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16 ates his plays do play. From the one- and we are never to know in which to the play. The weaknesses are acters of the sea through "Strange of their two voices the truth is being O'Neill's old ones, the repetitions, the Interlude" at least, with ^'Mourning uttered. Is the elder brother pene­ long speeches, and—more than in Becomes Electra" as a masterly ex­ trating to the truth when he says that any other play I can recall—a passion ample, all the plays read badly but he led his brother into debauchery, for reciting poetry, Swinburne and they come to life on the stage. In under pretense of "showing him life" Baudelaire among others, and a des­ "Long Day's Journey Into Night" the because he wanted to ruin him, or is perate flatness of language which, sense of theatre is still strong. the truth his self-sacrificial love of again, may not be felt when the lines There are really eight principal his bi-other, his effort to protect him are spoken. The old fog rising from characters, not four, since each has against both his parents? In the night­ the sea is around the house and the his or her doppelgfinger, the men at­ mare of dissension which passions are younger son says at one point, "Stam­ tended by their drunken images, the the valid ones or are they all equal— mering is the native eloquence of us woman by her other self, the sane and are all the people equally fog people." It doesn't sum up the and healthy one. They flow and shift damned? tortured genius of O'Neill, but it will instantaneously from one to the other This haunting question gives power do for this play. iiiiiiiiii!iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiininuiiiiii!iiiiiNiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiuuii!ii iiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiini«[iiiiiii«i«oin»iii'««i»»ii»wiinn!ii;iiiuiijii]iw iiiimiiiiiiiiiNiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimuuiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiMiiiiiiii^ IIIIINIIUH luniiiu THE STOCKHOLM PERFORMANCE [BY CA­ program for its newly-built Little bercular son Edmund (Jamie's alter BLE]: For three acts Eugene O'Neill's Theatre in 1945. While O'Neill's plays ego) were equally effective. "Long Day's Journey Into Night" held have always been successful here, his The play was directed by Bengt a first-night audience that included popularity has increased in recent Ekerot, Sweden's brilliant young di­ Gustaf Adolf, Queen Louisa, members years, with "The Iceman Cometh" and rector, against simple, drab, realistic of the Swedish Academy, and other "Moon for the Misbegotten" getting settings