment.^ ; He stated that virtue was an "engaging spectacle" and that everyone liked to see justice and goodness and pur ity prevail.80 This seems to be somewhat at odds with j Crutch's earlier remarks about melodrama and its obvious j I j black and white moral code. Far from engaging, he then j ! s found it to be dull and dishonest. Perhaps he meant that it: i was an engaging spectacle to a self-deluding audience and j bhat he did not include himself among those who were thus j pleasantly engaged. i In 194-1 he made the statement that he thought there j were more melodramatic farces produced on the New York stagej than plays of any other type. Instead of legs, he reported, j the tired businessman apparently preferred corpses, and the j ^8Ibid. j ^Krutch, "Revolutions to Order," The Nation. 124: | 460-461, April 20,.1927. 8°Krutch, "From the Attic," The Nation, 133:468, Oc tober 28, -1931.......... .................. ..... .......... betting had changed from Maxim's or the Moulin Rouge to the ' lonely villa. Those who went up to see etchings were not ; seduced; they got killed.Melodrama was not a favorite i type of drama with Krutch and there were few melodramas he | I wholeheartedly commended. ! Summary One of the major contributions of Krutch as a drama 1 i critic has been his concept of tragedy. Expressed in his book The Modern Temper (1929), his theory of tragedy has al-; so been described in his weekly drama column in The Nation. :ie explained that writing tragedy today was difficult if not; Impossible since man no longer believed in God nor in the ! dignity and greatness of human passions. Tragedy involved a justification of the ways of God to man. While tragedy grew' out of man's belief in his own greatness, comedy was the re sult of man's awareness of his own insignificance. This age, he said, was ah age of disillusionment and comedy. Comedy concerned itself with compromise and with the mastery of passions rather than a surrender to them. Pure comedy presented an ideal picture of life in which charac- ; i bers ordered their lives by their minds rather than by their; bmotions. These people were without spectacular virtues andj did not perform heroic actions. | Krutch was offended by such corruptions of tragedy j ^Krutch, "The More Cuckoos ..." The Nation, 153: ! 290, September 27. 1941.__ | r ' . . ...— .."............. ~ ....157 and comedy as sentimental comedy and melodrama. In watching sentimental comedy the audience was freed from the responsi bility of choice and of thought; they simply enjoyed them selves feeling virtuous and self-satisfied. Melodrama, too, never required thought but made an appeal through spectacle. 3eing a classicist, Krutch was naturally prejudiced against a form of drama which placed spectacle and externalized con flict before thought, dialogue, and characterization. Because he felt strongly that man had a single choice of treating life with passion or with intellect, [Crutch regarded tragedy and comedy as the only proper forms of drama. i CHAPTER IX PLAYWRITING Krutch had definite ideas as to what he considered | Dad playwriting. His criteria for judging what was bad in j j Dlaywriting could be placed in seven general categories: j j the thesis or propaganda play, the "well-made" play, the ; play which copied the formula of a former success, the play 1 which was adapted from other media, the topical play, the i ; jDiographical play, and the play which aroused ambiguous emo-j j ' i Dions. The above classifications were the main ones which ! the critic applied to inferior plays. These are examined in detail in this chapter. The Thesis or Propaganda Play The reviewer was opposed to the thesis or propaganda] jDlay. He preferred a playwright who took no side, preached no thesis, but conducted an intelligent inquiry and revealed with perfect clarity "the emotional impasse to which the situation leads."1 ! i He disliked a propaganda piece on lynching because :Lt was all shock. "It has passed like a nightmare from •j ■^Krutch, "Civilization and Adultery," The Nation, ■ L2Q.-222, February 25 * 1925* ; -.._ ___________ _....138 _ __________ ,.__j p which one is merely glad to have been awakened at last." phere was no relief from the strain of continuous horror, and the author spared the audience nothing. Though Krutch j ■Jinderstood that the playwright was attempting to shock peo ple into an awareness of the savagery of lynching, he I pointed out that the finest sermon was useless if preached I ' j bo empty pews. In the play's unrelieved assault upon the sensibilities and nerves, no poetry, no subtlety, and no i thought were noticeable. No one but a sadist could enjoy the play, wrote the critic, and all art must be in some j fashion— "however complicated or difficult"--enjoyable. He Judged that the play failed as art because it did not con- j jtain within itself its own justification or provide any out-j I j jlet for the emotions which it aroused; and it failed as j propaganda because it would not be h e a r d . ^ j i 1 In order to write great propaganda, said the observ-: er, one must manage to hold even those who do not want to j |hear. Elmer Rice in We, The People dramatized the case ! against contemporary society of 1933 with a series of speeches directed straight at the audience. Krutch felt ' jthat the play was effective only to the extent that the in- j liividual spectator happened to be on the author’s side and j jthat no one would be able to call it a good play after it j " " " " ' “ ■ " . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . - - - - - j 2Krutch, "Lynching Bee," The Nation. 134:124, Janu- j ary 27, 1932. 3Ibid.. p. 126. ! had ceased to be relevant to existing conditions.^ I One major complaint of the critic’s concerning this ; knd many other propaganda plays was that they stated nothing' which had not been stated before. I I . . .We expect of a drama that it shall tell us I something we do not know, give us some insight we did not have, or, if it deals wholly with the familiar, that, it shall arouse and then discharge our emotions in some ! effective way.5 If it failed to do any of these things, the play, according j to the reviewer, would not be completely satisfactory. Krutch believed that the propaganda play^ could not achieve Its purpose until it became so diverting, like the comedies of Shaw, that the bitter could be swallowed with the sweet; j or it became such an original work of genius that the enemy j came because of the play's artistic and intellectual excel- j lence J The "Well-Made1 1 Play While artificiality and convention in the theatre are not bad in themselves, superficial treatment of dramatic material is bad. The term "well-made" play, usually associ-j | i jated with the French playwright, Eugene Scribe, indicates a j ! h | Krutch, "The Prosecution Rests," The Nation. 136: 158, February 8, 1933- 5ibid., p. 159. ^See also Chapter VII, "The Thesis or Propaganda Play." .. ^Krutch. "The Prosecution Rests," p. l60. _ play which is written without distinction or depth and which: employs graduated intrigue and obvious plotting. Krutch j preferred a playwright with a modicum of technical skill andj i' a determination to approach the theme with his eye upon con-; j jtemporary life and thought instead of upon the convention of; bhe stage. In other words, he objected to any play which i was too "well-made," in which the construction was too neat j and the dramatic irony pointed to the degree that it called j Q distracting attention to itself. Thought, he said, should ! be straightforward but not overly-simplified. He disapproved of those critics and playwrights who were attempting to stereotype and to limit the theatre. The' first of the drama critics, Aristotle, "gave unintentional j pupport" to those who seemed to rejoice in its limitation. j They pedantically talked about the sacredness of the unities| I . . knd of certain subjects "not suitable for the stage." The jiritic stated that these people rejoiced to see plays main- ; jtaining the slightest possible contact with life and to see : 9 playwriting reduced to a mechanical art. He pointed to j Ibsen as a playwright who had taken subjects which had been ■ i thought 'Unsuitable and who had made them acceptable for the j stage. As Krutch explained it, George Kelly in Craig's Wife! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - j ^Krutch, "Civilization and Adultery," loc. cit. 1 9Krutch, "A Well-Made Play," The Nation. 124:540, ; my ii, 1927. used the dramaturgical method of the well-made play whose ! fhree acts ended respectively with a question mark, an ex- ' i i Clamation point, and a period. He regarded the method as sound, no matter what newer fashions might from time to time! arouse enthusiasm.10 Either he did not consider the play j ! j boo "well-made," which was an objection he raised in 1925 ,! boward plays he regarded as too neatly constructed, or quitej possibly he had changed his mind about playwriting over a | wenty-two-year period. ‘ He disapproved of A Thousand Summers (May 24, 1932),; a play which starred Jane Cowl in 1932, because of its de- ! . i pelopment by obvious plants which seemed to him to have beenj arranged "according to the rules in some textbook of drama turgy." He disliked the cliches of characterization and i complained that they came straight out of other plays. In fact, the play reminded him of so many different other plays' bhat it did not suggest for him anything else--"least of alii life.1"11 I I To damn a play because of its artificiality was not i I pnough, thought the reviewer, since Hamlet and certainly | some of the best comedies ever written were artificial. The; ! | real fault, he claimed, lay in the fact that "the artifice | adopted is so much duller, shallower, and more monotonous j 1^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 164:256, March 1, j 1947 • ■^Krutch, "Another Boy Goes Wrong," The Nation, 134:^ 689,June 15, 1932. j than reality. I I A play which had been called ’ 'contrived" was not j hecessarily a poor play. A contrivance, explained Krutch, could be adroit or clumsy, and it could sacrifice all or i none of the playwright's intellectual conviction. Samson Raphaelson, author of Accent on Youth and Jason. was able to! i contrive a story and to say very pointedly and amusingly ; IS what he wanted to say. J Ordinarily, said the reviewer, the author of a con- ■ brived play decided at every instance what turn he would give the action; the play was not inevitable once the situ ation had been stated. The play was not so much written as ‘ re-written and might end in any one of two or three ways. j Such plays, he maintained, were not necessarily trivial and i 14 several levels of contrivance were possible. There was some evidence that while the critic was i strongly opposed to the "well-made" play in the 1920's he came to believe by the 194-0's that the word "contrived" was j not necessarily a damning adjective when applied to play writing. j - * - 2Krutch, "Tepid Romanticism," The Nation. 126:302, ] torch 14, 1928. i ■^Krutch, "culture and Anarchy," The Nation, 154: L73, February 7, 1942. ; _—- 1^Ibid....... _.... | The Play Copied From a Former Success ! | Copying other plays was a common weakness of play- i I wrights, observed Krutch. Only a rare author could repre- j sent the contemporary scene completely free from literary i echoes in the language and sentiment. Motivation and lan- j guage were both more easily imitated from books or from plays than from life. While contemporaneity was a virtue which helped to give a play its current importance, there j was no way of judging how accurate a work of the past re- j fleeted the accent and mood of the society which it re- j fleeted. In other words, contemporaneity was no assurance that a play would have a permanent place in dramatic litera-’ 15 i ture. v ! The repetition of a formula, which had proved sue- I i i cessful once, annoyed the reviewer. Not only did play- ; wrights copy the plays of other writers, they copied their j i own plays as well. For example, after the success of Philip: Dunning's Broadway (September 16, 1926), Dunning repeated j ] the idea in Night Hostess (September 12, 1928) on the as- I sumption that "what 'knocked 'em cold' the first time is pretty sure to awaken a profitable (even if less tumultuous) enthusiasm .the second."1^ Both plays were made up of melo- j i ! jiramatic incidents; the formula in both cases was "murder j j i ^KpTQteh, "Contemporaneity," The Nation. 124:194, j February 16, 1927. i ■^Krutch, "Murder with Music," The Nation. 127:327, ! October 3, 1928. ......... _ _ .................. with music." I Krutch protested that the characters and the dia logue of Ferber and Kaufman’s Dinner at Eight (October 22, 1932) came straight out of innumerable other plays. For ex-; ample, he quoted, "Not after all that we have been to one | ^.nother" and "this is the only decent thing I have ever done i „ 1 7 |Ln my life. 1 He suspected that the authors did not really care about the story they were writing and were concerned ; 1 I only with writing a sure success. Instead of a slice of life," he called it five or six slices "not very freshly carved." He further described the play as "a plate of cold outs."18 j I ! J In another review, written only a few weeks after j his comments about Dinner at Eight, he began with this j statement: "One of the most discouraging features of this j discouraging season is the way in which our playwrights keep returning to the moods and the patterns of previous sue- j oesses."1^ He disliked plays which were new in nothing but I name. Too many authors and producers seemed to him afraid I to try anything new. He admitted that Dinner at Eight won financial success because it was like Grand Hotel (November j 13, 1930) and that When Ladies Meet (October 6, 1932) drew | ^Krutch, "Cold Cuts," The Nation. 135:465, November 9, 1932. l8Ibid. ! ^Krutch, "The Lower Depths," The Nation. 135:625, ' December 21, 1932^. .. . j crowds because it was like all of its author's previous plays; but, he claimed, these were exceptions. "... a good half of the season's flat failures were plays immedi- ately classifiable as imitations of something else." ; j These plays were merely inferior copies, often of models j which had nothing to recommend them in the first place ex cept novelty. "... they represent only a further vulgar!-! zation of conceptions which were vulgar enough to begin j with."21 ; The Play Adapted From Another Medium Krutch was disturbed in 1944 over what he termed I > "slick-paper fiction" invading the Broadway theatre. He j loted that the theatre had come increasingly to depend upon | i writers who were not primarily stage writers. Perhaps the fault had been due to the fact that more and more plays were, being financed from Hollywood, which Krutch called the world! j cf slick-paper fiction. But whatever the cause, he com- f plained that there was an ever-increasing number of new ! j i stage pieces which reminded him of the quality of popular magazines, movies, and the soap operas. Rose Franken's Soldier's Wife (October 4, 1944) was ; ' .... i i t r .... ( mentioned as an example of the type of play which was influ enced by the above media. It skirted safely around the edge cf some supposedly serious theme, was resolutely optimistic,j 20Ibid. 21Ibid- J combined a certain amount of sophistication with a folksy wholesomeness, and was written in a flowing style alternat- ; ing the epigram with the cliche.22 Such a "slick-paper fic tion" type of play, he observed, contained the same relaxed,: i sentimental triviality of tone and the same easy disposal ofj i ’problems" as could be found in the Woman1s Home Companion or the Roxy Theatre. . . . And it is an awful thought that if the stage j is really going to join hands with the monthlies and the; movies to propagate precisely the same ideals in pre cisely the same terms, the time may come when all Ameri-j ca will be living slick-paper fiction.2^ Two years later, in 1946, the reviewer was shocked to see for the first time what he regarded as a movie on the! legitimate stage. The "sinister phenomenon" was Moss Hart’sj I j bhristopher Blake (November 30, 1946), which he said was not) ; , i a play at all but a class A motion picture. It was a movie transferred to the stage as directly as the movies once : tried to transfer plays to celluloid. The play, like an j epic film, was an effort to find more and more elaborate j ways of saying what could be said simply and of realizing in; greater and greater physical detail what could be implied or suggested.2^ Once the theatre accepted not only Hollywood | money but Hollywood ideas as well, he wrote, it was lost. i 22Krutch, "Soldier’s Wife," The Nation, 159:482, Oc tober 21, 1944. 1 23Ibid.. p. 483- ! i 2^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 163:783, December 21,i 1 9 46. ..... — ..... _ I One explanation for the decline in playwriting dur ing the war years was the fact that men’s minds were else where. An audience existed, and there was no lack of back- brs to put money into shows. But dramatic literature was difficult to create, said the critic, in an atmosphere of anxiety, bewilderment, and fearful anticipation.2^ In a review of A Streetcar Named Desire (December 3, L947), be made the statement that since 1930 only three new ! I alents had appeared in the American theatre which seemed to; promise much: Tennessee Williams, Clifford Odets, and Wil- Liam Saroyan. The observer was concerned over the lack of original plays and the increasing number of "adaptations." Whereas In the twenties Krutch had expressed strong doubts as to whether a novel could ever become a good play, he noted with i alarm in the forties that the theatre was depending upon kdaptations and that it was becoming, like the movies, the kadio, and the book digest, one of the secondary media which I 27 rehashed material already exploited in some other. ' . . . it is beginning to look as if there had actual ly ceased to be any considerable number of persons able ! or willing to write plays measuring up to the never too I exacting standards of a flourishing commercial theatre. 2^Krutch, "Decline and Fall," The Nation. 151:513, November 23, 1940. 2^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation. 165:686, December 20,1 1947. ! 2^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation. 159:669, November 25,1 1944... _ ........... _ . _ J j And yet such persons are absolutely indispensable to an i ' institution which cannot afford to depend for long upon ; I outside sources. 1 ; One explanation for the disappearance of playwritersj :Ln favor of "adapters” was that theatrical producers had j caught the contagion from Hollywood and had lost their nerve; possibly they were no longer willing to pass judgment, upon the artistic or commercial possibilities of any script I which had not already been judged in some other form by some' j public. A second explanation suggested by the reviewer was that the increased demand for material created by the new media, radio and the movies--if he had written this in the j ! 1 fifties, he could have added television--had definitely ex- j i | jceeded the supply which artistic talent could provide even j at the relatively low level of excellence commonly demanded,’ and that therefore every writer and every piece of writing j |nust be made to serve over and over again. j . . . The fact that the modern world has tended to multiply the means of saying things without finding any j more things to say has long been recognized. Perhaps j what we are seeing in the theatre is merely another as- j pect of this fact, and perhaps there is no remedy short • of abandoning some of the means of expression unless and' until we discover much more to express.29 I Over the years Krutch changed his position somewhat j concerning the adapting of novels into plays. In the twen- j ties he was strongly opposed to the idea of adapting any ^ novel into a play. Later, he was less adamant, and finally _ 28Ibid . _________....... 29Ibid. , p 6J0 .. j j ' ' * ' ' . ' “.... 170' he became reconciled to it in certain instances. I In 1927 he unreservedly stated that no first-rate ' novel ever made an equally good play. The task of compress-; Ing a novel within the narrow limits of the stage, he : i chought, meant that the playwright must seize upon the most j salient details of the characterization and heighten them ! j pnnaturally in order to compensate for the innumerable sub- ' ^idiary strokes with which the novelist had built up his ef-j feet but which the playwright must leave out. Selecting the; Essence of the action and compressing it resulted in the j f. | play moving with a disconcerting rapidity. "A satisfactory play made from the materials of a novel would have to remold; I ! ithem so completely as to produce an independent work which j the maker would be justified in calling his own."30 A mere j dramatization was either a series of detached illustrations ; pr a synopsis. For example, the Guild's production of The Brothers Karamazov (January 3> 1927)* wrote Krutch, could not possi- 1 Ply crowd Dostoevsky's vast action into the brief period of j one evening. This was similar to the argument used by some ; Lritics of the cinema The Brothers Karamazov made in Holly- j wood and released in 1958. Events succeeded other events j boo rapidly to allow time for any adequate appreciation of their significance. | 3°Krutch, "On Dramatizations," The Nation. 124:72, ' January 19,- 1927. ____ I n ~ ............... ~ ........- - ............ . i7ij j . . . The vast roar of anguish which echoes through | i the book sounds here at times like a shrill falsetto, I and because the play never succeeds in casting Dostoev- ; ; sky’s magic spell we watch the contortions of the char- ; acters without ever entering fully into their souls. ; . . . judging them as we must by the light of our own j common day their conflicts seem often shadowy and the ; violent alterations of their temper incomprehensible.-^1 ! The observer suggested that imagination for this kind of at-' nosphere worked better with the written word than with the realistic attempt to embody Dostoevsky's world in flesh and ! i blood. i I I ; I Despite the fact that he believed that the magic of ‘ j pharles Dickens was at least half "purely verbal" and shouldi hot be translated into visual terms, he confessed that the | i dramatic adaptation, Pickwick (September 5> 1927)> which he ! ' ; witnessed, was both "surprisingly fine and delightfully en- | tertaining." Nevertheless, he preferred Dickens in sen- I Itences and paragraphs rather than in plastic form. . . . his fantastic characters can breath no atmos- ; phere other than that wholly unearthly one generated out) of mere language . . . both the narration and the de scription of Dickens are frequently no more than a se ries of colorful suggestions never intended to be com pletely objectified.32 Srutch commented that the play alone would not stand wholly | on its own feet and that it depended upon the audience for ; bringing the memory of the novel and its mood to supply some! ] | pf the charm of the play. j 31Ibid., p. 73- ! i 32Krutch, "Pickwick Redivivus," The Nation, 125:320,! September 28. 1927. ..................... ..___ ... | 1 The failure of the Theatre Guild’s Karl and Anna (October 7, 1929) was also blamed on the fact that the play j was an adaptation from a novel. 11. . .1 cannot recall a ! ! i i J isingle example of the dramatization of a piece of fiction j I from which most of the meaning of the original had not some-' l | how evaporated.1 1 ^3 The critic's opening statement in a review of an i adaptation for the stage of The Good Earth (October 17, j 1932) was "Both playwrights and producers must know as well 5 as I do that no good modern play has ever been made from a good modern novel.”3^ Since he was reviewing a play adapta tion by Owen Davis, he must have known that at least one 1 playwright and producer did not know this. Time has shown ! jfchat the reviewer was not infallible. If he regarded The j Good Earth as evidence that novels could not be successfully kdapted for the stage, there is plenty of evidence today to the contrary. The prize-winning play Look Homeward Angel j t (November 28, 1957) is an example. The Diary of Anne FrankJ I 1 an adaptation, offers a similar situation. i Krutch considered that so little could be trans- j ferred from a novel to the stage that the only reason he j could see for bothering with an adaptation was the value in ! publicity from the book's popularity and fame. He i I ^Krutch, "Bad Luck and Bad Manners," The Nation, j 129:504, October 30, 1929- •^Krutch, "Tableaux," The Nation. 135:438, November ! 2,_1932. _ _ .... j maintained in 1932 that the very fact certain effects were ! achieved through one medium of telling a story was sufficient proof that no other method was equally suitable for creating! the same effects. . .a novel is no more reproducible in, drama than a painting is reproducible in s t o n e ."35 j i The first time he seemed to refute his stand on the I Impossibility of converting successfully novels into plays was in a review of Eva Le Gallienne's translation to the stage of Alice in Wonderland (December 12, 1932). . . . With infinite ingenuity Miss Le Gallienne has ; translated nearly every one of Alice's adventures to the; stage, and so preserved their almost indescribable spir it that one loses but little while one gains the vivid- I ness of ^amatle Presentation.3b j He acknowledged that the dramatization was "almost miracu lously successful" and that the general spirit was "admir- j ably preserved." Another adaptation from a novel which he approved was Ethan Prome (January 21, 1936). Owen and Donald Davis ; took Edith Wharton's novel and made what the critic consid- : ered was a successful and engrossing play "beyond all rea- j jsonable expectation." He did say that he thought the larg- ; t ! Jest credit should go to Pauline Lord, Raymond Massey, and j Ruth Gordon for making the dramatization live. The stage j was able to make the personages from the novel more concretej _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ i 35Ibid. I 3^Krutch, "The Comic Way," The Nation. 135:65^, De cember28, 1932..... : .... . ____ _ _ _ _ _ and to fix definitely much that the novel had left undeter- ! mined. . .as has been hinted already, I should hesitate^ to say that the different effect in the theatre is wholly j inferior. Thanks largely to the actors it is overwhelminglyi powerful."37 ; Of Mice and Men (November 23, 1937)> from John Steinbeck's novel, was still another instance when the re- 7 I viewer approved of a play adaptation. j . . . Very little change in even the order of events1 proved necessary and what one gets in the theatre is al most the total effect of the short novel plus the addi tional vividness of fine, imaginative sets, expert di rection, and highly accomplished performances.3° This apparent change of attitude toward plays based ; on novels was not complete. Jane Austen's Pride and Pre.iu- j dice was regarded as successfully dramatized by Helen Jeromel \ ! in 1935* He noted that she had made no effort to follow the1 order of events as narrated in the novel and that she had ! i jlnvented bits of dialogue which had no close analogues in j che text. She had also made natural, effective use of bril liant scenes and conversations found in the original. Nev ertheless, Krutch still retained some reservations when it ; came to adapting novels into plays, and his acceptance of j such a play in the 1930's was still regarded as an exception; i *. . . there is a solidarity of texture rarely found in J r._ . _ . . . . . . .. _ i j 37Krutch, "Ethan Frome," The Nation, 142:168, Febru-| ary 5, 1936. ; 3®Krutch, "Oh, Hell, Said the Duchess," The Nation, ! 145:663 j Dec ember 11,. _1937 • . . . ___________ - . 1 dramatizations, which so commonly seem, at best, only a se- j ries of isolated moments occurring in a void."^ ! f i The Topical Play In the thirties the critic also viewed with alarm the increase of topical plays on the American stage. They nad become the genre most frequently cultivated on Broadway,! he observed, even though such plays were necessarily of t ephemeral interest. The "practical" playwright doubted that he could interest an audience in a theme in which it was not already interested; therefore, he wrote upon one of the sub jects which any Sunday editor would recognize as suitable 40 j Tor a feature story. The reviewer considered that this was simply a short cut to popularity--an easy way to become part of the talk of the town--and "not very likely to lead to anything more important, more permanent, or more profound) i t 4l than the subject of such talk usually is. He commented that the best American plays of the past decade were not | news until after they had been performed. The topical play ! I might have been good entertainment, but it was not a part of) the American Drama of which Krutch was most concerned. I i I An illustration of a topical play which took i ^Krutch, "A Provincial Lady in Town," The Nation, j 141:603, November 20, 1935* 4oKrutch, "The Left Banksy," The Nation. 135:291, \ September 28, 1932. j 1 4lIbid..__ ._.._ .... , ] advantage of newspaper headlines was John Wexley's drama of j social protest, They Shall Not Die (February 21, 1934). Based on the Scottsboro case, the play's purpose, according ; co the observer, was to make the most direct assault possi- , die upon the feelings of its audience and the most direct appeal for a public protest against the execution of four Negroes convicted of rape in a prejudiced court. He ob served that there was no psychological subtlety, almost no character drawing. The author did not wish to get beyond the facts of the newspaper account. The play was essential- I I [ O |Ly a newsreel and effective in the newsreel's fashion. ^ i Another example mentioned by the critic was Clear All Wires (September 14, 1932), written by Samuel and Bella Spewack. The play was described as a topical melodrama con- Derning Soviet commissars and foreign correspondents in j 43 Moscow. J The Biographical Play The reviewer also complained of most biographical j i plays. He interpreted their appearance to mean some empti- ! less, some inability on the part of the playwrights to dis- j cover themes which seemed to them significant. They pre- ! 1 iferred to look not only for ready-made stories but for ready-made stories to which history had contributed a ^Krutch, "Newsreel," The Nation. 138:284, March 7, ' 1934. | ________^Krutch,_"The Left Banksy," loc . clt. _ j significance. Any biographical play which was no more than i i a dramatization of known facts was regarded with suspicion ' by the critic. "It cannot be really first-rate dramatic | „ iiZi ' creation. There is not enough of the playwright in it. ; It was his opinion that a celebrated artist was one of the worst possible subjects for a play; he could never be per- j suaded that the actor on the stage had just tossed off "Ode pn a Grecian Urn," for example, or painted something he had seen in the Louvre. "A biographical play does not really justify itself except when it carries its own adequate proof; ? ' l jfchat the subject really has heroic stature."^ Few biograph ical plays, wrote Krutch, actually did that. Among the biographical plays which failed to impress him favorably was Aged 26 (December 21, 1936), a play deal ing with John Keats.^ Eastward in Eden (November 18, 19^7 Which concerned Emily Dickinson, was another biographical 47 drama unpopular with the critic. 1 ; i The Play of Ambiguous Emotion It was an obligation on the part of the playwright, thought the observer, to be certain of how he felt about his I I : ^Krutch, "What Porridge Had John Keats?" The Na- ! tion, 144:26, January 2, 1937* 8 ’ | ^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 165:629* December 6, { 1947. ! ^Krutch, "What Porridge Had John Keats?" loc. cit. ! ^Krutch, "Drama," pp. 628-629* * characters and. their fates. It was important to the audi ence to know where they were going, where they were being JLed. Though life baffled people--they might weep at the | i I conclusion of something which had begun as comedy— art should not play such a trick. The audience was accustomed i j | jto being told in the first scene of the play something of j the general character of the feelings which the writer pro- I oosed to evoke. i 1 s . . He objected to Lean Harvest (October 13, 1931} on j bhe grounds that it never came to a focus; the audience nev-- ar knew where it was being led. The play began in a key of nigh comedy and ended on a note of melodramatic tragedy. Itj I was the business of art to give a consistent experience. 1. . . emotional ambiguity--however common it may be in life 48 --has. no place in art/1 If the playwright were not careful, the critic warned, a sub-plot might throw the whole play out of balance; Such was the case of Hope for a Harvest (November 26, 1941),| which starred Florence Eldridge and Fredric March. The ma- j berials upon which the sub-plot was based were more simply and primarily dramatic than the main action. Seduction, il-j legitimate pregnancy, and premarital confessions might have j jbeen more hackneyed and less important than farm economics j t i and the dignity of labor, but the reviewer observed that I i ^®Krutch, "A Rule," The Nation, 133:498, November 4,! 1931. _____.. _ ___ ___ __.._.J they were more immediately and more sensationally interest- j ing. The audience found it difficult to concern itself deeply with the main theme.^ ! Summary j | From a study of his reviews it is evident that ' i Crutch had certain standards or criteria for judging plays, j 3is objection to the thesis or propaganda play was that it i was not aesthetically satisfying since it left the specta tor with undischarged emotions. Also, the propaganda play seldom offered any new insight or provided anything that was not already known. There was some inconsistency in his attitude toward ! the "well-made" play between 1925 and 19^7- Formerly he had! i opposed any apparent technical approach to playwriting; lat-j er he admired George Kelly's use of the "well-made" play technique in Craig's Wife. i Another change in one of his general theories or convictions concerning playwriting involved play adaptation.! jn the 1920's Krutch was convinced that plays could not be j adapted satisfactorily from novels. In the 1930's he began i to make a few exceptions to this stand, notably Alice in : Wonderland and Ethan Frome♦ Though he regretted the thea tre's increasing dependence upon adaptations by the 19^0's, j he no longer took the position that a play could not be j ^Krutch, "Gas Station and Juke Box," The Nation, ! 153:621, December 13, 1941._______________ __ . _. j adapted satisfactorily from a novel. j Krutch made an interesting observation that original plays were difficult to create in an atmosphere of anxiety. !3e was thinking specifically of the period of World War II, but the statement seems even more applicable today. CHAPTER X SHAKESPEARE AND SHAW Krutch supported productions of Shakespearean plays wherever he found them. Even when performed by inferior companies, such as Donald Wolfit's touring company from Eng land in 19^7, the critic recommended that the public attend.! jThe press gave Wolfit's company a cold reception when they | played New York, but the reviewer urged those who thought Shakespeare an interesting writer to witness the company's j productions. j . . . there is something to be said for the oppor- ! tunity to witness a performance of a play as seldom j acted as King Lear or even to see again one of the more ; familiar works which our grandfathers saw a great deal more often than we shall ever see it. i He reported that he was pleased to receive bits of dialogue j --even from the most familiar works--which were as new to j 1 aim as though he had never heard Shakespeare. I In analyzing his considerable criticism in this area, the investigator divided it into two main divisions: ■ (1) his comments on specific productions of Shakespeare, andj (2) his comments on the plays themselves. Krutch gave his | ^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation. 164:283, March 8, 1947; Opinion of the use of "modern dress" in particular produc- I i tions he had seen. He noted several New York performances ' | j>f Shakespeare which he thought had misinterpreted the orig-; inal plays. Most of his criticism on Shakespeare, however, i jlealt with the plays themselves rather than with the success j>r lack of success of particular performances. Krutch’s i i i comments on Shakespeare1s plays seemed to fall under five classifications: (l) plays with some serious fault or | faults, (2) plays more effective in reading than in perform-; ance, (3) plays more effective in performance than in read ing, (4) plays effective both in performance and in reading, dnd (5) plays most contemporary in their appeal. i Shakespeare in "Modern Dress" j Since the Elizabethan playwright had written his J plays to be played in the "modern dress" of his day, the ob-j server felt that companies today were fully justified in j presenting Shakespeare in the contemporary dress of the ! present period. Shakespeare cared nothing about antiquari- j i dnism; his historical characters were given the habits, the ! I ! ideas, and the dress of Shakespeare's age, "and he thought ! I ' of them as contemporaries in every respect except the acci- ! | p ! dent of time." Greek plays were more formal and ritualist-j ;Lc and required more ceremony, said the reviewer, but the j Elizabethan drama was a lively, rather informal, affair and i 1 ; | 2Kruteh, "Petruchio in Modern Dress," The Nation, I 125:521, November 9, 1927. _ _ _ j {the closer It could be brought to the present-day audience, ! jthe less pompous it could be made to seem, the nearer the contemporary audience could approach its spirit.3 j The critic thought that there was something artifi cial and pompous which infected the modern player when he ? j wore a doublet. "... and in the presence of a robe the ; spectator seems always in danger of mistaking his seat for a| t ! 4 pew. The Hamlet or Petruchio in trousers, wrote Krutch, was more at ease in the company of his contemporaries. 1 Though he conceded that the matter of dress was not really pf much importance and that the audience soon ceased to no- j i ^ice the costumes at all, he ended by giving the advantage j I „ ' j f c o modern dress. . . .it effectually banishes that op- j jpressive sense of responsibility which so often makes even j the presentation of a Shakespearean comedy a solemn affair."3 The observer also approved a 1925 production enti tled Hamlet in Modern Dress. He was even more impressed \ \ with the modern manners of the players than with their clothes. | Their gestures, their intonation, and their general i conduct are that of contemporaries; they speak their | lines, many of them as though they were prose, with the \ accent and.the emphasis which we, in actual conversa tion, would give them; and the result is to modernize j Hamlet in the^very best sense, by bringing it more closely home. j 1 [ 3Ibid.. pp. 521-522. 4Ibid., p. 521. 3Ibid. i ^Krutch, "The Glass of Fashion," The Nation, 121: i 630, December 2, 1925.____ j Orson Welles1 production of Julius Caesar was per- j formed with a bare stage and actors costumed in conventional! bontemporary clothes. Krutch preferred the simplicity of the Mercury Theatre and called the performance as absorbing , as any he had seen in New York in many years. I . . . Probably all Shakespeare's plays could be per-j formed far better upon a bare platform than surrounded, ! as they usually are, by paraphernalia which seem to havej been designed by someone without the slightest sense of I what will emphasize and what will muffle or impede the i action.' The reviewer acknowledged that probably none of the other ; plays by Shakespeare were as simple or as direct as Julius Caesar. It was a straightforward story of conspiracy which ; I i went wrong because conspiracy, being a corrupt thing, at- ; ;racted men who were corrupt. The everyday dress helped the actors to feel that i ;he speeches were to be spoken and not intoned; the modern dress could be more readily accepted as a convention, wrote ; i ;he observer, than the more distracting and unfamiliar cos- | O ! ;umes of another period. | Shakespeare Misinterpreted Several productions which the critic attended con- j zinced him that the people responsible had either missed the; :heme or unity or had made the emphasis in the wrong place. | i I i I 'Krutch, "The Mercury Theatre," The Nation, 145:595*1 November 27* 1937- j Q i Ibid. ........... _........ _ ............ _... | Twelfth NiRht, for Instance, was Interpreted by Krutch to bei one of a whole group of romantic comedies which had as their! central theme the clash between a cultivated, self-consciousf | Ly exquisite and fundamentally decadent aristocracy and a : cruder, more full-blooded group. "Out of the balance of j sympathies between these two groups the finest music of the | play arises, . . . "^ One objection which the reviewer made to the 1940 j production of Twelfth Night, which starred Helen Hayes and lYtaurice Evans, was that the central theme had been missed. The play was entertaining, even though it did not try to suggest what all the romantic posturing and all the simple | Kin added up to. "... it seems to assume that the whole i means no more than the individual parts. The Guthrie McClintic production of Hamlet (October 8, 1936), which starred John Gielgud, did not please the ob- I 11 * perver. x He made the statement that he had seen various j Jnediocre productions before, but that he had never seen one ! which so nearly succeeded in making it seem a shallow play, j The play and the central character, he complained, were treated as though there were no mystery and no complexity at; ^Krutch, "Twelfth Night," The Nation, 151:541, No- I /ember 30, 1940. | 10Ibid., p. 540. ; _______1:* - See Chapter II, "Acting and Actors," pp_. 53“54.- — J ■JO ! all. The fact that the play was set in the middle of the : jseventeenth century disturbed him. Hamlet, he wrote, was a Gothic play, not a courtly one. . . . Remove from its atmosphere all sense of the Importance of the unseen world, of things "undreamed of j in your philosophy," and you reduce it to the level of j sentimental melodrama.13 j The manners and costumes of the period chosen for the play were the essence of complacent worldliness and every effort,! i objected the critic, seemed to have been to fit Hamlet to them. The G. I. Hamlet which Maurice Evans did for the American soldiers abroad was seen in New York in December of ! ! I iL945. The reviewer noted that Evans cut speeches wherever ; they were too long or too formal but that Shakespeare's lan-J guage defied any attempt to present the characters as a ! group of regular fellows. Casual manners and casual atti tudes were not compatible with the formality of the language. He commented that the G. I. version was an ingenious and en-j 1 tertaining perversion rather than an actual interpretation j of the play.12* - He regarded the production as a stunt rather, than as something to be taken with full seriousness. 12Krutch, "With Hamlet Left Out?" The Nation, 143: 501, October 24, 1936. ! 13Ibid., p. 500. | ^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 161:744, December 29/ 1945. _ . . . . . _ _ . . . . _ . . . . . . _ . _ . . . _ . . . _ . . . j Plays With Serious Faults J i : | A Walter Hampden production of Henry V in 1928 was :ermed "satisfactory," but Krutch was not altogether satis fied with the play itself. He felt that it tended toward i i i patriotic propaganda and promoted insular self-satisfaction.; He saw the dangers in the nationalism expressed in the play;; shat one Englishman could beat seven Frenchmen and that at , Agincourt ten thousand Frenchmen were slain to twenty-five i Englishmen. The implication was that God fights on the side: Of the English. All the observer conceded was that "its naively heroic spirit is rhetorically effective and it has i is passages of gorgeous rant . . ." ! i i Bardolph, Pistol, and Nym were mere zanies; and the play suffered from the absence of Sir John Falstaff who alone was spiritually large enough to balance his philosophy --the "Who hath honor?" speech, for example— against that of: bhe heroic characters. This presence of common sense which ; served to throw the towering sentiments of the heroes into perspective gave Henry IV "a kind of depth which Henry V j entirely lacks. In Henry V Shakespeare looked at history uncritical-j ly and accepted his heroes at face value. As an illustra- | tion, he had Henry say that he hated wars (except of course | i -^Krutch, "Mr. Shakespeare's Latest," The Nation. ; 126:389, April 4, 1928. j 16 the one he happened to be engaged in at the moment) and that! rank and title were empty things. "... but that is mere talk on Mr. Shakespeare's part."1^ In Shakespeare's poetic ; I j world of Henry V , his heroes were "as noble as perfection i ! would have them and England as great as he would like her toi I l8 ' be. The critic referred to the play as "naively heroic.". One of the earliest of Shakespeare's plays, Richard j r III was regarded by the reviewer as prentice work. Never- j i I ; jtheless, immature though it was, Krutch claimed that it was ; superior to anything written by the most ambitious and tal- ; \ bnted of the contemporary tragic writers. Richard III con tained great poetry; a clearly intelligible statement could j be made at the same time that the meaning of that statement j I was enriched by a series of words each highly evocative.^ j Beyond three or four brilliantly executed scenes, lowever, he saw little except a limping chronicle in a form i which hardly evolved beyond that of the morality play. The | character drawing seemed primitive to the point where he i I wondered whether the author had not meant the play to be j part of some Child's History of England. Richard resembled Lewis Carroll's irrascible queen who responded to all diffi-j culties with the same command, "Off with his head!" The ob-; server decided that the play would appeal to two types, the j | 17Ibid.. p. 389. l8Ibid. ' ■^Krutch, "so Much for Buckingham," The Nation, 156: 534, April 10, 1 9 4 3 . _ .._ ______________ __ _.... j very naive or the very sophisticated, with no chance of j i j pleasing the middlebrows. He reported that he enjoyed the George Coulouris j j production of Richard III in 19^3 because there was no new i ' l or forced "interpretation" and because it was presented for i what is was--"a rather primitive melodrama lighted by ; flashes of genius."20 i In 19^9 Krutch stated that though actors had tried j for over 250 years to make a good play out of Richard III he doubted whether any of them could ever succeed. He called the Richard Whorf and Philip Bourneuf attempt a "good try." ; Through extensive cuts they produced a fast-moving, confused I pageant of villainy which was by turns tedious, exciting, j Pi and, now and again, genuinely moving. j The critic determined that the difficulty with the ! play was that it was composed of three discordant elements: ! I ! i I jthe child's history of England which Shakespeare prepared ; i 1 for the patriotic but simple-minded groundlings, a blood- i ! and-thunder melodrama, and a youthful attempt to explore the; meaning of villainy as a philosophy of life. As an Eliza- i Pethan, Shakespeare was fascinated with the idea that there j might be no good nor evil except what thinking made, and j therefore fascinated with the character of a man who | _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ i 20 ' Ibid. : 21Krutch, "Drama," The Nation. 168:220, February 19,! 1949. ... | proclaimed himself free from moral scruples. Whorf, com mented the reviewer, tried to keep the blood and thunder | while at the same time taking Richard seriously as a philo- ; sophical and psychopathic villain. The traditional solution: t | had been to put the melodrama first and to make Richard an j PP ' almost comic picture of total depravity. ^ | i Plays More Effective Read Than Performed j i Comparing Henry IV with Shakespeare's more mature plays, Krutch recognized that the writer's literary talents I were more in evidence than his ability to write for the re- i quirements of the stage. There was a failure to bring ever ything to a focus in single scenes. The incidents and ! speeches which defined the character of Palstaff were scat- j Jtered here and there; he was given few long scenes. He was j a . figure, explained the observer, whose full magnificence was to be comprehended only when everything that had been said or done was recollected in tranquility. "He exists as j a completed whole far more vividly than he exists at any onej moment; he is more of an eternal idea than a personage act- j ing in time. The Old Vic Company visited New York in 19^-6, and * jthe reviewer had the opportunity for the first time to see j Henry IV, Part II, on the stage. He was not entirely 1 _________________________________________________________ 22Ibid. | 23Krutch, "Virtue in that Falstaff," The Nation, ! ......... ... . . . j pleased with It and decided that the fault lay with the ! .chronicle form which could not create the cumulative and in-; jtegrated effect that was necessary for the theatre. In the j mind and in the memory, he reported, Henry IV was one of the i I richest and most rewarding if not one of the greatest of its! I author's works. While the reader was able to see the play in terms of a pattern of relationships--in his imagination it took on form and meaning, the spectator saw scene after j scene performed on the stage and it became fragmentary, rep- 021 jetitious, and not fully pointed up. Whether any classic was worth performing was deter mined by Krutch asking himself whether the production j i changed, added to, or in any important way enriched the ex perience which thoughtful reading had given him. He felt that The Winter's Tale, a performance of which transformed ; bis whole estimate of the play, was definitely worth produc-i ing. He was less certain about Henry IV. He complained that many fine scenes were shrunk and impoverished instead cf expanded and enriched and that the whole play seemed less impressive In the theatre than in the mind. Though he considered Ralph Richardson's performance ; as Palstaff excellent, the critic judged that the physical j embodiment of what he had come to regard as a poetic figure | and the idea of bibulous sloth and witty rascality was I \ ^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 162:609, May 18, 1940. 25Ibid. .... _._ .._ _._ _ ........... _____ . | disappointing. "A tub of guts remains merely a very physi- ' cal, unattractive thing. Neither the big belly nor the ! o f . ^ropsiacal legs are endearing or even funny.' He suggested jbhat Palstaff be made pleasingly plump and not monstrous by i kssuming that Falstaff and his companions were congenital i i ibxaggerators who delighted in magnifying everything. " . . .: but I doubt that we shall ever be able to believe that a merely gross old man is actually the Rabelaisian poet our j ! imagination has accepted, . . . "27 ■ Plays More Effective Performed Than Read On reading The Winter1s Tale, the observer felt thatj i it was not a play whose greatness was self-evident. In fact] le regarded it as a feeble work to come from the pen of the greatest writer the world had ever known. The production which he witnessed in 1946, directed j by B. Iden Payne and Romney Brent, was called a "revelation”! and one of the most rewarding performances of Shakespeare he aad ever seen. The lack of realism--Leonte's unmotivated jealousy and the statue of Hermione coming to life--did not j disturb Krutch as it did some other critics. Shakespeare jfcook certain realities such as Jealousy, faithfulness, and j i young love and made a dramatic arrangement very much as a 28 I painter made an arrangement of objects. j 26Ibid. 27Ibid. 1 2®Krutch, "Drama," The Nation. 162:138, February 2, i 1946. .. . . ..... _ _ j The reviewer stated that in The Winter1s Tale some spectators had wept to find everything turning out as pre- i ; tisely as it should. The following sounds contradictory to | what he had previously written on the subject of sentiment i i £nd happiness dramatically depicted. i . . . No spectacle is more touching than the specta cle of happiness, and when this particular journey ends j in lovers’ meetings the representation of so much joy is, almost intolerable, affecting one like the triumphant I conclusion of a great symphony whose logic and credibil-j ity have their existence in a realm equally far removed ! from that of everyday llfe.^9 i The description of the spectators weeping at such a specta- ! cle of happiness seems to this investigator similar to the 'tears that please" and "tears that cost nothing" which the j critic had ridiculed.3 ° i l I j The performers in the Players' Club production of ! Troilus and Cressida were not "at home" with Shakespeare's ~ I j/erse, remarked the observer. The performance, however, was thought to be "conscientious, intelligent, rewarding," and j the play was made more vivid for the reviewer than any read-j Lng of it had been able to do. He was grateful to the play-, ers for producing the play, which had never before (1932) oeen performed in New York. j The play was interesting to Krutch because it had | neither the nobility of his usual,tragedy nor the merriness j 29Ibid. ! 3°See Chapter VIII, "Tragedy, Comedy, and Melodrama," Sentimental Comedy, pp. ..1,50-152 .. j of his usual comedy. In no other play was Shakespeare so ! "un-Shakespearean." Instead of being serene and noble and ; harmonious, the playwright presented a world of discord j where human life was really ugly. The Trojan War, the back-; 1 ' * ground of the play, was a stupid, pig-headed brawl. The j critic noted that all the characters in the play with the , exception of Troilus and Hector were lacking in humanity, magnitude, or integrity. Everything went wrong, "and every ! satastrophe has, instead of the noble grandeur of the trage-, lies, something merely contemptible about it."31 The whole I clay, he claimed, was pervaded by a bitter, unhappy, and ex asperated cynicism; it was everywhere and in every sense j anti-heroic. j He saw in Troilus and Gressida some evidence that i Shakespeare was human enough to have had his moments of bit-; ber doubt when he concluded that men and women were baser creatures, perhaps, than he had once represented them to j 32 be. \ i Plays Effective Both Performed and Read The reviewer commended Margaret Webster in 1945 for I i cer courage in doing The Tempest. The play had not been performed in New York for a quarter of a century. He re- j ported that Webster managed to put it over by hiring a cast j ■^Krutch, "Troilus and Cressida," The Nation, 134: ' T34, June 29, 1932. ; 32Ibid.... _ .............. _ . | which had both competence and publicity value--such as Cana-, da Lee and Vera Zorina--and by using effective theatrical I devices without too much concern whether or not they were j part of the Shakespearean tradition.^3 Though he thought j that Prospero's two big speeches were more impressive read j j : than delivered from the stage, he observed that other scenes; took on a greater significance which the reader would have piissed. "The answer to the old question whether Shakespeare; ! ! ^4 ' belongs on the stage or in the study is simply 'both.1 J , Hamlet was effective read as poetry in the study and performed as prose on the stage. In the substituting of rhythm of the thought for the rhythm of the verse in the : reading of the lines in the 1925 production, Hamlet in Mod- j ern Dress, the observer felt that something was lost, but i bhat something was also gained. While much of the poetry ; sounded like prose in this new version, the reviewer pointed^ ^ I put that in moments of heightened emotion the players slid j 1 I into poetry when poetry seemed most natural. ^ He went on j jto say that he wished there were new plays, completely mod ern in scene, theme, and feeling which utilized poetry when j I their intensity seemed to justify it. ‘ Plays Most Contemporary in Their Appeal j i Intellectually the reviewer thought that Othello was! 1945. t ^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, l60:l65> February 10,! 34Ibid. _ _ _ ...35Ibid....... j icloser to a contemporary audience than any of Shakespeare's ! Other tragedies. Its story was rational and, stripped of 1 Lts poetry, it still seemed to him both compelling and ter- | rible. The play moved him by its logic. He saw in Othello something more than the victim of j crdinary jealousy. Desdemona was a symbol and a criterion Df this new Venetian world of sophistication and polish. If: she were good then all would be good; if she were false all | would be false and "chaos come again." Infinitely more than| the mere faith of a wife hung in the balance; faith in man kind was at stake. Desdemona's seeming betrayal told him that the whole existence which he tested by her was rotten j and that there was nothing in all the world which he, a j ! fighter, could think worth fighting for.37 j The critic referred to King Lear as "probably the most difficult of the Shakespearean tragedies."33 i>he phi- ; losophy which the play expressed seemed to him the most Striking feature. If the scene on the heath in which Lear i • i j r kiscussed the universe had been written in the 1930's, the j Observer was convinced that many would have commented about ■ ■ its Russian gloom and its technique of expressionism. j Shakespeare anticipated the utterance of the completest j 3^Krutch, "Mr. Hampden's Othello," The Nation, 120: 125> February 4, 1925- , p. 126. I 33;Krutch, "Shakespeare and Expressionism," The Na- ' :;ion, 130:498, April 23, 1930. ... __.._.... j 30 nihilism ever achieved by a Strindberg or an Andreyev. ^ j Despite the fact that some kind of order was re-established : ^.t the end--Cordelia restored to Lear his faith that good- I liess might exist--Shakespeare1s main theme in this play was that darkness rather than light was the ruling principle of i j jfche universe. Krutch found not only the argument but the technique he used to express it "peculiarly modern."^ Romeo and Juliet retained its appeal over the years ! as a love story of two young people. It was, said the crit-l jLc, in a different category from all the other tragedies of ; Shakespeare. It contained no philosophical problem, no real jvillain, and calamity came by an unfortunate chance. "It j I | has only one purpose: to exhibit love as love seems to lov-j srs, . . ."4l | Macbeth could make an appeal to a contemporary audi-; 2nce simply as a murder story. Of all Shakespeare's trage- j dies, the reviewer suggested that Macbeth might come nearer to being a mere murder story and that Macbeth himself might J j be the most vulgar of the great tragic heroes, since lust j jfor power, of all the tragic guilts, was least likely to ; arouse compassion. The memory of Macbeth's earlier virtues j were never vivid in the spectator's mind, he explained, and i Dne did not feel strongly the tragedy of the good man fallent | 39Ibid. ^°Ibid.. p. 500. ! ^Krutch, "Miss Le Gallienne's Juliet," The Nation, I 130:580, May .14, .1930., _ ................... ... . . . .. j I'It is, if you like, a play about conscience, but the horror! ( 2 i p is largely pure blood-horror. ; The 19^8 revival of Macbeth, with Michael Redgrave j and Flora Robson, was reported to be a simple, straightfor- : | ward production of what he considered was, structurally, the' simplest and most straightforward of Shakespeare's major tragedies. Krutch remarked that it was even more foolproof j than Hamlet in being interesting and theatrically effec- j tive.43 Shakespeare vs. Shaw While the critic did not necessarily agree with Shaw’s famous statement that he was a greater playwright ! shan Shakespeare, he was an admirer of both writers and did | feel that in the instance of Caesar and Cleopatra vs. Antony and Cleopatra the Shavian work was superior. ; No puritan myself, I do not recoil with the full j Shavian horror from a tragedy which sets up lust, digni-i fled by the price it exacts, as a worthy protagonist } against mere ambition; but I can readily grant the supe-j rior intellectual force of Caesar and Cleopatra and rec-| ognize the fact that the author of it set himself a dif-S ficult task when he undertook to write a play whose heroj was not a great lover but a great man. Shakespeare's ; play sets me dreaming; Shaw's stirs in me passions which; I recognize as of a later birth than those upon which the rival play is based. And when I have said that, I have ! answered affirmatively the famous question in the sense | ^Krutch, "The Evans Macbeth," The Nation. 153:547* j November 29> 1941. ' ^3Krutch, "Drama," The Nation. 166:422, April 17, 1 1948. ...... i ~ “199] i in which it was meant.^ ! I In answer to Shaw's comment that the premises of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra were foolish and immoral,' phe reviewer said that the accusation as far as drama was concerned was irrelevant, just as the alleged superiority of; Shaw's premises were irrelevant in judging his play. "In ; hoth cases all that is really necessary is that the premises' should he temporarily acceptable and that an interesting j story resting upon them should be told."^ I ; | One significant difference between Shaw's version and Shakespeare's play was that the story of Cleopatra as tar as Shaw was concerned did not center around an amorous ; i j 1 episode but around what happened when a great man grown old j I j jn.et a queen who had not yet grown up. The thing which both j | ‘ ; writers had in common, pointed out the critic, was a sense | 46 of the primary importance of social stability. Shaw was i poncerned with the idea of government, and his Caesar asked I | whether peace or even war were not an art. Shaw's Caesar j was a kind of superman and philosopher king. I For the purposes of discussing Shaw's plays, they j nave been organized under the following headings: (l) Shaw's better plays, (2) Shaw's more conventional and lesser plays,; ^Krutch, "Better than Shakespeare?" The Nation. 120:500, April 29, 1925- 1 ^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation. 174:17, January 5* ! 1952. ; . . . . ____ __46Ibid., p. 18.... _... j / 3) Shaw's plays of optimism, and (4) Shaw's plays of pessi pism. Shaw's Better Plays ! The fatal defect of the philosopher-king, noted the j observer, was exposed in Caesar and Cleopatra (December 20, j 1949)(revised December 19, 1951). Near the end Caesar told j Cleopatra: "I do not do what I want to do; I do what must i r 47 ' be done. That is not happiness but it is greatness. ' :2arlier in the play he had said: "When a stupid man is do- j ing something of which he is thoroughly ashamed he is sure j 1 lift to tell you that it is his duty." Though this Caesar was j name for something which anybody ought to feel thoroughly ■ashamed. In a review of Saint Joan (revised March 9, 1936), performed by Katharine Cornell and her company, he called the play one of the very few classics of the modern theatre. Twelve years had passed since the critic had been first ex- ! posed to it, and he felt that the play had not become "dated;1 in the least. Df the anarchical individual who sets himself up against not a stupid man, said the critic, it was terribly difficult; for even a benevolent dictator to distinguish between "what j has to be done" and that "duty" which was only an apologetic! Shaw offered no intellectual solution to the problem 48 Ibid. orthodox traditions and institutions. The reviewer thought ; that the playwright showed himself superior in the handling ! | } of Saint Joan, since in many of his other plays he preferred! I bo settle once and for all a question which he had not set- ; | bled at all. The theme of the individual versus the world, j which naturally feared the destruction of the institutions ; I which regulated its day-by-day existence, was a recurrent j I jme. By placing the long and passionate arguments into the j mouths of the ecclesiastics, Shaw recognized a tenable point’ of view. By making Joan as fanatical and as ruthless as her opponents, he indicated he was not making a plea for simple tolerance. In presenting a case for both the authoritarian ! l I knd the anarchical individual, Shaw was thought by the ob- ] berver in 1936 to have written the best dramatic represen tation of that particular conflict that had ever been writ- ! u i ten. ^ Krutch might have overlooked Sophocles1 Antigone; i and of course there exists today a play which he could not nave possibly known about at the time of his writing, the j Anouilh version of Antigone. Many of Creon's arguments are j as persuasive as the ecclesiastics' and Antigone, especially in the Anouilh play, is as fanatical an anarchist as Joan, j While most of Shaw's plays took place in the Realm | Df Discourse, noted the reviewer, Saint Joan was recogniz ably set in the late medieval world. Also, Joan was a ! I [ ^Krutch, "Shaw's Classic," The Nation. 142:392, ; March .25,. .1936 _ _ _... J pharacter and not, as most of Shaw's characters, merely a j configuration of opinions more or less enlivened by manner- ; isms. "... Saint Joan has, more than any of the others, the conventional virtues of a play as well as its full share of the peculiarly Shavian ones."^0 At least three theses seemed apparent to Krutch in | Saint Joan. The simplest was the more or less Marxian con- ! I l bention that nationalism was a necessary transition from j feudalism to ultimate world government. In the second the- : pis Shaw showed himself as a rationalist-mystic by claiming | that Joan was an example of what might just as well be i i palled a Saint, even by atheists, since it was necessary to j pave a name for those who were more virtuous than humans j were prepared to believe possible. Finally, Shaw the polit-j i j ical philosopher expressed the dilemma that any effective ; government must enforce discipline even though it has no way1 i pf distinguishing between incipient anarchy and the genuine ; i ; Gospel of the Future. None of these theses, said the critic; ] had been "dated" by the passage of more than a quarter of a j (bentury.-^1 | f Shaw's More Conventional and Lesser Plays I Arms and the Man (September 14, 1925) was not con- j sldered one of the very best of Shaw's plays. "... the j ^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 173:361, October 27 , ' ' 1951. I 51Ibid. ... _ _ ..... _____.___... j very best are those which are most thoroughly Shaw rather ' jthan those earlier pieces in which somewhat conventional situations are merely touched off with the Shavian philoso- ■ phy. J The reviewer credited the Guild with giving it a "joyous revival." ! Popular though it was, and is, Pygmalion (November 15, 1926) was not regarded by Krutch as one of Shaw's impor-| tant plays. He called it "improbable" and not very profound1 . . . . Obviously what is done to Eliza Doolittle's j soul is more important than what is done to her vocal cords, but the plot is so arranged that the more signif icant things are only incidentally referred to, while i the lesser ones are displayed at full length. Shaw, in other words, though he wished to write a comedy which should analyze the meaning of manners, was betrayed into, a farce which is often no more than superficial extrava-' ganza.53 j To say that the play was not one of Shaw's best did | not mean that it was bad, Krutch explained. He judged Eliza's father "inspired caricature" and the finest thing in the whole play, and the speech presenting the advantages and i irresponsibilities of the "undeserving poor" as brilliant asi S4 ' anything the dramatist had written. He approved the Thea-j tre Guild production by acknowledging the skill acquired by ■ long experience with Shaw's plays. ! Another Theatre Guild production of a Shaw play, The ^2Krutch, "These Charming People," The Nation, 121: j 364, September 30 > 1925* ' \ ^Krutch, "Nodding Homer," The Nation, 123:567> De- ! cember 1, 1926. I 5 „ W — _________ __.......... .................._ ,_ _ j Doctor's Dilemma (November 21, 1927), was a "pleasant but j not an exciting evening." The chief difficulty seemed to be; bhat the thesis— that a talented rogue was more worth savingi j jthan an amiable mediocrity--was too readily accepted today for anyone to become very much aroused. Besides, Shaw was J too tender-minded; the rogue was fundamentally decent, just ; as his Don Juan was fundamentally no sensualist. The drama-; j fcist tended to whitewash all his "villains. I One of the common weaknesses in plays by Shaw, said ; the critic, was that however much intelligence existed in his plays there was no human nature in the characters. Of i the heroine in The Doctor's Dilemma the reviewer wrote the j following: "Like her husband, she has no psychological processes, merely gestures made in response to the strings I which the playwright pulls. . . . the logic of the argument jis clear, the logic of the persons non-existent. " ^ j Besides such thoughts as "what is wrong with the j poor is poverty" and "the development of industry is a bet- ; ter remedy than charity," Krutch admitted that he was not sure just what Shaw's main argument was in Major Barbara (revised November 19, 1928). The playwright could not de- ; pide between a socialistic ideal and a rhapsodical celebra- j tion of a Nietzschian faith in force. He finally escaped j ~ " ' " ~ • . ~ 7 - - ■ -... ^ ; ^^Krutch, "Papa Shaw," The Nation. 125:690, December <14, 1927. ; -^Krutch, "A Pretty Problem," The Nation. 152:331, March 22. 1941. _ .. _............ _ .... .................... from the problem "by concocting an act in which everything j is magically adjusted without any of the fundamental ques tions having been in any sense answered."^7 Shaw was too ! much of a Nietzschian to be a Christian and too much of a j Christian to follow Nietzsche. j . . . If his plays ever lose their place as impor tant contributions to drama and thought it will be be cause he had too positive a temperament to be a skeptic,j while at the same time he saw too many sides of every thing to be a believer.5° The critic believed that the dramatist responded eagerly to more different influences than were capable of being reconciled in any one philosophy. He was something of a Liberal, Socialist, Nietzschian, humanitarian, Wagnerite, j rationalist, and Christian; though he hesitated to commit j himself to most of those ideas which he had seemed to cham- i I i I pion and preferred to draw back "from the ultimate eonclu- I ■ ^ sion to which he would seem to be l e a d i n g ."^9 This unwill ingness to go to logical extremes made a play like Ma.ior ; Barbara obscure. ; 1 1 t In his plays there came a time when Shaw transcended; I his logic in a mystical flight, and the audience was re- I i quired to accept a vision and a faith in place of reason. ( But Krutch felt that he never successfully broke free from ; common sense, for the thing which he wanted most to say was ^Krutch, "G.B.S. and the Test of Time," The Nation, 127:667, December 12, 1928. 58Ibid. 5 S W . something which no prose, not even his, could communicate. ! ". . . and thus there is always one point in every play where he fails of complete success simply because he is not j a poet."6° | In Candida (December 12, 1924), remarked the observ-! er, Shaw revealed that men were only big babies after all; and the playwright proceeded to set the heroine on an ele vated and ornate pedestal. Candida, commented the critic, j was What Every Woman Knows with fireworks. James M. Barrie ; and Bernard Shaw shared the same "profound understanding of j women." For Krutch the play was still entertaining. "It contains some of the liveliest verbal fencing ever provided j by a modern playwright." Shaw's iconoclasm, noticed the peviewer, was largely intellectual and his heroes and hero- ! Ines rarely did anything which would shock anyone. "But ; they often seem to be giving outrageous reasons for their conformity."^ j Though Shaw's characters did not contain for the j critic the flesh-and-blood reality of the supremely great dramatists, they also were not merely talking ma.chines to ceel off his ideas. They were puppets which could speak and; f act and had gestures, traits, and peculiarities. "His i l I f ; ^°Krutch, "The Impenitent Shaw," The Nation, 130: ! 340, March 19, 1930. I ^Krutch, "What Every Woman Knows," The Nation, 144:^ 362, March 27, 1937- ; 62ibid. ........ ;.J ......■ .. ""..... .............. " ”207’ personages may have little life outside the play, but they i nave great liveliness within it."^3 < There were two revivals of Shaw on Broadway in 1946,’ Pygmalion and Candida. Neither of these plays, Krutch re- : ported, was among the playwright’s best. In fact, he called' i Candida a deliberate attempt to win a public after the fail- j ure of his "unpleasant" pieces. He also said it was one of I ! t bhe author’s most factitious comedies and "probably not ; 64 really very sincere." Nevertheless, he stated that Candi da was still four or five times better than any of the fash ionable plays which were currently (1946) on Broadway. In bhe review he concluded that Shaw was incapable of making j piy passion which rested upon a sensuous foundation and thatj Marchbanks in his attempted moments of eloquence, his ex- ; I ! pression of physical love, was not believable.^ j Shaw’s Plays of Optimism | In a review of the American Repertory Theatre producr bion of Androcles and the Lion (revised December 19, 1946) j i :£rutch stated that one important fact concerning Shaw was j that he was so kindly and so soft-hearted that he was unable I : to write a play in which anything irreconcilably evil put in i even a temporary appearance. j 63Ibid. i ^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 162:487, April 20, ' 1946. ; .._.65Ibid,.... _ ... j | ' ' " 208’ . . . He never writes tragedy, because in tragedy someone has to get hurt; and it may even be that the I absence of heart which has so often been complained of ' means merely that he cannot bear to create a character i endowed with the organ which makes a certain kind of ; suffering possible. ; The critic used Androcles and the Lion as an example. r ™ 1 ■ ' ri" '■ rrm .n T -i» ,,...,n i" -| ..............r j The martyrs were saved, and the Romans were rendered likable* Respite the fact that the emperor was presiding over a j butchery, he was made into a fairy-tale ogre who would not i hurt a flea. Few if any other modern writers of repute, he j remarked, were so completely free in their personality as well as in the characters they created from the "neurotic." ; Ibsen and Strindberg were concerned chiefly with the irra tional in human character, as were most of the intellectual-! Ly fashionable writers from Dostoevsky through Joyce and J £ajka. But Shaw and Shaw's characters were so harmless, so ! I well adjusted, and so serenely optimistic in temperament no : matter what opinions they professed to hold that they tended! to seem not fully human.^ | t Taken from the third act of Man and Superman, Don Juan in Hell was presented by a group calling itself "the ) First Drama Quartet." The observer considered it the sensa-: tional success of the season. Far from being "old-fash- 1 ioned," he wrote in 1951 that Shaw was just coming into his i ^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation. 164:25, January 4, 1947. 67Ibid,., p. 26.____________ ___ _____________ __ .....1 6ft i pwn as far as the general public was concerned. Tiresome phough it might have been for an intellectual, hell was not ' depicted as an evil or fearful place. It was another exam- i ole of the dramatist’s inability to characterize evil. The Devil was a charming gentleman of taste, and Don Juan was an! Intellectual, not a sensualist. i Shaw’s Plays of Pessimism ! t j Despite the fact that the reviewer considered Too True to Be Good (April 4, 1932) one of Shaw's poorest, he also thought it was Shaw's most impressive. The play indi- ' sated that its author was old and weary; some of the pas sages of dialogue were ”stodgy” and "dull." He referred to ' Lt as a "trivial fable" that "could not possibly be per- | Formed in any tolerable manner."^ Yet Krutch was moved as ! i ie had seldom been moved by any theatrical performance. It • was not the play or what was said in the play that was im- j pressive. It was the man behind the play. The critic saw j For the first time what he thought was the old man stripped ; i sare--"a cry from the heart." j He construed Shaw's words as his eternal farewell to t the stage. In all his other plays Bernard Shaw was in charJ I acter; all his characters might have been Bernard Shaw but j . . _ j Krutch, "Drama," The Nation. 173:554, December 22,1 1951. ^Krutch, "Alas, Poor Yorickl" The Nation. 134:477^ i April 20, .1932, ...._ ......... .......... _ _ ..........| Shaw himself was a character. "He had an answer to every Question and a remedy for every evil."7° The world was sim ple; all one needed was sanity. The observer interpreted j Too True to Be Good as the point in the playwright's career 1 i when he threw away the mask, when all the doubts he had pre viously concealed from the world were revealed. He was "tooj ;3ad and too old to play the game any longer."71 He no longer believed that mankind could be saved. He only continued to j talk because it was the only thing he knew how to do. But j it was, said the critic, as if he had removed his cap and bells as a jester, come down stage, and made the following farewell confession: "My answers were only a little less j inadequate than most of others. You have failed, I have failed, all of us have failed. Mankind is damned."72 j i ! Since he interpreted Too True to Be Good to mean 1 that man was beyond redemption, he recognized in Shaw's nexti play, The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles (February 18, j 1935)* the case of a playwright who no longer felt it neces sary to be useful and who simply wanted to talk copiously j and vivaciously about everything and to indulge in horseplay to his heart's content. Shaw did not direct his comments to; correct any specific abuses; he merely made disinterested i comment, like much classical satire, upon the folly, per- J verseness, and stupidity of the human race. Wrote the re- I i viewer, ". . . I do not believe that the play has any I 7°Ibld. .. 71Ibid., p. 478._________ 72Ibid. J consistent thesis or any coherent body of ideas."73 Krutch 1 6nly promised that any intelligent person ought to find it jiighly entertaining if he were willing to take it as the vaudeville that it was. ‘ j In a final evaluation and comparison, the critic | 1 plaimed that Shaw’s place in dramatic literature seemed, if j | i not as secure as Shakespeare’s, at least as secure as that 1 74 ' of Congreve or Sheridan.' ; Summary Krutch was not consistent in his attitude toward productions of Hamlet which were attempts to present the work as a contemporary play. He praised a 1925 version in j which the players wore modern dress, spoke informally as | contemporaries, and used present-day manners and gestures. | The result, he reported, was to modernize Hamlet "in the ■ very best sense, by bringing it more closely home." However; in 1936 he wrote that Hamlet was primarily a Gothic play and; complained that the Guthrie McClintic production had removed; it from its proper atmosphere of an unseen and mysterious j world. Finally, in 19^5, Krutch stated that Shakespeare's ! Language made any attempt to present the characters in Ham- ! let as regular fellows impossible. He disliked Maurice ^Krutch, "Shaw for Shaw's Sake," The Nation. 140: ; 287, March 6, 1935- 7^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 165:454, October 25, ! 1947.... __.... | Evans’ G. I. production of Hamlet because of the fact that ! the casual manners of the performers seemed to him out of cune with the formality of the language. ] In preferring the poetic idea of Falstaff rather than his physical embodiment on the stage, Krutch was speak-j ing as a man of the twentieth century. While a Falstaff made pleasingly plump and not monstrous might be the critic’s poetic idea of the character, it was not Shakespeare's. ! Elizabethans enjoyed seeing the physically grotesque on the ; stage, such as hunchbacks, witches, and monsters, as well as the very fat and the very skinny. Unfunny though it might be to a contemporary audience, Falstaff of Shakespeare's im-j agination and of Shakespeare's theatre was probably a tub ofj guts. | The,critic rightly noted that both Shakespeare and Shaw were concerned with the importance of social stability ; and of government. The theme of the anarchical individual j/ersus authoritarian government was used by Shaw in Saint j iroan and by Shakespeare in his history or chronicle plays. i However, Shaw did not weight his play in favor of social stability and authoritarian government as did Shakespeare. ! Though Krutch might have overlooked Sophocles' Antigone, he i claimed that Shaw had written the best play on the conflict j of the individual versus authoritarian government. I CHAPTER XI I 1 j O'NEILL, BEHRMAN, AND ANDERSON I 1 j O'Neill and Anderson were the only playwrights given; iseparate chapter headings in Krutch's American Drama Since i 1918. They are generally regarded as the two most importantj contributors to modern drama in this country. Behrman is \ considered by Krutch to be the outstanding American comic j writer. The observer singled out Eugene O'Neill as a writer of tragedies, S. N. Behrman as creator of comedies, and Max-; well Anderson as a poetic dramatist.1 He stated that i j O'Neill's tragedies were genuine tragedies and Behrman's comedies were genuine comedies because they achieved the j formal perfection of one of the classic patterns and pro- ; duced an effect of completeness and finality possible only 2 i when such a pattern had been evolved. As for the language ; used by the three playwrights, the critic elaimed that the prose dialogue of Behrman and O'Neill was, at its best, j uardly more realistic than the verse of Maxwell Anderson. : The characters of Behrman spoke with a precision which sug- j jested less the way wits actually talked than the way they j - I xKrutch, American Drama Since 1918 (rev. ed.; New York: G. Braziller, 1957)* P* 311* 1 2Ibid., p. 312. 1 213 Should, and the characters of O’Neill spoke a language ap propriate to the passions they felt rather than to the mi lieu from which they came. "Mr. Anderson is trying to take | advantage of the fact that men may most truly reveal them- selves in language better than any they have ever actually j spoken." ^ : For the rest of this chapter, each of the play- ‘ wrights is discussed separately. The strengths and weak nesses of each dramatist, according to the reviewer, are j noted and his works are analyzed under (l) the author's more; successful plays, and (2) the author's less successful plays. i Eugene Q'Neill | It was a significant fact, wrote Krutch, that no uritic ever considered O'Neill as merely a pretty good play- i wright or maintained that he was the second- or third-best fVmerican writer for the stage. He was either the first or j 4 I bhe twenty-fifth, either great or contemptible. Excellence] commented the observer, was seldom confused with the pretty J i good, and genius was never mistaken for mediocrity. The j English critic, Allardyce Nicoll, wrote: "Without a doubt | i among the dramatists . . . who most impresses upon us a j sense of power and daimonie genius is Eugene O'Neill, and in his writings we have a kind of vast symbol of the power of j Q * - * Ibid., p. 318. ^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 163:481, October 26, ! 19M.......... _ ...._ ......... _ . „ _ . | the American stage.John Gassner said that "O'Neill is ! one of the most imperfect of the theatre's great men. But it is folly to ignore his greatness because of his imperfec-; tions."^ One reviewer who was unable to overlook O'Neill's i Imperfections was Eric Bentley. He panned The Iceman Cometh. (October 9, 1946) in the following manner: j . . . The idea that all O'Neill plays act better than they read is false. I saw nothing on Broadway this season that was more oppressively dull than The Iceman j Cometh. . . . As most of the characters represent the same thing, why couldn't at least half of them be omit ted? Would the temptation be too great to omit the oth er half too?' Oespite the fact that Bentley has never admired O'Neill, j ’ Crutch pointed out that the antipathetic critic was forced [ I jbo devote an entire chapter in his late book (in Search of j Theatre, 1953) defending his position and that no other ! Q American playwright created that same obligation. According to John Mason Brown, "O'Neill when at his j best, and always by his example even when at his worst, did 1 endow the American stage with a dignity, an honesty, an j ^Allardyce Nicoll, World Drama (New York: Harcourt, ! Brace, and Co., 19^9)* P« 763* j ^John Gassner, Masters of the Drama (New York: Ran- j dom House, 1940), p. 64l. j ^Eric Bentley, In Search of Theatre (New York: Al- j fred A. Knopf, Inc., 1953)> P* 10* j ^Krutch, "O'Neill the Inevitable," Theatre Arts t 38:j 68, February , 1954. ...............................__... I importance, and a glory which it had not possessed before. George Jean Nathan remarked that O'Neill did not possess the \ : jnind that Shaw possessed nor the poetic ability of O'Casey j but that he plumbed depths deeper than either, he was great-; ly superior to both in dramaturgy, and he remained his na- j i tion's one important contribution to the art of drama. i And finally, Krutch acclaimed the American dramatist. j . . . he was the first native playwright to win from' any large general public a recognition of his right to j be as serious, as bold and as ambitious as he felt that | desire to be; to say to that public, "there's nothing absurd in the fact that one of your contemporary fellow countrymen is frankly asking you to take him as serious-: ly as any playwright of any time was ever taken." He cleared the path for future playwrights.11 j The greatness of Eugene O'Neill, wrote Krutch, was ! that he had come closer than any other American to writing 12 tragedy. No one in America had ever written plays which 30 frankly expressed a writer's personal quest for the mean ing of existence. He invested the ideas and fancies of the modern mind with' their full emotional significance, and in comparison with that fact nothing else--neither his other j 1 " 3 j virtues nor his defects— was of much importance. J j 9john Mason Brown, "Eugene O'Neill: 1888-1953#” j , Saturday Review, 36:27# December 19# 1953* | 10George Jean Nathan, as quoted in "Dead Man Trium- ■ phant," Newsweek, June 17# 1957# p. 68. | 11Krutch, "O'Neill the Inevitable," p. 69- I i 12Krutch, "A Note on Tragedy," The Nation, 123:647# December 15# 1926. ; ________1^Krutch, "The Virgin and the Dynamo," The Nation, j I ....... .." ................... *.. 217] i i j More than any of the other contemporary American ' playwrights O'Neill was concerned not so much with man's re-; jLationship to man but with man's relationship to something ; Larger than man and beyond him. He had a sense of the dig- ; i nity of man and the greatness to which man aspired. Instead' of explaining the human predicament in terms of psychic I i [traumas and neurotic complexes which modern man had tried to use to explain away his sense of tragic failure, O'Neill I i i [thought in terms of the mystery of the universe. He was ; t 1 concerned with man's relationship to God, and with an agon- ; izing doubt whether or not God actually existed. . . . In all true tragedy there is an element of the: unresolved and the unexplained. Oedipus and Hamlet are ! tragic figures because we are never certain whether they are victims of Fate and the Gods or victims of them- : selves. And, in the case of O'Neill's best plays there j is always a similar ambiguity.14 If his strength lay in his ability to come closer toi writing tragedy than any other American playwright, his \ weakness lay in the fact that his intention was greater than his accomplishment. "With the possible exception of one or two, even his best works nearly always suggest that they in-j „ 1 5 i tend more than they succeed in embodying . . . v There ap-j I peared to the critic to be a continual struggle not only i | with the central conception in O'Neill's plays but with the j 128:264, February 27, 1929- 1 ^Krutch, "The Rediscovery of Eugene O'Neill," New 1 York Times Magazine, October 21, 1956, p. 74. ( ...^KrutchAmerican Drama Since 1918. p. 78. __.. j language itself. " . . . one often gets the impression of j positive clumsiness, as though neither the imagination nor ( bhe tongue was quite articulate enough to achieve full or i 16 i clear expression.' O’Neill's More Successful Plays 1 The reviewer accorded Mourning: Becomes Electra a j special place among the dramatic literature of the twentieth! century. . .it may turn out to be the only permanent 1 contribution yet made by the twentieth century to dramatic ■ Literature."1^ To him the play did not "mean" anything in bhe sense that the plays of Ibsen or Shaw usually meant something, but it did mean the same thing that Oedipus and ! i Hamlet and Macbeth meant--"that human beings are great and 1 ! - i terrible creatures when they are in the grip of great pas sions, and that the spectacle of them is not only absorbing | -j Q * but also and at once-horrible and cleansing." The play iisplayed the height and depth of human passions, by the grandeur and meanness of human deeds. i In comparing O'Neill's work with Hamlet or Macbeth, j bhe critic stated that the main thing lacking in Mourning Becomes Electra was language. The action was thrilling, and! Lf appropriate poetry could have been added ". . .we shouldj l6Ibid. ! i ^Krutch, "Our Electra," The Nation. 133:551* Novem-! ber 18, 1931* ; l8Ibid.. p. 552,. __................... be swept aloft as no Anglo-Saxon audience since Shakespeare's jtime has had an opportunity to be."1^ The present age, re- ! fretted Krutch, was not capable of language equal to j O'Neill's play. i | The observer admired Mourning Becomes Electra be- j cause it did come nearer than the work of any other recent | on ! dramatist to the spirit of the great tragedies. Most mod-; era dramatists, wrote the reviewer, endeavored to compensate! For the insignificance of their characters by involving them in some contemporary ' ’problem," or by suggesting that their I . : characters were important because they were "typical." They also tried to re-employ some sort of "romantic or pietistic"j attitude which had become an anachronism. O'Neill had man aged to avoid all this. He dealt with no contemporary prob-j Lems and did not ask his audience to accept any standard not; PI universally current. The critic was not disturbed that the motives behind the deeds in O'Neill's play were interpreted with Freudian jterms, just as it did not trouble him that Greek tragedy im-| plied Greek religion. "An audience must comprehend in the ,, 22 terms with which it is familiar, . . . ( Krutch selected Desire Under the Elms (November 11, ! 19Ibid. I 20Krutch, "O'Neill Again," The Nation. 134:211, Feb-^ ruary 17, 1932. j 21Ibid. ......... ........ 22Ibid. .. j _ _ _ _ _ _ 220' 1 | 1924) as the outstanding play of the season. Though not as , "well-made*1 as some of the other plays of the year, he said that it was the most powerful. The O'Neill play revealed an jimaginative grasp upon an alien philosophy of life which en-‘ j i flowed it with a vigor not matched in the American drama out-j 3ide the works of its author, claimed the observer. . . . Writing a play which is, in a way, a glorifi- ‘ cation of those whose passion defies the Puritan God, O'Neill has nevertheless given Puritanism one of its greatest spokesmen--a magnificent figure risen from the | grave to tell an alien generation what spirit moved its ; ancestors and how they generated the fierce exultation which seems to us so magnificent and so terrible. 3 O'Neill's Less Successful Plays Directed by Robert Edmond Jones for the Greenwich ! Tillage Theatre, The Great God Brown (January 23, 1926) was reported to have been admirably acted and conceived "with a complete grasp of the possibilities which the script af fords."2^ He commended the handling of the masks and the solving of all the technical difficulties. Of the play itself, the critic commented that the effect remained more powerful than clear, more intense than illuminating. The work is too subjective to be satisfactory 1 theatre. . . . He is himself too close to the passions with which he is dealing to objectify them completely, and j 2%rutch, "Summary II," The Nation. 120:724, June 24, 1925- Krutch, "The Tragedy of Masks," The Nation. 122: 163. February 10, 1926. .. _....;................ ; they master him quite as often as he is able to master them. Here, in a word, are passions as authentic and asl burning as any that ever went into literature, but no one could say that they had been "recollected in tran quility. 25 The character Dion, the artist, could taunt others with their impotence and he could flaunt his passion in j f their startled faces, but he could not explain what his po- ] jtency had availed him. The reviewer judged the play power- j jful but confusing. "Never before has he dealt with a pas- ! ^ion so nakedly personal, and never before has he allowed ! (the chaos within to shatter so completely the form of the I drama.n2^ | In 1928 Strange Interlude was praised as being j p*Neill’s best play and receiving the best production of anyj of his plays to date. While past dramatists had said that j much of modern literature was not suited for the stage, j D'Neill made forbidden subjects dramatic and successful.2^ j He conquered a new province for the theatre by using the re cently acquired knowledge of the unconscious. By dramatiz ing introspection, he adapted for the theatre subjects and bhoughts which had been largely the property of the novel. i The playwright justified his taking an unusual amount of ( time (five hours) and his disregarding the conventions of ; dramatic writing. I 25Ibid. Ibid., p. 164. i 2^Krutch, "Strange Interlude," The Nation, 126:192, i February 15.» 1928..... _.... . j . . . No play has, so to speak, a right to consist of nine long acts in which the dialogue is continually j interspersed with speeches representing the unspoken ! I thought of the characters--to be written, that is to say* as no play was ever written before— unless it justifies j the liberties which it takes by giving us in return something which no play ever gave before. . . . It does j give something--some depth, some solidity--which no playj has ever h a d .2o By 1939 Krutch was less impressed with Strange In- i berlude. He reflected that the play was vague and inconclu-j j 3ive, that it lacked passionate directness because the char-{ acters lacked passionate directness in their own souls. ’And for this reason the personages lack grandeur no less than the action itself lacks tragic elevation.1 1 The reason O'Neill regarded Anna Christie (revived j January 9, 1951) as one of his lesser plays, explained the j Ijritic, was that he wanted to write a tragedy about the sea j as one embodiment of the irrational force to which the most 1 Imposing human beings fell possessed and willing victims. The result was that audiences became more interested in the j simpler story of a man's relationship to a woman than in the original metaphysical idea of O'Neill's. What was intended as a mystical tragedy became a love story with a happy end- : ;Lng. Although the play pleased audiences more than many of j his other plays, the playwright was less satisfied.3° | 2^Krutch, American Drama Since 1918 (1939 edition), j pp. 105-106. I ; I 3°Krutch, "Drama,” The Nation, 174:92, January 26, ! Krutch approved of the 1952 revival of Anna Christie which was presented by the City Center and which starred peleste Holm, because it was subdued and underplayed. He felt that there was a temptation in O'Neill's plays, which were usually full of violent emotions, to overplay and over emphasize. The reviewer also remarked that the dialogue, which was always O'Neill's weakest point and was often un- i I bonvincing as real speech, had succeeded in that production 1 to sound as though it fit the mouths of the characters who i spoke it. The moral in The Iceman Cometh seemed to Krutch to be that freedom from illusion was the freedom of death, that ! ' the man who conquered the liar hope had conquered life also., As in The Wild Duck, "the life illusion" was the shameful prop without which most men could not stand. The judgment of O'Neill was widely diverse, he ex plained, because of the irreconcilable difference in stand- t ards and expectations. In many ways, he admitted, O'Neill \ j*as not a good writer. The playwright did not possess the I disarming ingenuity which made any story seem diverting. Never considering himself a popular entertainer, O'Neill lacked wit and poetry in his dialogue, which suggested the i heaviness of Dreiser. The critic thought that the I j_______________________________________ | 31Ibid. ! ^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 163:481, October 26, 1946.____ . _ ....... playwright had genius but lacked talent, which Shakespeare had so abundantly possessed. He also admitted that the ni hilism of The Iceman Cometh was more modish twenty years be fore than it was in 1946; however, he insisted that what jiistinguished the dramatist was not his skill nor his intel-: >Lect but his passionate sincerity— "an intensity of emotion al conviction, almost monumentally impressive33 to O'Neill the tragic sense of life was an overwhelming and ever pres- ; ent reality which enveloped everything, said the reviewer, and beside which nothing else counted. I Ah. Wilderness I (October 2, 1933) supplied Krutch * with an evening's entertainment "of charming humor and pleasant sentiment."0 The play seemed to the observer to be more similar to the works of Booth Tarkington than to the, Works of O'Neill. It was essentially direct but somewhat softened realism. O'Neill wrote about sentiment rather than I ; passion, "and about men and women who are quite contentedly t unaware of anything not publicly recognized in a Connecticut jfamily of quite ordinary people."33 | The Theatre Guild produced a revival of the play in 1 1941. The production did not impress the reviewer as any- 1 Ibhing outstanding, but it gave him an opportunity to comment i _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ; p - nrr.„„»rr,„.,.,TV I nr 1 1 nr-n “ n. .-n r n. , . , „ n - n I , rr-mnri-nrr,- T ! 33Ibid.. p. 482. ■ I 3^Krutch, "Mr. O'Neill's Comedy," The Nation. 137: 459, October 18, 1933- 35Ibid. j on O'Neill’s only comedy. Unlike his other plays, this was purely local in its reference and not out of space and out of time as was true of his tragedies. Here was local color instead of abstract grandeur--"an episode illustrative of American cultural history instead of the eternal predicament j - , / r of the human spirit."-5 It was a story concerned with the ! relationship of man to man instead of man to God. j Though not properly a part of this study, since they were produced since 1952, Long Day's Journey Into Night was the only one of three recent plays which the observer judged to be a reaffirmation of O'Neill's greatness. He pointed out that the play involved the tragic question of human re sponsibility for what was called Pate. A Moon for the Mis begotten and A Touch of the Poet were regarded as no revela-; ■tion of any new aspect of his talent and as inferior to his best previous work. { S. N. Behrman ! j . . . Late in 1931 Krutch made the comment that no other pontemporary playwright had come closer to rivaling the great masters of pure comedy in their own field than had S. ; N. Behrman.3^ His scene was the realm of "good society," i | 3^Krutch, "The Fires of Spring," The Nation. 153: (381, October 18, 1941. 37]£rutch, American Drama Since 1918. pp. 332-336. 33Kruteh, "The Kinds of Comedy," The Nation. 133: 621, December .2, 1931. . ; and his characters were "radiantly and almost incredibly in telligent." They were not, as were most contemporary comic characters, stupidly human. Behrman was not concerned with tfche actual idiosyncracies of contemporary life, stated the britic, but in the thesis of all pure comedy--"that intelli gence by itself, that clear understanding together with the ability to put everything into a graceful phrase, is all man needs on earth. | Gassner wrote of Behrman, "He is a master of dispu- tative or self-revealing conversation, and this in turn ar- ; gues a marvelous mastery of phrasing."^0 Nicoll went even | further and said, "Behrman*s great achievement is to have i i i i established an American comedy of manners, . . . | | Whenever reviewing a Behrman comedy, the observer took advantage of the opportunity and made a plea for the jtrue comic way of life and for its virtues— intelligence, jfcolerance, and grace. For him, Behrman*s comedies repre sented a definite philosophy of life. The passions, wrote I Krutch, concerned the comic writer only as something to be analyzed and understood, never as something to be shared. i Those who thought their way through life achieved grace and a kind of peace. j . . . Those who refuse to accept what good sense 1 makes plain become grotesque and tortured. It is unrea- I son and perhaps unreason alone which can make men | ' ' 1 ————— — - — - -L - - r - -■ - " j ^ Ibid.. p. 622. ^°Gassner, op. cit. . p. 670. [ _ __^Nicoll. op. cit.. p. 843* j sublime, but it is doubtful if sublimity is worth the price one must pay. Brief moments of ecstasy may well be surrendered in exchange for the detachment, the se curity, and that sense of mastery which understanding j can give. Men cannot be great, or just, or heroic; they can be amiable, graceful, and intelligent.42 j If there were weaknesses in Behrman as a playwright, I the reviewer felt that they were due to the weaknesses of the age in which he wrote, rather than due to any fault of the dramatist. If the comic writer had lived in a more stable society, the critic claimed that he would have writ- l i ten comedies even more strictly in the line of the great comic tradition. The comic detachment of pure comedy was considered impossible or impertinent in the atmosphere in f which he was w r i t i n g . 2^ Gassner pointed out Behrman*s di- I lemma: . . . how can he function in a time in which nearly J j 1 everyone seeks to destroy all principles but his own and still remain a writer of comedy?"2*2* i | Behrman*s More Successful Plays I Krutch referred to The Second Man (April 11, 1927) ( as "sentimental comedy on the point of becoming that much I 45 higher thing, pure comedy. In The Second Man the play wright satisfied the sentimental in the audience by placing I ^Kruteh, "The Comic Way," The Nation. 135:654, De cember 28, 1932. { ^Krutch, American Drama Since 1918. p. 200. ^Gassner, op. cit. , p. 671* ^Krutch, "Comedy of Manners," The Nation. 124:484, April 27, 1927. i the young girl safely in the arms of the romanticist who really loved her, while he kept the comic spirit of the hero intact. Instead of being desolately aware of the charming I romance he had thrown away, the hero was found "contentedly jbalking over the telephone to the amiable lady with the amiable income who will serve to make him comically con sent. " 46 | The lines which the playwright gave to the hero were not simply funny as wisecracking was funny; the hero's lines were amusing because they served constantly to define his point of view.47 They were in character. I j The comic qualities, thought the reviewer, were best; presented by the dramatist in The Second Man and in Biogra- j phy (December 12, 1932). In the latter play the three lead-: ing characters represented three possible attitudes toward jthe world. The frustrated revolutionary was the eternal idealist, the politician was the eternal opportunist, and ; Ifche artist was the eternal spectator or individual of toler-! | : ant personal integrity. While Krutch predicted that the play would never be widely popular, he remarked that Biogra- phy would prove a delight to all who could appreciate the i J j O "clarity of real intelligence." j In a review of The Talley Method (February 24, 1941), i jthe critic maintained that no contemporary writer was more : ' 46Ibid. 47Ibid. 4^Krutch, "The Comic Way," loc. cit. "... 229 exclusively or more purely comic than S. N. Behrman. The reviewer was aware of the difficulties and the dilemma cre ated for the comic writer by the terrible urgency of the war years. He was assured that the playwright was conscious of the fact that all the existing problems of the world could not be solved by wit, tolerance, and good will. Yet Behrman, he commented, was neither sentimental nor cynicalj he was i •'extraordinarily clear-sighted."^ His plays represented for the observer the attitude that while wit and fairminded- ness were not sufficient to cure the ills of the world they were indispensable in any kind of good world. "They were indispensable because a world in which they did not exist j would not be a good world, . . ."^° j I Krutch reported that the dramatist had not written anything half so good as Jane (February 1, 1952) in many years and that Behrman*s best was very good indeed.^1 Bringing his readers up-to-date, Krutch said that in the j thirties the playwright had decided that it was no time for ; comedy and with increasing seriousness had experimented with' quasi-comedies on weighty themes. When that did not succeed, he wasted his talents with translations and adaptations. , High comedy, observed the reviewer, was not identical ■ ' ' ■ ‘"1' ""1_r ",“T~r r,_l r r 1 1 • ' "r r " 1 1 r " ■ iir ^Krutch, "The Talley Method," The Nation, 152:277> March 8, 1941. 1 ! 5°ibjd. i | -^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation. 174:162, February 16,! 1952... ^ ..... _ . _ __.... _ j with the standard ’ ’smart comedy." Jane had a warmth, a gen iality, a fundamental kindliness and humanity which the "smart comedy" usually avoided. Pure cynicism, egotism, and mere "brilliance" left a slightly bad taste in the mouth, wrote the observer, and Behrman had brought smart comedy up-; to-date by endowing his heroine with a certain humanity. The grim facts of a disordered world were not permitted to invade the enchanted ground of that comedy drawing-room. It* was concerned with nothing except the private lives of priv-; ileged persons.^2 With The End of Summer (February 17, 1936) the play wright wrote another— what the observer called--comedy of . illumination. f . . . It is, that is to say, a kind of comedy in which the protagonists of various points of view, each i equally endowed with eloquence and intelligence and wit, state their cases and expose the weakness of their ad- | versaries while the spectator stands by, not so much j cynically enjoying the discomfiture of each as delight- ; I ing in the insights which are afforded into both the problems themselves and the characters of those who are ! ! trying to solve them.53 , Krutch believed that Behrman was a true writer in the tradi-i tion of the comedy of manners; this included an urbane and generous spirit and a gift of disinterested insight. ; A convention of high comedy was to permit each char acter to speak as wittily as the author could make him. The! t _________________________________________________________________i I 52Ibid. ' 53Krutcj^ "symposium," The Nation, 142:292, March 4,' 1936, _ ..... ......_ ....,... . . . ; revolutionist, for example, was given the opportunity to make the best possible statement of his case. The result was often necessarily a draw. The playwright, however, did : not conceal the direction of his own sympathies. I . . . He is, as clearly here as in the other plays, among those who hold that the sensibilities and loyal ties of his liberals--"inhibited by scruple and emascu- ; lated by charm," as one character puts it--are indispen- j sable to any possible good life, however insufficient ! they alone may be to guarantee it. 54 Behrman's Less Successful Plays No Time for Comedy (April 17, 1939) was regarded by Krutch as one of the playwright’s least successful plays. He called it relatively superficial and unfunny. The critic : ! diagnosed the problem as the usual difficulty when a comic I writer lived in an age which forced upon his attention con- ; flicts which the comic spirit seemed incapable of resolving. The dramatist either had to abandon the form and spirit of pure comedy, or to confine himself to subjects which were bound to seem remote because they avoided reference to the topics which were most persistently -under discussion. The; reviewer classified No Time for Comedy as a tepid problem i i. play rather than a comedy. ; One weakness in the play was that there was not one 1 : theme but two: a conflict over a man between two types of j ^Krutch, "Drawing-Rooms and Battlefields," The Na- i tion, 146:281, March 5> 1938* ! ^Krutch, "Mr. Behrman Goes Astray," The Nation, I 148:510, Apr11 29, 1939 • _ _ j 232’ women and the question of whether or not the comic virtues had any place in a world where an enemy might kill you while you were trying to understand him. The conclusions were left "almost sentimentally vague.1 1 ^ j After several days of meditation on Dunnigan1s Daugh ter (December 26, 194-5)* Krutch confessed that he found the ; play very feeble and very confusing. For the first time he reported that the playwright was pretentious and dull. The inotives were not too distinct and the issues never appeared to be important. "None of the characters are very real, and most of the psychological conflicts seem like exhibitions of 57 shadow-boxing desperately prolonged until 10:50."^' He con-j sidered that it all came to little more than a great deal of, attitudinizing and a great deal of very fancy talk about in-^ ner freedom and self-realization which never seemed to come put anywhere. The element of comedy had almost completely disappeared, and, wrote the observer, the psychological i : Analysis which was intended to replace it failed to convince him of either its reality or its importance.-*® Maxwell Anderson The reviewer selected Anderson in 1929 as one of the- 56Ibid. ^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 162:8l, January 19* 58Ibid.__ _______ 233 three or four most interesting American dramatists.^9 In 1937 he commented that for sheer romantic dash there was no pne else writing for the theatre who could approach the playwright.^0 He also claimed that Anderson was "cited more often than any other writer except O'Neill in current dis cussions of the worth of contemporary American playwrit- ing." Only Anderson, he said, wrote plays in verse which seemed to fit easily into the pattern of the contemporary 1 ; stage, which attracted in large numbers the regular patrons of the theatre, and which seemed natural outgrowths of con temporary dramatic writing rather than protests against it.62 ! I ; Gassner called him the most gratifying and most dis turbing playwright of any stature in America with the sole exception of O'Neill. ^ He credited him for trying almost alone to rise beyond the pedestrian realistic drama in the American theatre. Nicoll wrote, "No dramatic author of our ; [ age has higher or clearer concepts of what he wants theatre * to be; no other author has made more determined efforts to ! I ! replace the figure of tragedy in the niche that for so long ; -^Krutch, "Maxwell Anderson Goes Wrong," The Nation, 128:168, February 6, 1929- 1 ^°Krutch, "More Matter and Less Art," The Nation, 144:54, January 9, 1937- ( ^Krutch, American Drama Since 1918. p. 289* ^ ^Ibid., pp. 288-289. ^Gassner, op. cit. , p. 678.1 _ ‘234; has been left empty. Krutch reflected that in claiming the right to make his characters speak more pointedly and more richly than or-; dinary people did--much of his dialogue was in blank verse— Anderson also claimed the right to make them think and feel more richly. i . . . It means that even the lowest of his charac ters is, like the characters in Shakespeare, permitted J to be both a poet and a philosopher, limited in certain ways no doubt by the limitations of his soul, but by virtue of poetic and philosophical gifts, capable of de fining and expressing that soul with the^plarity and In tensity of the poet and the philosopher. ^ The critic judged that the poetic play was at least capable of being more interesting than any other kind of play be cause only poets and philosophers were capable of realizing j and feeling to Its full depth the meaning of the experiences; ’ i through which they passed. j The observer noticed, however, that though Anderson had a verbal facility, which O’Neill had lacked, he also i suffered under the even more painful inability to find ideas! for the words which flowed almost u n b i d d e n . "The one has ! ! a poet’s imagination without his power of expression, the other falls easily into verse which critics . . . often find i _____________________________________________________________ __________ ' ; ^Nicoll, op. cit. , p. 865. ! I ^Krutch, American Tragedy," The Nation. 141: 1 420, October 9, 1935. I 66Ibid. ; I frj ___ 'Krutch. American Drama Since 1918. p. 291. ... J “ “235' is not so much poetry as something which sounds rather like ! /TO it." Gassner claimed that the playwright’s efforts in dramatic poetry were decidedly unequal. "Much of his verse 1 has been pedestrian; some of it has been loose and more of it overstrained, as if he were trying desperately to be po- , etic."^ Anderson's poetry sounded often forced and decora-! tive. I ! Anderson's More Successful Plays i After acknowledging the beauty of Jo Mielziner’s set, krutch commented that Winterset (September 25, 1935) went jfar toward living up to the beauty of its physical surround- f j ings. Though he had found the playwright's romantic histor- i i ical dramas pretentiously literary, he called Winterset ! I "bold, original, and engrossing."70 He recognized in the i play not only exciting action and socio-political argument put the subordination of both--as they would be in a classic ! tragedy--to the nature of guilt and of justice and the mean-! ing of revenge.71 It was a brooding and poetic treatment I ! with stress on the eternal rather than on the local aspects.! : Krutch was impressed with the playwright's third play of the 1936-1937 season, The Masque of Kings (February t 8, 1937)* According to the critic, Anderson possessed ; i ; 1 ^ Ibid. ^Gassner, op. cit. , p. 679. i 7°Krutch, "An American Tragedy," loc. cit. ! !___ 71 Ibid. __..... J 236 facility and talent no less than phenomenal and was one of the two or three most interesting American playwrights of this generation.72 The reviewer's reservation was that he had not settled judgment as to whether the dramatist's tal ents led his admirers to overestimate his solid worth or whether others were wrong to assume that facility was being mistaken for greatness. At least The Masque of Kings was considered to be extraordinarily effective as theatre. ! ' . . .1 know of no other living playwright who could refur- [ ; bish the familiar romance of splendid courts and sinister intrigues as successfully as Mr. Anderson does. . . . Krutch placed Anderson's Key Largo (November 27, 1939) among the most ambitious of the writer's works. The play was similar to Winterset in that it dispensed with what the critic termed the "easy romanticism" of some of his most popular and successful tragedies. Despite some shortcomings; which Krutch said were "characteristic and persistent in An-! Person's works," Key Largo contained a great theme which was: i 74 interestingly developed and worth anyone's attention.1 i • As the reviewer explained it, the hero, like one of ; the principal characters in Winterset, was a sort of Orestes; in search of absolution. He deserted the Loyalist cause in i I , 72Krutch, "The Death of Kings," The Nation. 144:221,! February 20, 1937- I 73Ibid. j 7^Krutch, "Key Largo," The Nation. 149:656-657* ; cember. 9,._1.9.39_- ... . . . _ ....... .. ............. _j Spain because military defeat was inevitable and because he . no longer believed in their cause, but he could not emotion-, ally accept what his intellect had told him was right. He lost all faith except in self-preservation and was oppressed by guilt. The question which the playwright presented was whether or not honor and faith and decency and heroism did mean something, despite the fact that their sanctions were not discoverable in nature and their function not definable i by the intellect.^ No contemporary problem, thought the observer, was more fundamental, and the answer could not be given in terms of any formulated creed. I There were some objections to the play, similar to j those to Winterset. He felt that certain of the long j speeches, such as the speech of the blind man in Key Largo, : came perilously close to bathos. Also, the ending seemed to be arbitrary and melodramatic rather than inevitable or sig nificant. These defects were partly covered in both Key , Largo and Winterset. he reported, by the fact that both i>lays were well produced and acted. I i Krutch said of The Eve of St. Mark (October 7, 19^2) l that it was the most effective and the most satisfactory ; play about the war yet to reach the American stage. Like What Price Glory?, the play seemed to him astonishingly suc-i cessful in expressing the emotional attitudes of a particu- * l lar moment. Anderson had the ability of making one feel Z-Plbid.., p. 656. that the familiar had never really been seen or felt before. The play merely chronicled in many scenes the adventures of ' a representative young man in World War II. While Watch on the Rhine and There Shall Be No Night told Americans how •they ought to feel, The Eve of St. Mark expressed for them how they did feel. "... it provides an occasion upon j ! which a group may feel in an orderly and clear fashion what the individual members of that group have been feeling frag-; mentarily and in confusion. The theme of the play, as expressed by the critic, was similar to that of Key Largo: that men who might have continued to live did sometimes choose to die simply because they knew that they should and knew it even though they could not put into words the nature of the obligation.77 j I Though it received some favorable notices, Barefoot i in Athens (October 31> 1951) also received some very bad ones "in very important places." Krutch considered that the: bad notices were unjustified and that their authors had sim-: ply missed the point. They failed to recognize that it was > hot intended as a big play, not even a tragedy, but what he regarded as a comedy. A comedy, he explained, could end in ; death provided the right man died and "took it in the right S 7^Kruteh, "The Eve of St. Mark," The Nation. 155: 425, October 24, 1942. I 77Ibid. way."78 This was the case with Socrates. The philosopher, as the playwright depicted him, ex emplified an unworldliness which Socrates realized could not! possibly succeed in the world. As in Shaw's St. Joan, some of the best speeches were written for the enemy, notably I King Pausanias' discourse on the advantages of a totalitari an state where people had economic security without being troubled with political problems. Also, pointed out the ob-j server, there was the powerful and persuasive speech of the 1 chief prosecutor at the trial who maintained that no society; could endure unless certain premises were accepted as beyond dispute.79 I Socrates realized that the ideal existed only in the; mind, that Utopia was literally nowhere, and was only mildly; surprised and not at all disconcerted when his death was voted. And though Athens was the noblest city which ever existed--"perhaps the noblest that ever will exist"--it j pould not assimilate Socrates. Perhaps, suggested the re viewer, one should continue to ask for the impossible, but I f j one should not be either too surprised or too distressed if ! he did not get it.80 j J I | , Anderson's Less Successful Plays i ! According to Krutch, Mary of Scotland (November 27, > j _______ ; ________________________________________________________ j | 78Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 173:430-431, November’ . 17, 1951- I ! | 79Ibid., p. 431. 8olbld _.__ j ....... ' “ ’ ■ ~ '240 l 1933) was not a successful play. One objection was that when Anderson chose to tell the story of Mary the woman rather than Mary the Queen he forgot that Mary's private tragedy could not be detached from public affairs. Public affairs received no adequate recognition. The observer added that he wished to assure his readers that he was more interested in individuals than in "forces" or "movements" j and that the greatest play could just as well be the one whieh was concerned with the personal tragedy of a single individual; nevertheless, pointed out Krutch, the story of Anderson's must inevitably be connected with the struggle between Elizabeth and Mary and this conflict had been made j to seem irrelevant to Mary's private tragedy. The play, he | i complained, had an archaic quality because the playwright j depended too heavily upon an idea in whieh people no longer i believed: the concept of kingship and the feeling that robes and scepters were the only fitting adjuncts to a heroic character. "Mary's story as a woman is no more than the story of any other woman her equal in intelligence or sensi-i i \ bility, and the trappings have become no more than merely Q-i trappings." ! The objection the critic made with The Wingless Vic-! torv (December 23> 1936) was that it failed to state its I theme— Puritan pride and Christian inhumanity--with any ! 1 ........^Krutch, "Why History?" The Nation. 137:690, Decem ber 13., 1933....... ■ ... __. j ------ - -.. -..241: originality. The plot and theme were familiar enough, and the play seemed to the reviewer too much like a brilliantly 8p executed exercise. f | While the first act of the play was remarkable for yividness, crispness, and color, the third act was reported to be pretentiously empty and conventional. He said that the heroine, belonging to the Madame Butterfly tradition, Was a completely unconvincing character and that the whole last act, which dealt with her laments and her suicide, seemed merely dull. The playwright and not Cornell, who Oq played the role, was held responsible. i j On the other hand, the observer noted that the Cap- j tain's family was vividly presented and some of the dialoguej was as fine as any Anderson had written--"elevated almost to; poetry, but sufficiently flexible and free to be accepted very much as normal speech."8^- j ! ; Summary The fact that Krutch had a marked preference for | : pure tragedy and pure comedy and for the richer language of ; poetry in the theatre would naturally incline him toward the* I I ; works of O'Neill, Behrman, and Anderson. The critic stated that if appropriate poetry had been i 1 1 added to O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra the play would j i Qa ( 0e;Krutch, ' ’More Matter and Less Art," loc. cit. i 83Ibid., pp. 53-54. __ 84Ibid., p. 53- j . “ --- •— .. 242 have moved a present-day audience as no Anglo-Saxon audience; had been moved since the time of Shakespeare. It seems that Krutch neglected to include an even more important element than poetry: audience belief in tragedy. According to Krutch himself, modern man has lost the sense of tragedy; he; no longer believes in the greatness and dignity of man. A striking change took place concerning the critic's estimate of O'Neill's Strange Interlude. In 1928 he consid-; ered that the play had depth and solidity; in 1939 he re ported that the play was vague and inconclusive. One possi ble explanation might be that the novelty and newness of dramatizing introspection in the 1920's caused him to be more favorably disposed toward the unconventional work the first time he reviewed it. j ! ! j One of Krutch's theories is that this is an age of comedy rather than of tragedy. He feels that while disillu sioned modern man is incapable of writing pure tragedy he is capable of writing high comedy. J What appears to be a de traction from, or at least a qualification of, the above theory is Krutch's statement that if Behrman had lived in a , more stable society he would have written comedies more in line with the great comic tradition. The critic claimed that complete comic detachment was impossible in the atmos- I phere in which Behrman was writing. 1 Krutch's attitude toward Anderson's romantic r ■ ' T " , j r 1 " ■ r ......" " 1.....~ " ! [ . 85See Chapter VIII, pp. 145-146.____ J 243' historical plays was not always consistent. In 1933 he ob- ' jected to the archaic quality of Mary of Scotland which he blamed on the author's over-dependence upon the antiquated idea that kingship and its trappings of robes and scepters were a necessary part of heroic characters. In 1935 he com plained that the playwright's dramas of romantic history were pretentiously literary. Nevertheless, Krutch claimed in 1937 that The Masque of Kings was extremely effective as theatre and that no other contemporary dramatist could fresh en up the familiar romance of "splendid courts and sinister intrigues" as well as Anderson. f I CHAPTER XII I | IBSEN, CHEKHOV, BARRY, RICE, HOWARD, SHERWOOD, ODETS, MILLER, AND WILLIAMS ; With the exception of Ibsen and Chekhov, the play- i wrights discussed in this chapter are contemporary American writers. All these dramatists have enjoyed a certain popu larity and success on Broadway as well as serious considera tion by the New York critics. Between 1924 and 1952 many productions of the works of Ibsen and Chekhov have appeared Philip Barry was a prolific writer of American comedy for many years. Elmer Rice has enjoyed the longest popularity t among American playwrights--his first play was produced in 1914, and his most recent effort is appearing on Broadway during the current (1958-1959) season. Sidney Howard's first Broadway success was in the twenties, and his latest play was shown in 1954, several years after his death. He Wrote at least seven plays which have appeared on Broadway. i Robert Sherwood was equally productive with seven plays t which were given New York productions. Clifford Odets be came famous writing for the Group Theatre. He also has had at least seven plays produced in New York. Two newcomers, Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams, have both aspired to j 244 Write tragedy. Miller has not been as fertile as Williams, who, in a relatively short space of time, has written six full-length Broadway plays and several one-acts. Henrik Ibsen Ibsen has influenced all contemporary dramatists. According to John Gassner, he inaugurated important modifi cations on modern dramatic practice. He discarded the "well-made" play of graduated intrigue and obvious plotting, ke wrote plays which enabled the audience to observe the characters and ponder the ideas and implications of the dra ma instead of watching the gyrations of the plot. "... Ibsen did not actually invent the drama of ideas, he ensured its triumph in the modern world."1 Allardyce Nicoll claimed i that the Norwegian playwright was responsible for breaking ;the ancient five-act division, for showing future dramatists the importance of retaining unity of place in drama, and for showing how much could be conveyed to an actor or reader of 2 a play through carefully worded stage directions. Ibsen had distinguished himself from didactic writ ers by making his chief concern "not with the solution of problems which these interests revealed but with the ■^John Gassner, Masters of the Drama (New York: Ran dom House, 1940), p. 35^ 2 Allardyce Nicoll, World Drama (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Co., 19^9), P- 5^5- ~ _______ emotional experiences which arise from conflict.The playwright brought into the drama the characteristic inter- ! f ■ - _ i psts and the characteristic conflicts of his age, and he j jnade use of social problems because it was through them that; I I he could present emotional conflicts which were most real to; : j cis audience. Neither Sophocles nor Ibsen wished to settle j anything, said Krutch, but each furnished a clear channel j through which the emotions aroused by the contemplation of j i 4 i jthe life of a time might be freely purged. Every great dramatist had concerned himself with the chief intellectual ; i i interest of his time, wrote the critic. In the case of ; i 1 ! Aeschylus it was religious interest, and in the case of | ! 1 ; Shakespeare it was an interest in the manifold varieties of j i the suddenly expanded sphere of human experience. Ibsen solved better than any other playwright had succeeded in solving the problem of not only telling a story but expound-5 j ing at the same time the moral background against which it 1 c ; I had meaning. J Unfortunately, the writer’s plays came to sink under she weight of expositions and arguments too familiar to be longer interesting. | . . . Except for two or three of the very best, even} ^Krutch, "Ibsen Reconsidered," The Nation, 120:299> j March 18, 1925- ! 4 I b i d . ! ^Krutch, American Drama Since 1918 (rev. ed.; New I ' fork: G. Bra ziller. 1957). p . 16. ~ J Ibsen's comedies and tragedies are clogged with explana tions or pronouncements which now impede an action they ! , are no longer necessary to render meaningful even though, they may have seemed at one time both indispensable and, actually, the most interesting passages in the play.° 1 As the reviewer explained it, the more successful any play- , i ’ wright was in his efforts to change either a condition or an! attitude, the less intrinsically interesting he soon became. Ibsen's More Successful Plays Rosmersholm was referred to as Ibsen's most charac- I teristic work. The play dealt with heredity, which was the | subject of Ghosts; with the social ostracization of a leader; and his betrayal within his own ranks, which was the subject of An Enemy of the People; and with its own particular theme. The memory of other Ibsen plays illuminated this one for the! observer. "This piece is thus a sort of'coda, returning to ! and briefly restating themes developed before, rather than aj wholly independent work."^ His dramaturgical skill was per-; haps greater in this play than in all his other works. . . . The masterly interweaving of the two tragedies! the one of the past and the other of the present, in I such a way that the revelation of the first keeps exact j pace with the unfolding of the second and the two cli- ■ maxes, the one retrospective the other contemporary, follow upon each other's heels, is one of the greatest ( triumphs of his constructive skill; and no other play of; his succeeds in crowding within its short length a great-! er number of the problems, social and individual, which i 6Ibid., p. 22. : ^Krutch, "Ibsen's Iago," The Nation. 120:578, May ; 20, 1925 * .........._ ... _ „...... __ j 8 those who seek to emancipate themselves must face. j I Krutch spoke of the character of Rebecca West as a pister of Iago. But while Shakespeare's Iago was a simple plack villain of inexplicable evil, Ibsen's Rebecca had a i : human heart and a soul which could be penetrated. In the i jeonfession scene of the third act, the playwright caused Re becca to lay her soul bare. She had not definitely and de- j i j liberately committed herself to evil, but evil had slipped J upon her unawares. The day of Iago had passed, stated the j S | critic. Rebecca represented the modern conception of vil- ; Lainy, and Ibsen was the first to show conclusively how that Q conception could be made dramatic.^ j In 1926 the observer affirmed that, far from fading,j interest in Ibsen's plays— especially those of his later pe-j riod— renewed itself again and again. In the light of a j different day, the center of interest might change but the interest was there. The later, more complex or "difficult" clays provoked new discussions in new terms and took pre- j sedence over the earlier, simpler, "sociological preach- j ments." Such plays as The Master Builder refused to stay explained and to give up all their secrets. The reviewer , remarked that the playwright possessed a mind which "groped j 1 0 i after even more things .than it grasped." His late plays j | ______________________ _J 8Ibld. 9Ibid.t p. 579- ! 10Krutch, "Ibsen Restated," The Nation. 123:513j November 17. 1926. ......... ................. ..... were full of intuitions not fully stated and, like most 1 great art, held a latent significance whose aspects waited ' i I jcatiently for new tempers in new times to discover them. j j'The problems of the richest demand, like the problem of j Hamlet, continual restatement."11 j As Krutch saw The Master Builder, architecture had become the builder's religion and height an expression of ; nis aspiration. The dizziness which overcame him when he j climbed to the top of one of his own towers might be inter- ■ oreted as an expression of the sense of guilt which his ruthless methods had generated and his will suppressed or as jthe force of some higher power, of something outside himself: This play involved the whole question of the meaning of ; Life.12 j While the question which Ibsen raised in A Doll's House was no longer of any vital concern, the question he I ; was concerned with in An Enemy of the People was still of j interest. The lesson in the play was that "enlightened pub-1 I Lie opinion" was a pretty phrase and that "the mob" was a j bitter reality; unfortunately, commented the reviewer, peo- j ole today know no more than he what to do about it. The j irama's truths have not become mere platitudes. Though at j the time the work was written the world was not as experi- i snced with the fact that the "people" were not as virtuous I | I and as high minded as the assumptions of democracy had ; i 11Ibid.__ _ ... .... 12Ibid. . p..514....... j pictured them, time has not solved the problem. Ibsen re- 1 vealed the bitter truth that this "enlightened majority" never existed outside the idealists’ imagination.1^ ; I The interest in the play was not solely one of argu-; ment, maintained the critic, but of character as well. "Dr. Stockman is not simply a mouthpiece for an opinion. He is a; 14 I genuine comic character conceived with great force. ! Early in 1926 there were four Ibsen plays running in I'Tew York: The Master Builder, Hedda Gabler, John Gabriel Borkman, and Little Eyolf. Krutch stated that Hedda Gabler 1 I _ was less local and more universal and had lost little or nothing in either power or pertinence, whereas the others ! ! i 1 15 were beginning to seem a little remote. The Civic Repertory Company presented Eva Le Gal- Lienne in Hedda Gabler in 193^. The critic referred to the j character of Hedda as complexly human, neurotic, and almost i as exciting as it ever was. Actually, he pointed out, Hedda; | rebelled against something which should be rebelled against j j --the complacent spiritual poverty of her group and the dull ’goodness" of her vegetating husband. She was not, then, merely an evil woman. She was, like Hamlet, wonderfully j convincing as a person, "even when one is least sure what j ^Krutch, "Ibsen Again," The Nation, 125:431, Octo- i ber 19, 1927- ! l4Ibid. | •^Krutch, "Long Island Sentiment," The Nation. 122: ! 212, February 24, 1926. ____ _ _ _ __________________ _ _ J j 251] 1 6 rational account to give of her motives." 1 j The reviewer thought of her as the Ibsen heroine, |rho longed for all the things which the dramatist desired ^nd thought most admirable--to be "free," to seek the joy j 1 and the meaning of life without regard for convention or j ^afety. Though the meaning of life was to be found in ec- ; stasy, she was incapable of rising to the heights which she j <jiespised others for not being even aware of. "She is a cow ard and she is sterile. But, so Ibsen seems to say, it is something to be capable of even a sickness like hers."1^ tedda Gabler was a creature hating all potency because she 1 f t lerself was impotent. Written by a man who had never bothered to be in the plightest degree ingratiating and who had passed the summit of his career, John Gabriel Borkman seemed to Krutch to be j ! rather more timeless than old-fashioned. Borkman was a mod-' prn figure and, if the play were newer, it could have been j Interpreted as an analysis of fascism. 1 f i . . . The hero-villain who lusts for power and jus- j tifies all the dishonesty of his means by the claim that his ultimate intention is to rule everything for the people’s own good sounds very much as though he might 1 have read some of the philosophical exponents of Nation-( al Socialism; his whole attitude is less that of the nineteenth-century robber than that of the present-day I ■^Krutch, "Vine Leaves in His Hair," The Nation. 139: J21, December 19, 193^. i 17 Ibid. LX-- 1®Krutch, "Ibsen’s Prentice Hand," The Nation, 130: ' . . . 28, 1930,.... | tycoon.^ ; The critic recognized that the play was gaunt and grim trag edy totally devoid of the elements which contributed to "en-j tertainment" in the ordinary sense of the word. Most of the; action had taken place before the curtain rose, and it was j only the disastrous aftermath which the audience was shown. ; Borkman was a classical hero of tragedy--a strongman doomed 90 bo destruction by a fatal defect, an inability to love. ; Ibsen's Less Successful Plays Seeing Eva Le Gallienne in a revival of Ghosts in 19^8, the reviewer commented that its once daring paradoxes j sounded perilously close to platitudes. The "modernism" j which the play had expounded had won its battle long ago. The only way he thought that the drama could be made to live again would be to stress the emotional rather than the in- I 1 tellectual values. ! j Krutch considered the Margaret Webster revival part-j ly successful. Webster and Le Gallienne recognized that the' play was the personal tragedy of Mrs. Alving, who found too j late the courage to be true to herself. They missed almost | I * completely, he said, the dominating atmosphere of morbid I ! horror. The final scene of Oswald's collapse should have keen made sheerly and brutally repulsive. The full import •^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation. 163:629, November 30,! L946. i 20Ibid . . . __. _ ___. j of certain crucial scenes, he reported, were never communi- J cated by any of the members of the cast. The setting of Mrs. klving's drawing-room seemed too cheerfully Victorian and < i ; Appeared a contradiction to repeated references in the text ; i to the sunless gloom into which the lives of the characters were passing. It was especially noticeable to the critic j that there was a failure to achieve a real morbidity in the two or three scenes of ghastly gaiety, the little champagne j party given by Mrs. Alving for Oswald and Regina being the ! ; most conspicuous.^1 Anton Chekhov The Russian dramatist was one of the rare great ! writers of fiction who had succeeded in writing for the I I stage. Mordecai Gorelik judged him a keen and honest ob server. "... the psychology of Chekhov's characters was more accurately and objectively recorded than that of many j I 22 other dramatists ' ." The playwright might be considered j one of the earliest writers of modern tragedy. As Gassner i explained it, Chekhov departed from the classic and romantic' concepts of tragedy and made tragedy not the result of a j clash between individuals but of attrition. "What is most I j tragic about any ordinary life is that it is gradually worn j 1 ~ : : “ : i j Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 166:256-257, February 28, 1948. 22Mordecai Gorelik, New Theatres for Old (New York: ! Samuel French, 1940), pp. 265-266. ZZTZII _ J away and impoverished. The will is atrophied, the nerves I are jangled, the mind is befuddled, and life simply wears jfchinner and thinner.1 '2^ Chekhov had the peculiar power of j being able to suggest the inner loneliness of his characters; ! f ’ Nicoll wrote of these characters, We know these people as ; we do not know even the strongly delineated types created by Ibsen, for Chekhov's art is a poetic art where implications i and associative values fire the creative process in our i o h ^ninds. The British critic also pointed out the Russian playwright's influence on contemporary dramatists. For ex- ’ i ! kmple, he mentioned the "Chekhovian sense of human relation ships" in Clifford Odets' works.2^ 1 i i Krutch believed that Chekhov's success was due to j the fact that he ignored the "laws of the theatre" pro- | nounced by fourth-rate hacks or any of the imbecile sugges- ! tions of the "practical man of the theatre" and that he wrote plays replete with all the virtues which made his j stories unique. He avoided anything artificially "dramatic.1 ! t As in his stories, the plots of his plays were insignificant!. Strokes of characterization, flashes of humor, and unex pected touches of nature seem introduced almost at random; 26 and yet somehow an unforgettable picture is evoked." No 2^Gassner, op. cit., p. 512 2**Nicoll, op. cit., p. 689* 2^Ibid., p. 823* 2^Kruteh, "The Greatness of Chekhov," The Nation, 127:461, October 31, 1928..._... _____ ______ ______ one else ever stripped his characters barer than he, said the reviewer, and no one else ever held helpless victims up ; {to a kindlier ridicule. j Wistful charm, however, was not as good as passion in the theatre; and weak people were not as interesting as ;3trong ones, commented the observer. Chekhov's weakness as a dramatist was the same as most modern writers of tragedy; he wrote in a minor key and lacked faith in human nature. In a review of The Three Sisters Krutch wrote that "a writer i who can successfully handle a story by the normal method is Wen more impressive than one who can escape bathos and ba nality only by inverting it."2^ Chekhov's More Successful Plays As with The Cherry Orchard and other of Chekhov's plays, The Sea-Gull consisted of a group of oddly assorted people who were alike only in the fact that they were all living in the same atmosphere of a society which had lost its will. The critic said of the Chekhovian characters that hey had all dreamed so long that they could not themselves De sure whether they were asleep or awake. Either every thing was tremendously important to them or nothing was im portant at all. They wanted to do great things and to make great sacrifices, but they lacked singleness of purpose. Phantoms had become indistinguishable from solid realities; 2^Krutch, "The Three Sisters," The Nation, 156:31' 32, January 2, 1943. ... ............ . .. . o f t i this, wrote the reviewer, was their tragedy, j There was no movement toward a goal. "The incident-1 als are everywhere developed at full length, and the ap- j parently subordinate holds constantly the center of the stage, while the crucial events are revealed only as though Dy accident."29 rphe affectations of the actress, were delin eated fully, while the suicide of Kostia was whispered de- j preoiatingly when one character drew another aside. I Certain tragic patterns repeated themselves, re- j marked Krutch, until they became almost comic. "The heroic ? gesture has lost its confidence, the heroic motif has worn I jthin. Tragedy is still there, but the doubt, the skepti cism, and the futility of comedy show through."30 j • ' I Eva Le Gallienne opened the 1929-1930 season with The Sea-Gull, which she had performed the previous winter. j Finding the play perennially exciting, the observer reviewed! it again. Characters from Chekhov's weary society continued jto pursue love, fame, or honor not because they believed in Its importance but more because they were following the pat terns established by a previous generation. Kostia, for ex-j ample, gave up life for love not so much because he thought | the sacrifice worth while as because "he does not think that) 2®Krutch, "The Tragic-Comedy of Chekhov," The Na- ! tion. 128:626, May 22, 1929. j ...29Ibid. ... ___.._ 3°Ibid., p. 627 • .... j 257 he is sacrificing so very much."31 The playwright’s charac ters had the charm of delicate feelings and of quick Intel- i ' j ligence, noted the commentator, without knowing what to do with the lives they were to live. Since the people them selves seemed to laugh a little at themselves in their crit- i ical detachment and their own disillusion, the audience was Inclined to see them in this same perspective. They were sad and laughable, while the main pattern they followed was 32 one of tragedy; their passions led them to calamity. | j Krutch also observed that the characters were all in S dilemma more hopeless than any of their individual dilem- i mas. Everyone wanted to explain himself to others, but no one was particularly interested in understanding. The play ! was full of talkers but had no listeners. "These prisoners of their egotism meet only other prisoners confined within jthe walls of other egotisms."33 The play ended with no one mowing anyone else any better; and it would all have been wasted, wrote the observer, had there been no audience to f ! overhear. Krutch felt that the mood created by Chekhov was neither comedy nor tragedy. Neither the spirit of tragedy | nor the spirit of comedy could include all the variety of 31Krutch, "Chekhov's World," The Nation, 129:366, October 2, 1929* ! 32Ibid. j 33Krutch, "The Sea-Gull," The Nation. 146:423, April' 9, „ 1938. ................. ................_ _ J incident and character which the play represented. ! i 1 Chekhov’s Less Successful Plays ! Presented by the Civic Repertory Theatre in 1926, j The Three Sisters was a penetrating study of the Russian soul. The Russian dramatist was enough a part of the play to share Its moods and enough above it to regard It with hu morous detachment. The play contained a "dozen delicately [ delineated characters," as well as the "poetic melancholy" 1 and "rowdy gaiety" of Russian provincial society. It de pended, claimed Krutch, upon characterization and atmosphere; 34 since it was almost without action. The characters themselves were more aware of their j vague philosophizings and their boredom than they were of ! i i the major tragedies, which came upon them when they were thinking of something else. In the hands of a playwright other than a master like Chekhov, explained the critic, this approach to writing would be intolerable. In Chekhov's j i hands the whole took on a certain fascination. Only because human weakness was the basis of the ef fect and philosophy of Uncle Vanya could the play be re garded as a comedy, said Krutch; it was not a story which ' I i ended in general happiness. Chekhov neither admired, nor I ! lectured, nor despised his characters. He is neither j -^Krutch, "Something New in Theatre," The Nation. ! 123:488, November 10, 1926. j r — ..— .....— .....— .......— ■' ■ - .. - ..................- ..... ....... “ ..~259] sentimentalist, nor satirist, nor cynic." 3 5 j Unlike the Uncle Vanya of a few seasons ago, the j | | 1930 version under discussion was an on-Broadway play. The j reviewer admitted that probably half the audience of the ji-930 production went to see if Lillian Gish were really an actress or a puppet from the movies. As the character, | j Helena, was an enigma and a shell herself, the observer re- ! mained undecided. j . . . Chekhov never tells us whether or not there is| anything positive behind the mysterious reserve of his character, and Miss Gish never allows us to see whether she is acting a^role or merely behaving in her accus tomed fashion.36 Philip Barry I The American playwright was regarded by Preedley and] ti i Reeves as certainly one of the most significant writers for :he stage t o d a y ."37 Gassner was less impressed. "He has loved commiseration more than a master of high comedy can afford. He often came bearing not a scalpel but a Bible.10 Nicoll1s opinion was qualified. "In general we may say that ]3arry is an author some of whose scenes are enjoyable, whose skill in writing we may admire, but whose spirit is apt i ■^^Krutch, "Lillian Gish Keeps a Secret," The Nation.I 130:556, May 7, 1930. 36Ibid., p. 554. ^George Freedley and John A. Reeves, A History of the Theatre (New York: Crown Publishers, 1941), p. 593- ___ ^Gassner, op. cit., _p. 6j0_. J uneasily to stray into realms he is utterly unqualified to j o n understand or appreciate.' ! Krutch admitted that he once regarded Philip Barry j as America's best writer of comedy. While the playwright i was said to have looked upon his early Paris Bound (December} 27* 1927) with contempt, the reviewer called it one of his j best. Then S. N. Behrman emerged as this country's leading I I 1 jsrriter of high comedy, and Barry, wrote the critic, became aj snob and a mystic. "Hotel Universe fooled the public, but 1 ! once was enough, and Mr. Barry’s reputation faded away as jiis plays grew feebler and more meaningless."1*0 The one ex- I ception to the above statement came the following year when he reviewed The Philadelphia Story (March 28, 1939)* One weakness of the dramatist apparent to the ob server was his use of mysticism and amateur theology in his » more serious works; another was his failure to draw clearly ! hhe fine line between decency and priggishness or between refinement of feeling and a familiarity with what was being ill thought, done, and said this season. j | Barry's More Successful Plays j The morality the playwright preached in Paris Bound j was compromise which was the essence of the comic spirit. j •^Nicoll, op. cit., p. 791. ^Krutch, "Prodigal's Return," The Nation, 147:700* ! December 24, 1938* s f ^Krutch, American Drama Since 1918. pp. 179-180. J Its message was that while a husband or wife should never J stray, an adultery was an unimportant thing alongside the ; values which a successful marriage had built up. "... on-j Ly an essentially light mind would consider it necessarily j hp I destructive . . . Barry as a true comic writer showed i jfche triumph of the critical faculties over emotional im- ; pulses. The commentator pointed out that while there were I i many American playwrights who could write melodrama about ; the erring husband or sentimental comedy about the wronged wife, there were few who could sustain to the end the true comic spirit. Holiday (November 26, 1928) was considered the equalj of Barry's Paris Bound. The critic commended the dramatist j for not cultivating either the wisecrack or the epigram. | i : j ! The comic writer's dialogue, he wrote, "ripples in one gay and continuous stream throughout the piece like the conver- i Nation which one hopes to hear (but never has actually I i i v * • i i i i heard) at some supernaturally well-selected dinner party. The story and characters were not very remarkable in them selves, but the playwright was able to generate that atmos- : phere in which comedy "lives, breathes, and has its being." j i ! The purpose of this type of comedy, said Krutch, was to give) i : ^Krutch, "A School for Wives," The Nation, 126:75, January 18, 1928. 43Ibid. ^Krutch, "American Comedy," The Nation. 127:694, I December 19> 1928.___ __ j the spectator an image of the ideal of civilized human in- ! jtercourse and some compensation, in this idealized world of ' manners, for the inevitable crudities of that real one in S ■ i i which one lived. ^ He referred to Holiday as "internation- j kl" and "classic" because its author was endeavoring to j vrite comedy in the great tradition. Reviewing the 1928-1929 season, he rated Holiday | yery high among the year's best plays. j . . . There is not another American playwright capa ble of writing dialogue quite so bubblingly delightful or so easily natural as that which Mr. Barry gives his characters, and few if any who move so easily in the at-; mosphere of polite comedy.46 The reviewer regarded The Philadelphia Story in 1939 fs the comedy which its author had been trying to write more than ten years ago when he had been esteemed as the most promising of America's high-eomedy writers.^ The observer interpreted the main concern of the play to be the illustra tion in terms of character and situation of what was meant by such words as refinement and integrity and decency of soul. Krutch believed that Barry had been successful in this drama. "Certain of its characters are 'nice people1 and certain are not. But for once that vulgar phrase seems 45Ibid. 46 1929. Krutch, "Epitaph-II," The Nation, 128:681, June 5*j ^Krutch, "Miss Hepburn Pays Up," The Nation. 148: ,411, Aprils 8, .1939..... ...................... .............. O j to have a real meaning." ; ' Barry's Less Successful Plays ! While Krutch applauded Barry's comedies, such as j Paris Bound and Holiday, he had little use for his "serious"; plays, such as Hotel Universe (April 14, 1930). He wished j that the playwright could he made to see that the "message" i i of wit, of urbanity, and of comic good sense was just as | ! valuable and just as profound as that delivered by any other; kind of philosophy.^9 in other words, he did not see why a j comedy of urbane wit should necessarily be inferior "to any-; ;hing whatsoever," and he hoped that the dramatist would de velop those considerable gifts he had as a comic writer. Inj writing Hotel Universe. Barry had traded "the clear good | | j sense of his wit for the pompous platitudes of a sentimental; and second-rate mysticism."5° Krutch complained that the dialogue was the most appalling chit-chat about Life, Death,; and the Great Beyond. Though most of the public and critics acclaimed The j i Animal Kingdom (January 12, 1932), the observer admitted ! that his voice would probably be the only negative one. His main objection was that the tone of the play was "distress- : | | ingly hollow." The characters were thought to be completely: ^Krutch, "Weltschmerz on the Riviera," The Nation, ! 130:526, April 30, 1930. j 3°Ibid. ..... _ .. ..................__ j Irreproachable and to inhabit some kind of purified Riviera.; But, said the commentator, they were "too” everything. They! were too rich, too elegant, too preciously gay, too gallant,! and too sensitive. Their morals were as sound as their so- ! phistieation and their manners. "... despite all the nec-j j essary complexity of their lives and sentiments they remain , !Boy Scouts at heart."'*1 If all this had been concocted with tongue in cheek, he would have been able to accept it. i There was, however, an undercurrent of seriousness which I ! made it evident to the critic that the author was determined 'while laughing to teach. He wished that the playwright had tried to be simple; I instead of trying to escape the curse of the fashionable by being more fashionable than anyone else. "It is all too I jiistressingly merely a matter of what 'our set' is doing j jfchis year, and, to put it briefly, Mr. Barry falls into vul-; garity as the direct result of his terrible fear that he | n53 might conceivably be vulgar. } As drama the reviewer claimed that The Joyous Season (January 29, 1934) was not only thin but positively emaci ated. The play was an apology for religion and could be j toiled down to the simple statement that faith was not in- ! i I compatible with cheerfulness and that holiness might | | 51Krutch, "Nice People," The Nation. 134:151, Febru-i ary 3, 1932. j 52Ibid. _______________ 53IMd., p..152.._ .. j c:ii possibly be amiable.^ Krutch's position had been that spiritual stature was the important thing and that there was! |nore to be hoped from a great sinner than from a man who had! , ; )3een too comfortably content with small things. While i j p'Neill wandered far and uttered great blasphemies, Barry i probably never thought anything very reprehensible.-^ When j !3arry wanted to pay his respects to religion, he had "no burden to throw down, no sins to hate, and no passionate ex-j perience to recount.The critic called the play a pious ! | I comedy of manners from which wit had been entirely omitted. ; Elmer Rice 1 In 1946 Krutch suggested that Elmer Rice might be j considered the dean of the American playwrights. No other ! practicing American dramatist had a history that went back j j as far. His first play was produced in 1914, when Eugene I ! O’Neill was unheard of. During the short-lived Federal The-, atre, which was instituted in 1935* he created the Living I NewspaperHe contributed one of the few expressionistie plays written by an American (The Adding Machine. March 19, 1923)* The dramatist was also successful as a director of ! i his own and other people's plays. Freedley and Reeves state! i 'He has changed direction so frequently, as a dramatist, | ^Krutch, "No Miracle," The Nation, 138:201, Febru- I ary 14, 1934. j 55ibid. 56Ibid. | ...^Gorelik, op. cit., p. _ 397* • _....... __ j that it is necessary to take refuge in 'versatile* as the j only characterizing adjective.1 1 According to Gassner, ' 1. . . he proved himself an excellent photographer of com- | monplace existence both in the expressionist and realistic I modes.Nicoll wrote, "Hardly any American dramatist has nis ear more closely attuned to the rhythms of metropolitan 3peech than Rice."^0 Krutch also regarded the playwright's j greatest skill as his ability to imitate what was most char-j acteristie in the language and gesture of various contempo- ’ rary types. "... time and time again one is moved irre- i 3istibly to laughter by the exquisite rightness of some re- /T * 1 mark . . . "D- L His characters were so well drawn that they ■ j became lifelike portraits. j A weakness of Rice was his tendency to write simple j melodrama and to exhort his audience about some social evil 62 by the use of dialogue. As Nicoll explained it, the play wright was inclined "to see everything in terms of white and; | ' i black: his anger at social evils inclines him both to lose ! Objectivity of approach and to obscure a sense of colour j ^^Freedley and Reeves, op. cit., p. 591- ^Gassner, op. cit.. p. 684. ^°Nicoll, op. cit.. p. 817. 6lKrutch, "The Kinds of Comedy," The Nation. 133: 621, December 2, 1931* 62 _______ Krutch. American Drama Since 1918. p. 248.__ values."^3 ! j Rice's More Successful Plays j Unlike the expresslonistic The Adding Machine. Street Scene (January 10, 1929) stopped just before the j i scene, events, and characters became symbols. The play was a naturalistic "slice" or "cross-section" of tenement life. ! I ! There was also melodrama, which the reviewer did not seem toj I „ i Object to here. He has the gift of mimicry as few writers j have it, and he is remarkably successful in introducing the j t : innumerable little touches which bring the smile of recogni tion ."64- ue knew how to build suspense and to hold the in- \ jberest of an audience. The critic judged that the play ] might not be a great one, but he considered it "one of the most individual and striking of the s e a s o n . j In 1940 the commentator retracted the statement he had made the year before that Rice had lost his ability to catch the gestures and accent of his urban contemporaries. Two on an Island (January 22, 1940), a romantic satire in eleven scenes, revealed the playwright's shrewd observation and craftsmanship which lifted the play above the level of che familiar heartbreak-and-glaraor style of contemporary ro-| I mance. ^Nicoll, op. cit. , p. 8o6, ^Krutch, "Cross-Section," The Nation. 128:142, Jan-! uary 30, 1929- .. 65Ibid.____. I . . . the sharpness and directness of his observa tion, together with his extraordinary gift for recording the speech of real people, give the thing a sincerity ! and a verisimilitude wholly delightful.®® kfter seeing the comedy, the observer was willing to place i Elmer Rice among the best of America's comic writers, along with Behrman, Barry, and Kaufman.^ Rice's Less Successful Plays ! I While Krutch did not care for The Left Bank (October! i 5, 1931)> he never ceased to admire Rice's ability for nat- 1 I : i \ Uralism. "No matter what milieu he chooses to present in a i play, one may be sure that its salient features will be re- | porded with an exactitude which both the camera and the f-O phonograph might envy." The reviewer analyzed that the playwright's biggest problem was finding something to make 1 nis plays move. In Street Scene he had resorted to melo drama; and in The Left Bank the story was "completely unin- i spired" and the expected happened with disconcerting regu larity. While the scene might be familiar and the charac ters typical, the pleasure of recognition alone was not snough for the critic to accept any play as "great" or even stirring. ^Krutch, "Baghdad on the Subway," The Nation. 150: 136, February 3, 1940. 67Ibid. ^Krutch, "Realism and Drama," The Nation. 133:440, petober 21, 1931* 69Ibid., p. 441. i The commentator blamed the dramatist for writing a ; melodrama with an obvious theme. He suggested in a review j ! I cf Judgment Day (September 12, 193*0 that if a rip-snorting ; melodrama were all that could be made out of the subject of j | the Reichstag-fire then the subject should have been avoided. Second, he felt that the "importance" of a theme was not ; i enough to recommend a play. Qualities such as honesty and tolerance would not necessarily be promoted by a repetition ; cf the obvious. "Mr. Rice is against intolerance, brutality, and the corruption of the judicial processes. But aren't we: all?"70 | : | In 1938 the observer remembered the time when he wasj p.ble to praise Rice for his ability to catch the rhythm of j ! I bveryday speech and to imitate the gestures of men and women. But the dramatist, he complained, had lost the power to ere-' ? I kte human beings and he had come to be interested in them jcnly so far as they could be treated as sociological ab- j stractions. American Landscape (December 3, 1938), wrote j Crutch, was a failure; its characters had no life of their j : bwn, the dialogue was largely lifeless, and the whole was ■ j 7 1 more of an essay than a play.1 J I J I ! Sidney Howard | In 1932 Krutch wrote of the dramatist, "perhaps the j | 7°Krutch, "Tempests in Teapots," The Nation, 139J > 392, October 3, 1934. ; ______71Krutch . "Prodigal1 s Return," p. 701. __ | very cleverest of our playwrights."72 The reviewer recog nized in him an unusual gift for putting together scenes which "go" in the theatre. Other qualities he admired about | him were a shrewdness of insight, a genuineness of feeling, and a gift for literary expression. ". . .Mr. Howard’s |>lays are among the best ever written in America.Gass ner regarded the playwright as a craftsman of the first or der who possessed a fine ear for American dialect and a keenj eye for local characters. "... his best work was as sub- 1 stantial as bread. Unfortunately, Howard’s energies were often de flected into adaptations of plays. Gassner had reservations: i 'Little given to soaring, he was too often persistently pe- j destrian."7' * Nicoll thought even less of him; he consideredj i ; that he had "no very great power as a dramatist" and that pis works were "hardly likely to find a permanent place in ; jthe repertory."' In a review of Yellow Jack (March 6, 1934) Krutch objected to the playwright's use of the dramatic form! I jror conveying information, and in Half-Gods he complained ;hat the play seemed inspired from a private peeve. 72Krutch, "More Than Clever," The Nation, 135:484, November 16, 1932. ^Krutch, American Drama Since 1918, p. 60. 74 * Gassner, loc. cit. 75Ibid. _ _ 76Nicoll, op. cit. , p. 8l8... _ _ ...__ j Howard’s More Successful Plays 1 , The Silver Cord (December 20, 1926) presented the pase of rationality versus feeling, the new morality versus | ! | {the old. While no subject was more sacred or more delicate,! ! i Howard had won for intelligence the right to exercise itself: s • I Upon the subject of mother love. He had written a "very j fine play." Nothing which the Theatre Guild had produced : jthat season, said Krutch, could have given it more legiti- j mate occasion for pride. Sidney Howard dramatized a complex: I hnd did it more successfully than anyone else had succeeded : in doing since Freud first presented the playwright with a | new implement of analysis.^ j Making its first appearance in 1924, They Knew What They Wanted was revived in 1949 with Paul Muni. The review- I er considered both productions good. After twenty-five \ ] years he did not find the play in the least "dated." It was! l»sed on the Tristan and Isolde story, and he looked at the | Howard drama as a myth embodying a fundamental human situa- j jbion. The observer declared that They Knew What They Wanted I | Was the best play of an author who he thought was an intel- i I I ligent, sensible, and able man rather than a genius. The i i ! play, he said, was sound, sturdy, and engaging rather than j g r e a t . | ' ' 1 " 1 ^Krutch, "Another Captive," The Nation. 124:20, i January 5, 1927*. ! ^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, l68:313> March 12, j 1949*. .. j Howard's Less Successful Plays j Half-Gods (December 21, 1929) was less enthusiast!- sally received by the commentator. His theme, that the mod- arn wife was a terrible creature, became tiresome. He felt bhat the play was inspired from a private peeve. "... ueh plays are much better torn up as soon as they have per formed their only possible function, which is, of course, to jrelieve the minds of those who write them."79 He accused jtfoward of allowing his irritation to rob him of his sense of proportion and of stating platitudes clumsily and with vehe mence. The critic's final comment was: "The piece as a whole, vacillating between shrill and almost hysterical jsarnestness and slapstick farce, flounders like the work of ‘ * . i»80 an amateur. i With Yellow Jack (March 6, 193*0 Kruteh conceded bhat the playwright had been successful in a very difficult i cask. He had made an interesting play and had held it to- ! 5ether out of the drama of the laboratory; the heroic comedy! ! of four volunteer, human guinea pigs; and a running lecture j on the technique of bacteriology. While Men in White (Sep- ! tember 26, 1933) had conveyed an emotional attitude toward j 1 ! jthe work of the medical profession, Yellow Jack had conveyed Information about it. Of the two, said the reviewer, he j j r 79j^r, - utcj r i ^ «A peevish Play," The Nation. 130:52, Jan uary 8, 1930. 8oIbid. preferred the emotional attitude for a work of art, since j information could be related in various ways and a work of 1 : art was not the best way of relating it. . .a work of ^.rt is not only the best way of creating an emotional atti- j | i bude, but actually the only way in which such an attitude, I with all its intangible subtlety, can be communicated/’®1 [ Reviewing a revival of Yellow Jack in 1947, he wrote! that no one had ever discovered a satisfactory method of communicating information in dramatic form. j . . . People who favor this sort of thing generally i think that they are demonstrating the essential serious-; ness of their minds, but the man who wants to get his history, his economics, his politics, and his science from novels and plays is not serious but frivolous, and j unless we wish to develop a society in which no one ever! consents to learn anything except by the radio or the j movies, the sort of thing that Yellow Jack represents j ought to be frowned upon rather than encouraged.^ j | I Robert Sherwood Krutch rated Robert Sherwood as an accomplished j i craftsman who knew the tricks of his trade and had a suffi- j blent witty fluency to make something out of n o t h i n g . ; Gassner judged that his prominence was due largely to his j ! ! historical interest. He termed him an eclectic man of the ! I ; theatre who had tried his hand at melodrama, comedy, and j 8lKrutch, 1 1 Chronicle Play,” The Nation. 138:341, i'darch 21, 1934. j ®2Krutch, "Drama” The Nation, 164:312, March 15, 1947* _ _ _____ ®-%rutch. American Drama Since 1918, p. 218. j 84 ! biographical drama. Comparing him with Sidney Howard and j Sidney Kingsley, Nicoll stated that he was a thoughtful playwright whose works were finer in texture and more philo- f i sophic in outlook. J I In his later plays Krutch commented that Sherwood ! had never permitted himself to go beyond journalism. He j further asserted that the dramatist's concern with specific political issues was an "escape" from deeper questions too j j puzzling and too painful to think about.^ It was the opin ion of the critic that none of the playwrights in 1945 were j profound enough when they concerned themselves with contem- i i i porary problems. "I can cite only Maxwell Anderson's Key j Dargo as even a half-successful attempt to get beyond jour- j j £ ^ 7 ^ halism to some more than journalistic truth." ‘ Gassner i complained that Sherwood's use of modern sex drama, though i | it furthered the dramatist's theatrical effectiveness and {resulted in "successful shows," diminished the provoeative- i 88 ness or integrity of his thought. Sherwood's More Successful Plays Krutch reported that the writing in The Petrified { Forest (January 7, 1935) was suave and the acting j 84 Gassner, op. cit., p. 674. | ^Nicoll, o p . cit. . p. 819- ^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 161:562, November 24,! 1945. j ^Ilbid. „_ . ......®®Gassner, loc . cit. ....j ingratiating; in fact he said that the play could have sue- j ceeded upon its superficial merits alone. The playwright knew the tricks of his trade and had a witty fluency to make; Qq something out of nothing. ^ The commentator admitted that ; it was difficult to decide whether or not he had been ' f charmed into granting the drama virtues deeper than it real-; ly had. As a comedy melodrama with bright dialogue, real- ! istic characterization, and atmospheric setting of a lonely ; ! | filling station on the edge of the desert, the play asked n o indulgence from a Broadway audience. While The Petrified Forest was capable of standing alone on its face value, the | reviewer considered that it also contained a greater signify ! I | I icance. r I He saw the familiar situations as symbols. The j killing station was a place out of space and time where men j met and realized they were not only individuals but phenome-l ha as well. The young man was civilized and sophisticated j i ! intelligence at the end of its tether; the young girl was j aspiration toward that very sensitivity which the young man lad not ceased to admire but which had left him bankrupt at last. Dead wealth was depicted by the touring banker, and j 90 primitive anarchy by the killer and his gang. | Sherwood's gloomy theme was that Nature or chaos I ^Krutch, "Heartbreak House," The Nation. 140:111, * January 23 > 1935- j _ _ 9°Ibid. ....................... ... would re-assert itself. "Intelligence can no longer believe* in anything, not even in itself. It can only stand idly by : jtfith refinement and gallantry and perception while the world: is taken over by the apes once more."9' * ' < t i The playwright, declared the critic, was able to write on two levels at once and to achieve first-rate the atrical entertainment "and as much more than that as one I { ■ \ cares to make it."92 i i Idiot1s Delight (March 24, 1936) was acclaimed by j Krutch as blessed with all the skillful craftsmanship found ! in The Petrified Forest. He felt that Sherwood deserved all i . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I - i the more credit for this later play since he was able to j make a drama with the grim theme of war entertaining. I l 11. . . the sense of the folly and the horror of war has beenj conveyed about as effectively as it has ever been conveyed upon the stage.He also approved of the playwright’s usei of verbal and practical "gags" because of its popular appeal, 1. . .a great many more people will expose themselves to Idiot’s Delight than usually expose themselves to treatments of similar subjects by our more uncompromising dramatists."9^ Sherwood's Less Successful Plays ! I Though Krutch remarked that there was some j 91Ibid. 92Ibid. I ^^Krutch, "The Devil's Tunes," The Nation. 142:491- > 492, April 15, 1936. ; 94Ibid. , p. 492.. __...... | Justification for calling There Shall Be No Night (April 29,' 1940) a propaganda piece for American entry into the war, it; was not this to which he mainly objected. Classifying it as! | a thesis melodrama, he pointed out that its action was dif- : j fuse, that nowhere did it gather itself together in a climax;, I and that one was perpetually waiting for a scene which never! I i pame. It was a scene in which all latent implications would; have been made manifest and some new clarity would have been* given to that complex of thoughts and fears which the action; ! 95 I lad been recalling to the spectators1 minds. ^ The fault, said Krutch, might not have been one of any failure of technical skill. Sherwood, like many others j i : during World War II, possibly had nothing to say that seemed; i ! adequate or that had not been said before. Also, the play- j wright could not hope to compete with the reality and vivid-* less of drama of the actual war news of the radio, the news paper, and the magazine. ". . .he knows only what we know, and like the rest of us he is baffled. In The Rugged Path (November 10, 1945) Robert Sher wood reversed his position from that expressed in There J I Shall Be No Night. The latter concerned the Finns' heroic j struggle against the Russians' struggle on the side of lib erty and democracy. The reviewer reasoned that the 95Krutch, "The Riddle of the Sphinx," The Nation. i •150:605, May 11, 1940. _______ 9£>I b i d ., p 606.............. ............. .... .................... dramatist wanted to be serious but failed to be serious enough. Both There Shall Be No Night and The Rugged Path ; were thoughtful but only as good editorials were thoughtful,! 97 and like editorials could easily become outmoded. I Clifford Odets Clifford Odets was credited with the power of making things seem real, the power of creating imitations of reali ty which seemed like reality itself. His characters and ac tions, said Krutch, were accepted directly and on their own : jterms rather than as typical characters or situations. 1 'This power Mr. Odets has to a degree unequaled by any of lis American contemporaries except Erskine Caldwell and Eu- ! gene O’Neill."^® j He also recognized in the dramatist a power of com- I munieating a special sort of compassion. None of his char- ; acters were "sympathetic" in the ordinary sense of the word, but all the characters could be understood and could be 1 pitied. His plays were a kind of tragedy of those who hurt j j Dthers not in blindness or malice but only because they were themselves in agony. The observer remarked in 1942 that ! t bdets had become more and more interested in picturing the I j tragedy of men and women from the inside, as victims of pas-j 3ion, rather than as victims of economics. He judged the j j ^Krutch, "Drama," loc. cit. 9®Krutch, "The Uhbeautiful People," The Nation, 154: 46, January 10, 1942 . . . . ... _ .........___, ........... j writer to be one of the most impressive dramatists of his j generation.^ ' j Gorelik regarded Odets as "perhaps the most gifted j of American lyrical dramatists. Freedley and Reeves I ; maintained that Odets was in essence a follower of Chekhov I j and showed it in every play he had written. They wrote of j him, "Odets is much more than a propagandist in the theatre;! his portrayal of character, his understanding of human be- | havior, and his sympathy with his own people make him a | dramatist to be reckoned with, not only now but in the fu- : . ,,101 ;ure. According to NIcoll, the playwright’s main dramatic j weakness was a lack of that larger constructive sense which I 1OP I alone could produce unity of impression and of concept. j As Gassner expressed it, Individual scenes of the writer j were better than the play which contained t h e m . 1 0 ^ Another > difficulty was that as a Marxist his political views some- I ;imes distorted his playwrlting. "No one gave himself to 3?adical thought stemming from Marxist dialectics as whole- j heartedly in the theatre as did Odets," stated Gassner.10^ j ^ Ibid. 100Gorelik, op. cit. , p. 242. j 101Freedley and Reeves, op. cit.. p. 609. j 10^Nicoll, op. cit. . p. 825. j 10^Gassner, op. cit.. pp. 692-693* ; ^°^Tbid., p . 689. ___________ j Odets' More Successful Plays Clifford Odets had been a member of the acting com pany of the Group Theatre before writing Awake and Sing (February 19, 1935)* In this play of Jewish family life, reported Krutch, the playwright had achieved a paradoxical ombination of detachment and participation. The detachment was purely intellectual and artistic, for emotionally he was lOS plose to the people he was writing about. J i | Though no member of the family in the drama really j 1 understood what the others wanted, each knew what it was to 1 | * \ want something with agonizing intensity. The critic inter preted from the play the concept that man's success and hopej for the future did not lie in any one crusade or any one de termination but in the persistence of mankind's passion, its [ ; unwillingness to accept defeat for its desires. . . . It can go on indefinitely insisting that it will be happy and free, tirelessly protesting against ] the fact that it Is not; and if perchance one generation! does surrender, there is always another wanting the old J things with a young determination to have them.I°^ | The commentator admired Odets for possessing none of the despairing sadism of the Hemingway, "hard-boiled" school of writers. Judging from his first play, he was also pleased to find that the Group Theatre playwright leaned more toward the broadly humanistic tradition than toward the 105Kru-tch, "Awake and Sing," The Nation. 140:31^, March 13, 1935* ^^Ibid. . p. 316. .. ___ specific "revolutionary" drama.107 ' ! ; Considered his best play since Awake and Sing. Gold- : i en Boy (November 4, 1937) impressed the reviewer with its I power and genuine originality. Although there were moments ' when the play seemed to him to be near greatness, there were also moments when it seemed nearer strident melodrama. Odets' special power, he wrote, was his ability to suggest j 1 the lonely agony of souls imprisoned in their own private j j aells of frustrated desire and inarticulate hate. . . . No one that I know can more powerfully suggest: the essential loneliness of men and women, their inabil ity to explain the varied forms assumed by the symbols of their desire, and the gowerlessness of any one of them to help the o t h e r . j It pleased the observer that in Golden Boy the play-: wright kept his political theories in the background and I wrote a play which did not depend for its appeal upon a con-; jjern with his economic opinions. While it might be assumed 1 that Odets' interpretation of his own play had been that ; 'suffering like that was inevitable under capitalism," the ! agonies of his characters were real and affecting whatever j zhe reasons for their existence.109 ! i i According to Krutch, Rocket to the Moon (November j £4, 1938) was further evidence that Clifford Odets had a I 107Ibid. | 108Krutch, "Two Legends," The Nation. 145:540, No- j vember 13* 1937- I ________109Ibid._______ __._ ........ j gift for characterization and a gift for incisive dialogue superior to any of his Marxian fellows and scarcely equaled 1 1 f 110 py any other American playwright. As with Awake and Sing and Golden Boy, Rocket to the Moon seemed to the critic more; powerful in conception than in development; the first act j was the most effective, and toward the end of the play the j manipulation of events became more mechanical. Nevertheless; ne acknowledged that "Not one of the personages is a story- Dook cliche; not one of the situations seems other than jfreshly imagined."11" 1 ' More than a tale of frustration, declared the re viewer, the play rose above mere realism toward the level of tragedy. The spectator was faced with the broken spirit of jthe middle-aged failure, the desperate gallantry of the old man trying to pretend that he could accept the emptiness of ■ his own life, and the unconscious cruelty of the girl who pould not even imagine what it was like not to have a whole j i „ lifetime before one. No desires so agonizingly intense as bhose which possess these people can be really trivial, and 5ven the defeated become heroes when they fight with such IIP desperation." Odets1 Less Successful Plays During the same year as Awake and Sing, Waiting for i Krutch, "Rocket to the Moon," The Nation, 147: ’ 600, December 3, 1938* j ...111Ibid. ......... 112Ibid., p. 601. _ . j Lefty (March 26, 1935) was produced. Krutch reviewed this ! second play of the writer, presented by the Group Theatre, and made this statement: "Mr. Clifford Odets, the talented j author of Awake and Sing, has come out for the revolution j ^.nd thrown in his artistic lot with those who use the thea- J 1 11 I jtre for direct propaganda." ° The commentator complained that Waiting for Lefty hammered away on the single theme, "Workers of the world unite!" The playwright had decided that art was a weapon, I and he set his scene on a platform from which his charac ters delivered direct exhortation. The stage became a soap box, and no subtleties could be expected from a soap-box. j S ) As a play to promote class war, it could be acted in any jonion hall by amateur actors. Indeed, said the observer, it would have been somewhat out of place anywhere else. I . . . its appeal to action is too direct not to seerb almost absurd when addressed to an audience most of whose members are not, after all, actually faced with j the problem which is put to them in so completely con- j crete a form.114 1 The degradation of a Bronx middle-class family de picted in Paradise Lost (December 9, 1935) was said by the playwright himself to be the state of the middle class in 1935. In the critic's review of the play, he maintained bhat Odets’ family was far from typical and that the j | “ ^^Krutch, "Mr. Odets Speaks His Mind," The Nation, 1 140:427, April 10, 1935- \ ll4Ibid.. p. .428. ... __. j dramatist was suffering from some strong delusion. He hoped ;that his loss of reason, caused by too much brooding over ' j Marxian eschatology, was only temporary. Marxian portents, explained the reviewer, were concerned with the economic > collapse and loss of faith of the middle class. j . . . It will be seized with all sorts of neuroses, ‘ and finally it will expire miserably in the midst of its futilities, its corruptions, and its perversities--pre- cisely as this strange family is expiring in the Bronx.11- 5 | If this family had been typical, remarked the commentator, ; then the solid foundations of the Bronx would not have been ; ;3till standing and the revolution would have been closer than even most of Odets' fellow-believers thought it was.1' 1^: i The audience, he observed, were divided into those j i I who snickered and those who sat tightly on their seats wait-j ing for every opportunity to applaud. ; Arthur Miller 1 Neither Arthur Miller nor Tennessee Williams, wrote ! Krutch, committed himself, as Maxwell Anderson and Eugene ! I O'Neill did, either to the form or content of classical trag edy. Though Miller consciously sought a link with classical cragedy in A View from the Bridge (September 29, 1955), he j and Williams did not seek persistently, as O'Neill had done, for something in the universe outside man to which man could ■'■■^Krutch, "The Apocalypse of St. Clifford," The Na-I tion, 141:752, December 25* 1935* i ll6Ibid. .. _ _.. | appeal and "belong.” "Hence it is possible to interpret ' Death of a Salesman [February 10, 19493 as brutal naturalism! I i pnd A Streetcar Named Desire [December 3, 19473 as a sort ofj semi-surreal!st version of the Strindbergian submission to destructive obsessions. I In 19^9 the reviewer compared Miller with the then only other recently emerged playwright who had awakened sim-. j ilar enthusiasm, Tennessee Williams. He said that both j playwrights were obsessed with a single theme--Williams withj eccentric and neurotic women and Miller with the father-son i i Relationship (however, in The View from the Bridge, his lat est play, he was concerned with a father-daughter relation- j i I ship). Unlike Death of a Salesman, remarked the commentator, A Streetcar Named Desire displayed a unique sensibility and j a gift for language, as well as moments of new insight. i ! ! i Though he felt that Death of a Salesman would probably draw i larger audiences than either A Streetcar Named Desire or j Summer and Smoke (October 6, 1948), the Arthur Miller play ! i lift speemed to him "relatively old-fashioned." J Whatever his merits, Miller’s influence is impres sive. Alan Downer, critic for The Quarterly Journal of j I ; Speech, stated that the dramatist registered great success j m both the public and private theatres in London and that ■^^Krutch, American Drama Since 1918. pp. 327-328. ll8Krutch, "Drama," The Nation. 168:284, March T949. _ __ .................. ..... .................... younger British writers have been influenced by him. . J jthe effect of Miller's dramatic style, the explosiveness of ; jthe relationships between characters, the poetic use of the j physical theatre, can be clearly seen in two plays by Brit- ! ain's wunderkind, John Osborne."-*-19 Nicoll said of All My I Sons, "This is by no means a great play, although it has the! merit of vigour and youthful enthusiasm."120 Krutch judged that the writer's talent had been ov erestimated, ". . .a talent sufficient to cause critics to j overestimate somewhat its actual merits, which are diminished by a certain stiffness and a certain irony too simple, too 121 neat, and obviously contrived." Miller's More Successful Plays While recognizing the fact that Death of a Salesman had provoked more unqualified enthusiasm than any other se- ' rious play had done in many years, Krutch was one reviewer 1 who did have a few reservations. He granted that the play ; was powerful, veracious, and theatrically effective, but he also commented that the material was too limited to natural- i ism. All the action and all the characterization were rec- ! ognizably true to life, but they possessed only literal ! 7 ”' n-rr-wm—m~ ■-m-- r- ■ ‘ ‘ '..........“... . n-rT-n r r n r l Tr-mn,-™ i . .ri„™,~riinT.Fm-r-n,m™r,-™r ,r--,r-r-i ^ j 11^Alan Downer, "Yucca in the Painted Desert: Notes j on the New York Theatre, 1957-1958," The Quarterly Journal i bf Speech, 44:258, October, 1958. j 120Nicoll, op. cit.. p. 900. I 121 Krutch, American Drama Since 1918, p. 324. j meaning. ' . . . To me there is about the whole something prosy ' and pedestrian; a notable absence of new insight, fresh I | imagination, or individual sensibility. The dialogue ; I serves its purpose as well as the dialogue of a Dreiser j novel, but it is also almost as undistinguished, as un- ; poetic, as unmemorable, and as unquotable.122 j I Of the actors he singled out Mildred Dunnock as the i i ; Dest, while he thought that Lee Cobb's performance was as leavy-footed as the dialogue.123 The critic might have been mistaken on one or two ! points in his review. He stated that the salesman realized i lis failure and that he committed suicide in order that his ! wife could have his insurance money to live on. He also added, "Like the central character in The Iceman Cometh Mr. ! -jo A filler's salesman dies when he loses his illusions, . . . There did not appear, to this investigator at any rate, any Lvidence that the salesman died without his illusions. In fact, the reason for the suicide was his belief in these il-: l ; lusions. The insurance money was intended for his son, not : for his wife, in order for him to be the kind of "success" | he had always dreamed for himself and for his son. j i Miller’s Less Successful Plays j Two special gifts of Arthur Miller were noted in a 1 review of All My Sons (January 29, 1947): an eye for char- j acter and a skill in telling a story even though the story ® ' ■ j 122Krutch, "Drama," loc. cit. j _... ___ .123Ibid.______ _ 12^Ibid .. _____.....j i " ......" ' .. 288: » i had been told before. The playwright, as In Ibsen's manner,} unfolded the past at the same time that the contemporaneous } \ ; action moved forward. He did the same thing in Death of a 1 Salesman. Krutch perceived an inevitability about the out- j come of All My Sons that was similar to the foreknowledge ofi I j [classical tragedy. I | One complaint that the observer made was that Mil- j ker's intellectual convictions seemed much more stereotyped { than his dramatic imagination. The play was about personal jguilt and personal atonement, and it was difficult to see now either could have any meaning if men, as the author ap peared to proclaim, were not what they made themselves but j what the "system" made them. Also, said the commentator, j [the dramatist was given to dubious generalizations; one j s s character in the play stated that anyone who made war prof- 1 i kts was just as guilty as those who deliberately made defec tive equipment .-*-25 j Tennessee Williams In the plays by Williams, the attention was centered around the inner life of the characters whose difficulties | j were presented as psychological rather than social or polit-j leal, as was true in the works of Miller. "The stress is i ' ’ I upon what is sometimes called 'the irrational element' in j human life and the central personages are neurotic rather j 12^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation. 164:193^ February ! JL5, 1947.„ .. _ .._ .. _ . I [than, as in Miller, the victims of false convictions and an | jsvil social s y s t e m . ’ Gassner, in a review of Williams' latest work, Sud- j denly Last Summer (January 7, 1958) (part of a two-play pro-; . I duction called Garden District), reported that no matter how! much morbid pessimism might strike at the playwright's heart; 1 Williams was not destroyed by it as an artist. ! . . . He brings compassion to the tormented girl and to the whole tormented world as well. There is affirma tiveness in his rebellion against the satanic element in nature, and his severe exposure of unscrupulous charac- j j ters, such as the deceased poet's mother, . . . is proof, I too, that taking note of evil is not the same thing as j j accepting it.12' I i pi a similar vein Krutch declared that while he regarded thej jiramatist as a highly subjective writer, he observed that j |/illiams never abandoned dramatic objectivity as a method j When he was trying to communicate emotions which had a spe- ' 6ial personal significance. "... though there is in the plays as written a certain haunting dream-like or rather nightmarish quality, the break with reality is never quite made, and nothing happens which might not be an actual 1 Oft event." It should be stated that the above comment was j made in a review of A Streetcar Named Desire and Krutch had ! , — i ■ " i |iot yet seen Suddenly Last Summer, of which Gassner said, i 1 12^Krutch, American Drama Since 1918. p. 326. i 127john Gassner, "Broadway in Review," Educational j Theatre Journal. 10:130, May, 1958. 12®Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 165:687, December ! 2 q ^ l ? 4 7 ^ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ J t '. . . up to the final revelation of cannibalism he compels i belief."129 i i Nicoll's criticism of the new American dramatist was; Less favorable. He found The Glass Menagerie (March 31, j t i L9^5) well written but its theme and characterization heavi-j i I jLy tinged with sentiment. He considered A Streetcar Named : 1 ! Desire a sordid tale of sex which had little to offer a | !■ ‘ I world "craving for things that are broader and more spa- j bious. 1 Williams' More Successful Plays Both The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named De sire . pointed out Krutch, concerned the desperate, unsuc cessful effort of a female character to hang on to some kind 1 of shabby gentility. But while the critic judged the former- clay uncertain and intermittent, he thought the newer one was sure and sustained. . . . Gone are all the distracting bits of ineffec- j tual preciosity, all the pseudo-poetic phrases, and all ! those occasions when the author seemed about to lose hisj grip upon the very story itself. Prom the moment the j curtain goes up until it descends after the last act everyJh^ng is perfectly in key and completely effec tive . Por the reviewer there was no longer any doubt of the play wright's originality or power, though his range was still to be demonstrated. ". . . it is quite possible that sickness 1^Gassner, "Broadway in Review," loc. cit. • • ^^Nicoll, loc. cit. 1^1Krutch, "Drama," p. and failure are the only themes he can treat. I The observer felt, however, that A Streetcar Named Desire was not simply morbid and ugly, because of its sin- j 1 I perity and because of the genuine compassion with which it seemed to have been written. Despite the sensational quali ty of the story, he discovered neither the atmosphere nor j the mood ever merely sensational. j . . . The author's perceptions remain subtle and j delicate, and he is amazingly aware of nuances even in situations where nuances might seem to be inevitably ob literated by violence. The final impression left is, surprisingly enough, not of sensationalism but of sub tlety. 133 Although Summer and Smoke received a predominantly unfavorable press, the play was further proof for Krutch j jthat its author possessed real gifts as a dramatist. Summer! knd Smoke compared favorably, he thought, with A Streetcar ) i Named Desire. Both the characters and the central situations in the two plays resembled each other, and it was evident ] 1 I jthat only a powerful imagination could have used so effec- | tively the same combinations t w i c e . ! ? The dramatist’s deepest sympathies, he remarked, lay with the ineffectual idealist who was destroyed, not with the "vital" characters who triumphed. "Gentility" was the ! I only form of idealism or spirituality accessible to the hero1 Lne, and the tragedy lay not in the fact that she had j 132Ibid. 133Ibid. ! 1^^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 167:473.* October 23*1 . 1948. .......... ___.............._ _ . __ _ _ j Resisted, but in the fact that she had so little to resist with. The critic interpreted Williams to have said that the present culture was ugly because there was no living equiva-, ! Lent for what was by now a mere quaint anachronism; he re proached the world for having found no equivalent of what i nis heroine’s "gentility” once represented.13- ^ In comparing the two plays, the reviewer commented j jthat A Streetcar Named Desire had more varied and rapid ac- ; jtion— it was more dramatic and theatrical. Summer and Smoke Was less deceptively naturalistic, which to some extent con cealed the fundamentally subjective nature of both plays. ! ! The latter play was more allegorical and symbolical than thej I 1 jPormer; the anatomical chart in the doctor's office con trasting with the sculptured angel over the drinking foun tain in the village square was plainly symbolic and the pharacters themselves were suggestive of the protagonists in some old morality play. The symbol, said Krutch, could sometimes be larger than the fact. Summer and Smoke often achieved a hypnotic, dream-like effect "as impressive and asj kbsorbing in its own way as the more sharply defined partic-j alarity of Streetcar.”13^ j i Williams' Less Successful Plays Despite the fact that the unfamiliar cry of "Author 1 1 Author I" rang through the auditorium after the final curtaini 135Ibid. .. . 136Ibid., p. 474. | hnd that the critics did what Krutch referred to as " a ! dance in the streets" the next morning, the commentator ven-; tured an opinion that The Glass Menagerie revealed certain I weaknesses. After assuring his readers that he recognized ; I in the new playwright a man of extraordinary talent, he went pn to explain his reservations. Seldom, he said, had very feood writing and very had writing been as conspicuous in the; i 1 jscript of one play. j j . . . It has a hard, substantial core of shrewd ob- ' j servation and deft, economical characterization. But 1 this hard core is enveloped in a fuzzy haze of preten tious, sentimental, pseudo-poetic verbiage which I can compare only to the gauze screens of various degrees of filmy opacity which are annoyingly raised and lowered during the course of the physical action in order to j suggest memory, the pathos of distance, and I know not ' what else. 37 j Williams' defects appeared to the reviewer to be the result i i ' ! pf self-indulgence; and what the dramatist admired most in himself the critic feared was least admirable. He consid ered him one of those writers who should heed the advice that whenever one had written a line he liked especially 188 well, he should strike it out. Summary In February of 1926 Krutch commented that of the ifour Ibsen plays currently playing in New York only Hedda Labler had lost little or nothing in power or pertinence. I 13^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation. 160:424, April 14, ' 1945. j ________ l38Ibid., p . 425. .... j Of the remaining plays (The Master Builder, John Gabriel i Borkman, and Little Eyolf) he wrote that they were beginning; jto seem a little remote. That statement does not appear to , I ■ ! agree with some remarks he made a few months later, in No- i i yember of the same year. He claimed then that such plays asi i | The Master Builder refused to stay explained and to give up ; pll their secrets and that they were like most great art : Which held a latent significance whose aspects waited for | | ■ new tempers in new times to discover them. He also stated jthat The Master Builder involved the whole question of the meaning of life. Concerning John Gabriel Borkman he contra dicted himself at a much later date, 19^-6, by reporting that: the play was timeless, that it could be interpreted today as| an analysis of fascism, and that Borkman was a modern figure. Krutch had the insight to recognize that Chekhov's plays were not pure tragedies but modern tragedies which contained large elements of comedy. Chekhovian characters j j were capable of critical detachment and in their own disil- j I lusionment were able to laugh at themselves. They lacked j the confidence to make any heroic gestures. Tragedy was i j still there, said Krutch, but the doubt and skepticism of j somedy were in evidence. i Partly because of the critic's preference for high i 3omedy and partly because of his distaste for plays which j | dealt with theology, Krutch became disenchanted with Philip ; Barry when he turned from writing comedy to writing more Pserious" plays. After first judging Barry as America's pest writer of comedy, Krutch came to regard him as a writer; bf superficial theology and second-rate mysticism. \ j It is something of a paradox that Krutch, who had : I } puch an aversion to writers who used the theatre for pur- < poses of propaganda, should judge Clifford Odets one of the I most impressive dramatists of this age. Although Odets' po-i Litical convictions affected his playwriting, the critic 1 i conceded that few American playwrights equaled Odets' talent; for characterization and for dialogue. j One explanation of Krutch's preference for Tennessee i Williams over Arthur Miller might be Williams’ superior gift of language and Imagery. Williams was more of a poet than Miller, and Krutch tended to favor dramatists who wrote po etic rather than naturalistic dialogue. He also felt that i the action and characterization in Miller's plays held only j i literal meaning and that the playwright's intellectual con victions were limited. While Miller seemed to blame an evil jsocial system for the difficulties of his characters, Wil- I liams centered his plays around the psychological problems i if his characters. CHAPTER XIII [ i CRITICS AND CRITICISM i I In the English-speaking world, literary criticism ; i ias been a paying trade for about 250 years. Play reviewing; ias a shorter history. i . . . for though Mthe critics” begin to be contemp- ; tuously referred to toward the end of the Seventeenth j Century, the reference then was to amateurs, and plays ! were not regularly reviewed in periodicals until about a century later.1 On the newspapers today the theatre critic is not j only one of the most highly paid members of the staff but j i j dlso one of the comparatively few who are deliberately pub- j ! p i licized by their employers. The professional reviewer ; wields an enormous immediate and practical influence as in- ! dicated by the growing tendency of managers to close, at j 6nce, any production which has received generally unfavor able notices.^ | Commenting on a charge Maxwell Anderson made when he^ bought space in some of the daily newspapers and accused the, Oritics of frivolity and incompetence, Krutch stated that j ^"Krutch, "A Defence of the Professional Reviewer," j The Theatre Annual, 1943, pp. 19“20. j 2Ibid., p. 20. ^Ibid., p. 26. j .._ ... _ _____ _.......29.6 ... j the reviewers did not have standards and tastes markedly different from those of the general public. "If the public ! stays away when the critics turn thumbs down, that probably I means that the public has learned that it does not usually j enjoy what the daily papers have unanimously condemned."^ ! i The importance of American drama as a literary form j was established in.only relatively recent years, said the ; pritic, due to the fact that before the twentieth century \ Convention required on the stage a moral and intellectual ] ; ■timidity from which the novel had escaped. In the three- ) ^rear period just prior to 1940 Krutch made a survey of the ) i |thirty or forty most recommended novels of the season. He j reported that he found them artistically less impressive than the plays of the same season. It was the reviewer's contention that the contemporary novel was too often without! form and was written with a casualness fatal to any genuine ly artistic effect. While it was possible for a published novel to be written by a person who gave no sign of recog nizable literary gifts of any kind, no play was producible unless the author was master at least of a certain minimum I 1 ; skill in the mechanical aspects of craftsmanship; conse- j quently, Krutch felt that it was rare to see a drama which j was as badly written as half the published novels. The , — i m > M . , n w r .. ' — . . . . i i- T - " i " " ■ 1 ' • ' " j ^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 162:324, March 16, j >1946. : i ^Krutch, "How I Stand It," The Nation. 150:222, Feb-! ruary 10, .1940. .... ..........................................._ . I adherence to the rigid requirements of the dramatic form, he' maintained, contributed to the final artistic effectiveness ' of the playwright's work. I . . . The limitation of length necessitates careful , selection and condensations; the necessity for climaxes j necessitates the bringing of his conceptions to a focus;j and there comes a moment when the intended effect must i be produced without the fumbling of which the majority of novelists, obviously themselves often uncertain in what scene, if any, their prime intention is fully re- j vealed, are very commonly guilty.® I I In answer to his book-reviewing friends who asked j iim how he could stand reviewing plays, Krutch replied that j i he stood it very well since he found in them more art than j in an equal number of current novels. Drama had been as a j whole of a higher artistic level during the years he was ! critic than that of contemporary literature. He denied be ing "stage-struck" and did not believe that the profession i of playwright or actor was any more romantic than the other j artistic professions. "In fact, grease paint and dressing- rooms tend to bore me, and I find the actor or actress who trades on his aura tiresome rather than thrilling on the I „7 stage. ' J Disagreement Among the Critics j | Plays which created enthusiasm from the public and i she other critics did not necessarily impress Krutch. Mr. Roberts (February 18, 19^8) was one such example. He con- j 1 fessed that he admired plays mainly for their literary -........... - - ■ ; - ■ - ' - - ^ ' ' j ______ 6Ibid. p . 224. ________ _ 7Ibid ., p. 222 . .j •quality, and productions for their success in creating an Q artistic effect not obtainable in any other way. He was pond of comedy, calling it one of the most admirable of all Inventions of the human spirit. There was a time when Krutch disagreed with all the New York newspaper critics from the critic of the New York Times to that of the former P.M. The instance concerned Arsenic and Old Lace (January 10, 19^1). He did not quite ppprove of the twentieth-century phenomenon known as the paree-melodrama, just as he found it difficult to regard murder as frankly hilarious. Whereas he could conceive of murder as a fine art, he could not think of it in terms of parce-comedy. The parade of the twelve corpses from the jsellar at the curtain call struck the observer as reminis- | bent of the dance of cadavers in The Duchess of Malfi. Un- j like the separation of comic and tragic characters in Shake speare's tragedies, contemporary drama had the corpse fall out of the closet to cause laughter. This concept was re lated to the decadent tragedies of John Webster and might be I Q Explained in terms of moral degradation. Krutch pointed out in 1932 that there was a lack of any consistent philosophy of dramatic criticism among the shen current Broadway critics. He stated that the Q i Ibid., p. 223. ! ^Krutch, "Homicide as Fun," The Nation, 151:108-109, January 25# 19^1. 300; exigencies of daily or weekly criticism made it difficult for the reviewer to do more than to comment in the most I fragmentary fashion, and it was only rarely that he had an opportunity to express any general philosophical convictions^ "even if--and this is rare enough--he happens to have ac- j 10 ■ quired any." ! Bad Reviewing i Krutch's objection to the journalistic criticism in j krama in 1946 was that it was little more than a reflection I of the current fashions in thought and taste and opinion. j[deally, he wrote, a critic should at least influence the I i judgments of his reader, and very little current dramatic \ criticism made any attempt to exercise that sort of influ- - ence. "Your critic today is . . . a man who shares the taste of his public and therefore can tell it what it will or will not like."11 To this general agreement which Krutch felt existed ; between critics and public, he made two exceptions. First, : he thought that certain critics working on important dailies) usually put in some qualifying good words for any play which; concerned some social or political question. At least "in- ? I mentions" were praised, while the public often parted compa ny from the critic because it hated to be preached at. j 10Krutch, "Philosophical Criticism," The Nation, I 134:407, April 6, 1932. | ■^Krutch, "Drama," loc. cit. j Second, he observed that newspaper critics seemed to be less' predisposed than audiences to look with favor upon plays 1 I ; which were essentially serious but were non-political and j ip i :ion-economic. The reviewer did not believe in praising the "inten-j bions" of a playwright. He said that while the road to i neaven might be paved with good intentions, in art they pounted for nothing. For him good intentions in a bad play j were not an extenuation but an aggravation. ". . .an es- j isential part of the skill which constitutes him artist is i the skill which enables him to take care that his reach shall not exceed his g r a s p . j . . . A pretty good tragedy is, like a pretty good j egg, terrible; and to prefer a pretentious play which ! doesn't come off to an unpretentious one which does is ! not to demonstrate refinement of feeling and an exalted i mind; it is to reveal.oneself as a highbrow, a prig, and1 a "serious thinker."-'-^ Krutch noted that critics tended to react similarly ; when it came to the treatment of a new playwright whom they j / had praised./ When reviewers intemperately acclaimed a new dramatist--as they did Tennessee Williams and his first 3roadway play, The Glass Menagerie— there was almost always j i a reaction. The new writer's second play, in this case, You I ! Touched Mel, was panned. It was a kind of hangover, s i | 12Ibid. | j 1 I ^j^rutch, "On Good Intentions," The Nation. 142:28, | January 1, 1936. j 14 i Ibid. I i explained Krutch, which intemperance produced, and critics who had gone out on a limb were all too likely to vent their; irritation on the man who had enticed them there. "'The i i { i Least you could have done,' so they seem to say, 'was to ; write something which would have made my former enthusiasm j seem prophetic. All you have done is to leave me feeling a Little bit foolish.*"15 Krutch did not intemperately praise Williams in j either his first or second play. In fact, the critic be lieved that the difference between the two plays in terms of jfche absolute value of each was by no means as great as the other reviews had indicated. If the plays had been producedj In reverse order, he ventured, the one damned would have j | 1 been hailed and the other would have been dismissed as a I ! | ! bitter disappointment. Krutch thought that the author in i either case deserved attention and praise and that he was no routine playwright.1^ * ; | Usually drama critics were more concerned about show; business as business, he said, rather than as drama. j . . . He is wise in the ways of Broadway and he knows the inside story of playwriting, acting, and pro- ; ducing. In that sense his comments on the passing show j are comments from the inside. But it is rare to find him assuming that the plays which he witnesses almost nightly have any significance except as parts of such a ; 15Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, l6l:349> October 6, 1 1945. ! I l b i o i d - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ i ■ passing s h o w . | I Good Reviewing: I In superior reviewing, "good," "bad," and "great" are used relatively. As Krutch explained it, the reviewer j I I means, and is understood to mean, "relative to the standards; set by the prevailing level of the dramatic and theatrical ! Lrt."1® A good reviewer occasionally reminds his readers i i ; and himself that this understanding does exist and he makes : some attempt to estimate just how low or how high the as sumed standards are. i j l In the reviewing of a play, no mere summary of the plot or statement of the theme would do. A summary of Ham- ! let, for example, could make the play sound preposterous. j I i !'Not an account, but an equivalent, of the spectator's expe-' rience must be presented, and to do that the reviewer must i / • : practice, not reporting, but the art of re-creating in de- | j q ; scriptive terms the effect of a narrative. The critic must first of all be "a reporter of aesthetic experiences." | | i Since such experience is personal and not identical with the! experience of any other spectator, the reviewer must also be! an interpreter and a champion of the justness of his own re-! j i actions. : ^Krutch, "philosophical Criticism," loc. cit. 1 Krutch, "A Defence of the Professional Reviewer," ! o. 22. i _ 19Ibid., p. 24. ....... ___ ________ _| Krutch claimed that every first-class review was like every other in at least one respect: every sentence j Contributed not only its obvious content but also something j jtoward the creation of an atmosphere from which the mood of ; I ■ i jfche reviewer, and, by implication, the effect of the play on • under discussion, was communicated to the reader. ; j An ideal review contained at least three things: a i report of an item of news, an impressionistic re-creation ofj i the work itself, and a judgment based upon whatever genuine ly critical convictions the reviewer might have relevant to ; 21 |;he play under discussion. Krutch admired the dramatic criticism of the late j George Jean Nathan. Nathan, he wrote, possessed an encyclo-j pedie knowledge of the theatre and probably remembered in | i I detail more plays and players of the last thirty-five or j I - : forty years than anyone else who wrote about the contempora-' i ry American stage. For all Nathan’s cynicism, he had an j abiding respect for the theatre. No one was less often tak- j en in, said Krutch, and no one was less likely to respond to Op :he genuine with conventional flippancy. Though a drama critic did not call playwrights into : toeing nor aid them greatly in the solution of their artistic; problems, he did help find an audience for those playwrights! 2QIbid. 21Ibid.. p. 25. 22Krutch, "Drama," The Nation. 150:53, January 13> who he thought were worthy of s u p p o r t . as Krutch quipped ; in trying to explain the function of a critic, a critic was ; actually guilty of a double impertinence: telling his bet- ; jters what they should write and his equals what they should i . 24 ! pnj oy. Summary The so-called power and influence of the critics of ! the daily newspapers appear to be, in effect, negligible; in other words, most newspaper critics, in reflecting currently; fashionable taste in theatre, merely point out what the pub-: lie will not support. The only real effect of these critics; | i is that they hurry the closing of unpopular plays that would1 nave closed even without the critics’ judgment. | According to Krutch the critic should influence the j baste and opinion of his reader and thereby help to find an ; audience for a worthy play. Krutch considered dramatic criticism as a serious and important work; he regretted that' some drama critics seemed to regard it as a job of reporting, bn a show business which was without permanent significance.; i 2^Krutch, "A Defence of the Professional Reviewer," | ?. 2 6. ^Krutch, "Drama," The Nation, 173:430, November 17,! 1951... _ _ ........ _____...... | CHAPTER XIV ! I SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS j Introduction The purpose of this study was to describe the sig nificant attitudes and opinions that Joseph Wood Krutch held regarding the Broadway theatre during the time (1924-1952) that he was drama critic for The Nation. His weekly column | pi that periodical over a 28-year period was the primary bource upon which this work was based. The summary and con-j elusions of this study follow. j Summary | j Acting and Actors Krutch felt that it was only when an actor created I something original in performing a traditional or classical i I role that he was put to any real test. The performer then ! had to assimilate the tradition and to display at the same time his power to make some contribution to it. Under the , existing conditions, said the observer, it was almost impos-! sible to compare different interpretations of a given char- j acter, to compare one actor's style alongside that of anoth-! i er in a single role, or even to compare the same actor in ; many different kinds of parts, sinoe the American theatre > was largely a matter of type-casting. i Experimental and Repertory Theatres | The reviewer claimed that the off-Broadway theatres,! such as the "little theatres" (the Washington Square Players; and the Provincetown Players especially) and the Group Thea- J j tre, had played a major role in contemporary American thea- itre. He further stated that he had come to depend upon the i little playhouses for intelligent performances of unusual j plays. He admired repertory theatres such as The Moscow Art I I Theatre and The Abbey Theatre, as well as the short-lived j jjivic Repertory and American Repertory Theatre in this coun-j try. In observing expressionism, he pointed out that the Lmotional effect which the audience received could not have been duplicated by any drama of conventional structure. j Musical Comedy and Revue j In the 1920's Krutch preferred the revue in which there was no plot to follow, even though he recognized in ! the Hammerstein musical comedy, Sweet Adeline, in 1929> a more intelligent book and a sophistication different from j the rowdy revue. By 1932 he wrote that Max Gordon's Plying j Colors (1932) belonged to a newer tradition of good taste I knd refinement which avoided the "dreary pomposity" of the tiegfeld Pollies, the "deafening vehemence" of the Shubert revue, and the "noise" of the Scandals. During the 19^0's he became convinced of the superiority of the more complex musical which the New York stage had developed since the popularity of the older revue. He praised Lady in the Dark ■ (1941) for its style and "faultless showmanship." He ac- :mowledged that Oklahoma I (19^3) strove for good taste and was vastly entertaining; except for Allegro. the observer had mostly praise for the other works of Rodgers and Hammer- stein, Carousel (19^5) and South Pacific (194-9) • 1 A Comparison of Contemporary American j and European Theatres According to Krutch, the contemporary American thea tre was not only equal to but in most cases superior to the j contemporary European theatre. From the 1920's the New Yorkj stage was as active and creative as the stage of Moscow, j 3erlin, Paris, or London. Modern American drama, he claimed^ Excelled the general level of twentieth century European jirama. Only in the art of acting did the reviewer find the j German theatre superior to the American. Though he discov- j ered Moscow's revolutionary stagecraft interesting, he con- | sidered that the Russian theatre was intellectually narrow ! and isolated. Communist authority and censorship was final,, I Arbitrary, and absolute. j i > j Existentialism struck the American philosopher as 1 less of a philosophy than a state of nerves which meant morei i ! |to Parisians than to New Yorkers. The reviewer felt that the English theatre did not attack the problems of life as ! boldly and as directly as did the American theatre. The one- area in which English dramatists seemed to him to be super!-; or to American playwrights was in the field of crime and i terror. The Effect of Social Conventions and Morals Upon Characters and Themes in Contemporary American Drama j Since Maugham had written the original Rain in the 1920's, commented Krutch, there existed on the American stage the stereotyped characters of the prostitute (the good! bad girl) and the minister (the bad good man). Krutch ob- j jected to the playwright's use of characters as types rather, t than as persons. ! Before the 1920's marital infidelity had been con- j sidered the Unforgivable Sin, and plays which used this theme irere tragedies. During and after the 1920*s, wrote Krutch, ; marital infidelity had become an Annoying Habit, and plays j which used this theme were comedies. Before the depression jrears of the thirties, the "success" play was a popular genre; during and after the depression years, plays were written which opposed the cult of American materialism. I The Thesis or Propaganda Play I Krutch objected to the thesis or propaganda play on ■;he principle that in a theatre a passion was more interest ing than an idea and a fact more impressive than a moral, j I Jn the hands of propagandists, art was a weapon. The ! depression years of the thirties brought about angry denuncij ations of the capitalist system. The playwright of revolu- ; jfcionary drama, reflected Krutch, was primarily concerned | kith his cause; there was no importance placed upon the per-; sonalities of the individuals in the dramas except as they ' I were protagonists in an economic conflict. i Tragedy and Comedy I as Contemporary Dramatic Forms j i Krutch preferred classicism to realism in drama since classicism was concerned with eternal and essential i | jthings and realism was concerned with impermanent and super ficial things. He realized that real tragedy was difficult j 1 i to write, especially today, and that modern man was more pitiful than tragic. The characters in high comedy used i prudence rather than sentiment as their guide. Krutch pre- ■ ferred high comedy to the usual American comedy of "noisy I j vulgarity." Playwriting Most bad or inferior plays, according to the critic,! l fell under seven general classifications: the thesis or propaganda play, the "well-made" play, the play which copied! | j vhe formula of a former success, the play adapted from other; media, the topical play, the biographical play, and the play which aroused ambiguous or inconsistent emotion in the spec-j vator. Shakespeare and Shaw 1 Krutch considered that certain New York productions ! i ; bf Shakespeare, such as Twelfth Night in 1940 and Hamlet in Ji-936, had missed the theme or unity of the plays. He found ; kenry V , because of its patriotic propaganda, and Richard | III, because of its melodrama, less satisfactory as plays j than some of the other works. He remarked that Henry IV was. more effective when read in a library than when performed onj a . stage. He regarded The Winter1 s Tale and Troilus and Cresslda as being more effective when performed than when j j read. The Tempest and Hamlet, he said, were equally effec tive in the study and on the stage. He claimed that the j jShakespearean plays most contemporary in their appeal were j Othello, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, and Macbeth. j j Both Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw had a sense! pf the primary importance of social stability, observed the jjritic. Among Shaw’s better plays were Caesar and Cleopatra; and Saint Joan. Arms and the Man. Pygmalion, Major Barbara, ! Candida were judged to be among his lesser and more con ventional plays. Androcles and the Lion and Man and Super- i i man were thought to be optimistic plays incapable of express-f- ing evil. Only rarely, as in Too True To Be Good and The j j , j Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles, did Shaw reveal himself J as a pessimist. I i I O’Neill, Behrman, and Anderson ! The greatness of_Eugene O'Neill, maintained Krutch,J lay in the fact that he had come closer than any other Amer ican to writing tragedy. He was concerned not so much with ; man’s relationship to man as he was with man's relationship to God, or to something larger than man and beyond him. His I « i i | intention, however, proved to be greater than his accomplish ment. Neither his central conception nor his language in his plays was articulate enough to achieve full or clear ex pression. Mourning Becomes Electra came nearer to the spir-! it of the great tragedies, thought the critic; The Great God: Brown was judged confusing and too subjective; Strange In- i terlude was considered vague and inconclusive; and Anna Christie was regarded as a love story with a happy ending. 1 j S. N. Behrman came closer to writing pure comedy, j i j claimed the reviewer, than any other contemporary playwrightj I ! His plays represented the true comic way of life and its j virtues: intelligence, tolerance, and grace. Passions were; something to be analyzed and understood. The comic quali- j I vies of the playwright were best presented in The Second Man! j and in Biography. Krutch termed No Time for Comedy a tepid | problem play rather than a comedy and Dunnigan1s Daughter a j liull and pretentious psychological play. ; Maxwell Anderson was said to possess that rare abil-; ity to write plays in verse which seemed to fit into the | 1 j pattern of the contemporary stage. Though he had a verbal j 1 ' facility, the commentator reported that his difficulty was ! finding ideas for his words. Also, stated Krutch, his ! poetry often sounded forced and decorative--something which j was not so much poetry as something which sounded like it. ; Winterset, Key Largo, and The Eve of St. Mark were regarded j by the critic as among the playwright's most successful plays. He thought Mary of Scotland and The Wingless Victory were less successful. \ Ibsen, Chekhov, Barry, Rice, Howard, Sherwood, Odets, Miller, and Williams Ibsen was commended for solving the problem of not ; only telling a story but expounding at the same time the jnoral background against which it had meaning. Over the I years, however, the arguments became too familiar in some ofj j his plays and they began to bog down under the weight of un necessary exposition. The critic thought that Hedda Gabler | I and The Master Builder were still significant and universal j but that Ghosts seemed "dated" since its battle was won long, ago. | While the plots of Chekhov's plays were insignifi- j I cant, his characterization was considered true and unforget-i table. Krutch regarded The Sea-Gull. The Three Sisters, and; Uncle Vanya as neither tragedy nor comedy and this approach ; ! I j f c o writing as intolerable in the hands of any other play- j wright than Chekhov. j Judging from Paris Bound and Holiday, his earlier I | clays, the reviewer at first deemed Philip Barry America's ! Dest writer of comedy. Later, he complained that the ■ [ “ ..~ — ~ " .... ~ .*3T4} playwright became a snob and a mystic. The Philadelphia j Story was judged one of his best, Hotel Universe one of his Elmer Rice's greatest skill, claimed Krutch, was his ability to imitate what was most characteristic in the lan guage and gesture of various contemporary types. Street Scene and Two on an Island were proof of his ability for L " ' " ~ ~1 1 ' ] naturalism. The Left Bank was referred to as uninspired, j and American Landscape was said to contain lifeless socio logical abstractions. The qualities which Krutch admired in Sidney Howard were a shrewdness of insight, a genuineness of feeling, and k gift for literary expression. On occasion he objected to ! jthe playwright's use of the dramatic form for conveying in- formation (Yellow Jack) and for expressing a private peeve | [Half-Gods). His more successful plays were believed to be I The Silver Cord and They Knew What They Wanted. | Robert Sherwood was rated as an accomplished crafts-1 i j inan who knew the tricks of his trade and had a sufficiently ! jritty fluency to make something out of nothing. His weak ness, wrote Krutch, was that he never went beyond journalism! ( ! find that he concerned himself with specific political issues! I . 'j in order to escape from deeper questions. The Petrified | forest and Idiot's Delight were both considered theatrically! 1 - i effective. There Shall Be Ho Night was called a thesis melo drama . r _ _ ... ' ........ " ...." ..................."....~ .3151 ■ i At his best Clifford Odets was said to possess the power to communicate the tragedy of men and women from the i jlnside, showing them as victims of passion. At his worst, ; I 1 ptated the critic, the playwright's characters were merely victims of economics; he tended to blame everything on the ] ( system. In Awake and Sing, Golden Boy, and Rocket to the j Moon, the dramatist's political theories were kept in the | j background. In Waiting for Lefty and Paradise Lost the sys-j tern was blamed for the characters' troubles. | ! j Besides a skill in telling a story, Arthur Miller was thought to have an eye for character. His weaknesses as I a playwright, thought Krutch, were that his material was j limited to naturalism and revealed a certain stiffness and a Certain irony too simple, too neat, and obviously contrived.j 1 For example, his intellectual convictions in All My Sons ; were judged to be much more stereotyped than his dramatic Imagination. Death of a Salesman, while admittedly powerfulj and truthful in characterization, was thought to contain un-i } poetic and unmemorable dialogue. i i Tennessee Williams seemed limited to the themes of ; sickness and failure, wrote Krutch, and he was sometimes \ guilty of pseudo-poetic verbiage and sentimental self-indul-i gence. A Streetcar Named Desire and Summer and Smoke were j evidence that the dramatist had a gift for language and a \ I powerful imagination. Krutch objected to The Glass Menager-' ie on the grounds that the writing was often fuzzy and j I " ". ' .......... “ .“3161 pretentious. ! J Critics and Criticism | Krutch admired plays mainly for their literary qual-- i ' • 1 ity and productions for their success in creating an artis- j | I tic effect not obtainable in any other way. He observed | that there was a lack of any consistent philosophy of dra- j jnatic criticism among the Broadway critics. j I Conclusions j The criticism of Joseph Wood Krutch reflected the change in the American theatre during the period 1924 to E I 1952. It mirrored the change in the taste of the American j public concerning the musical. The plotless revue built l pround jazz and nudity reflected the cynicism and disillu sionment following the First World War. Krutch was able to note a new element of satire in the American musical of the ; 's due to the sharp social protests of the depression | ^rears. More mature books, as well as polite and intimate ! entertainment,.were also reported of the Broadway musicals of the thirties. The 1940's were war years during which the; American public sought escape in the musical theatre. The I reviewer recognized that talents combined, such as Rodgers j and Hammerstein, to form a kind of perfection never before seen on the American stage. The public, as well as the critic, definitely changed their preference from the orgi astic revue to the more complex musical comedy form. | j. . . . . . . . . . . ~ ' . “317; I j j Krutch was sensitive to the changing role of the ■thesis play in America and was quick to note the reasons for; its temporary re-appearance in this country in the 1930's. ; He remarked that the thesis play had become an outmoded 1 transitional type which had bridged the gap between leading , ! intellectuals and intelligent audiences during a period of ; rapidly changing moral ideas and which had been revived by revolutionary dramatists as a propaganda weapon against cap-j j italism. : I I An examination of the criticism of Krutch clearly \ revealed that he had certain criteria or standards of judg ment concerning the theatre. His exposure to such repertory^ groups as the Moscow Art Theatre and the Abbey Theatre re sulted in his demand for a much higher standard of excel lence for acting than he had formerly accepted on the Broad-; way stage. He complained that the New York theatre operated under a system of type-casting that did not promote the ac- j tor1s art. I The reviewer also indicated certain criteria of j judgment in the field of criticism. An ideal review, claimed Krutch, contained three things: a report of an item; pf news, an impressionistic re-creation of the work itself, ; and a judgment based on the critical convictions of the re- | viewer. j j From a study of Krutch's drama column over the years' it was apparent that he held several attitudes or prejudices!. Being primarily interested in the play rather than in the j actor's art--the play as dramatic literature rather than as ' a vehicle for the actor--he was prejudiced against any actor who seemed to play only parts flattering to himself and to exploit his own personality at the expense of the play. He j ifavored the repertory system over the star system. The critic was also far more concerned with the j Ideas of the playwright than with the technical or physical I aspects of the production. He was more interested in what ; was said than in how it was said. As a man with a literary and academic background, Krutch naturally favored those the atres which promoted plays which were a part of permanent | dramatic literature and which presented contemporary works j j ; which seemed to offer more than transitory interest. His ; i ! preference for the repertory and experimental theatres over ; the commercial and more fashionable Broadway theatres was understandable. j Krutch favored the American theatre over the Euro- i j>ean theatre. Because a drama had been a success in Paris j or London, it did not follow that the critic was favorably disposed toward that drama; on the contrary, with the excep-j Dion of the English thrillers he consistently reported the ; superiority of American drama over contemporary European j plays. j The reviewer was prejudiced against any play which I used the subject of prostitution or theology. He also had ! an antipathy toward the propaganda play. He felt that life was too complex to be contained within any one formula, sither moral or economic. The art form, he said, was svolved for other purposes than didactic ends. Occasionally there were exceptions or changes made in his general theories and convictions during his twenty- i f bight years as a drama critic. In certain unusual instances^ I j for example, he put aside his prejudice against personality j acting; with a few dramatic actors and with most comic en tertainers whose personality was their chief attraction he j/ras inclined to be more liberal. Krutch contributed to the contemporary American the-l i atre by supporting the experimental and repertory groups in ! ] bis drama column. He wrote in the twenties that the new ex-i ] perimental producers provided New York with the best reviv- j als of modern classics of the theatre, as well as with the | | classics of the past. He urged the public to support the j 2ivic Repertory and the American Repertory Theatre. i I Since the beginning of his career as a drama critic,' ne has encouraged the use of imagination in the theatre rather than the use of realism. Realism, he felt, did not offer the actor, the director, or the designer his most fruitful opportunities; it did not utilize those capacities for producing illusion. His prediction was that future stu dents would look upon realism as something which had re placed the imbecilities of the nineteenth-century drama and which had exercised a certain discipline Tor the theatre. j During the 1937-1938 season there was a noticeable increase ; bf important plays which were more imaginative and less j s • i \ I j realistic. Krutch proclaimed Thornton Wilder's Our Town as ; jthe best play of the year rather than the Critics' Circle j choice of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. For the most ; { ■.... ............ ....... ■ — i i ■■ g i i ....... j j interesting production of the year, he gave recognition to j I brson Welles for either his Julius Caesar or The Shoemaker's! ! i Holiday. The success of such productions as those by the c I ! Mercury Theatre, and of Our Town, noted the critic, indi- ; bated that audiences had become less literal-minded and not ! as complacently superior to whatever was not realistically j prosy in matter and manner. Audiences were capable of imag ination. The playwrights, he observed, were learning that t ; jthe shortest distance between two points might be by way of ; \ I an artificial convention. j Suggestions for Further Research ! The field of dramatic criticism in the United States! as a subject for academic study is a recent one. While this| ! work was necessarily limited, some other topics for possible! i research were evident to this writer: I 1. A historical study of the significance and im- j portance of the theatre critic in America. j 2. A comparison of Krutch's dramatic criticism withj that of another New York critic, such as George Jean Nathan,j povering the same plays or the same period. __ J 3. An analytical study of the criteria or standards; of judgment among several contemporary critics. B I B L I O G R A P H Y BIBLIOGRAPHY ! Primary Sources | Irutch, Joseph Wood. "Drama” (weekly drama column), The Na-I tion, Vols. 119-174. ; Secondary Sources Books Bentley, Eric. In Search of Theatre. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953. Fergusson, Francis. The Human Image in Dramatic Literature. ! New York: Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1957* j Freedley, George, and John A. Reeves. A History of the The-; i atre. New York: Crown Publishers, 194l. j 1 * Gassner, John. Masters of the Drama. New York: Random House, 1940. ; Gorelik, Mordecai. New Theatres for Old. New York: Samuel ' ! French, 1940. I Krutch, Joseph Wood. American Drama Since 1918. Rev. ed. j } New York: G. Braziller, 1957* 1 _______ . The Measure of Man. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill,j 1955. j ________ . The Modern Temper. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Co., 1929• ' , j ________ . "Modernism" in Modern Drama. Ithaca, New York: | Cornell University Press, 1953* Nicoll, Allardyce. World Drama. New York: Harcourt, Brace,j and Co., 1949- \ kmith, Cecil. Musical Comedy in America. New York: Theatre; Arts Books, 1950. ; Sobel, Bernard (ed.). The Theatre Handbook. New York: Crown Publishers, 1950- | Periodicals I Brown, John Mason. "Eugene O'Neill: 1888-1953*" Saturday j Review, 36:26-28, December 19* 1953* I Downer, Alan. "Yucca in the Painted Desert: Notes on the New York Theatre, 1957-1958," The Quarterly Journal of* Speech. 44:255-264, October, 1958• ! Frank, Stanley. "The Seven Dictators of Broadway," The Sat-I urday Evening Post, 229:28-29* April 13* 1957* ; lassner, John. "Broadway in Review," Educational Theatre Journal, 10:122-131* May, 1958. ;£rutch, Joseph Wood. "A Defence of the Professional Review- er*" The Theatre Annual, 1943* pp. 19-20. ________ . "O'Neill the Inevitable," Theatre Arts, 38:66-69,, February, 1954. ! ________ . "The Rediscovery of Eugene O'Neill," New York ! Times Magazine, October 21, 1956, pp. 32-33+- j _______. "Theatre," Theatre Arts, 40:24-25+* February, I 9 5 E . ; Nathan, George Jean, as quoted in "Dead Man Triumphant," Newsweek, 49:65-68, June 17* 1957- j 'Seven on the Aisle," Time, 63:44-46, March 1, 1954. I Unpublished Material i Cairns, Paul E. "William Archer As Critic of Modern English: Drama." Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1956. McNeely, Jerry. "The Criticism and Reviewing of Brooks At- ; kinson." Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of | Wisconsin, Madison, 1956. j Skriletz, Dorothy. "An Analysis of the Dramatic Criticism j of John Mason Brown as Published in The Saturday Review ; of Literature." Unpublished Master's thesis, Bowling j Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio, 1951- ! Thurman, Bedford. "Stark Young: A Bibliography of His Writ-' ! ing With a Selective Index to His Criticism of the Arts.'; . Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University, ; I Ithaca, New York, 195^* I i f t l f t / e r s i t y of Southern Cafffornfa Library J

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Creator Green, Gordon C (author)

Core Title An analytical study of the dramatic criticism of Joseph Wood Krutch as published in "The Nation", 1924-1952

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Communication

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag mass communications,OAI-PMH Harvest,theater history

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Butler, James H. (committee chair), [illegible] (committee member), Stahl, M. (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c17-687717

Unique identifier UC11342800

Identifier DP22307.pdf (filename),usctheses-c17-687717 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier DP22307.pdf

Dmrecord 687717

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Green, Gordon C.

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA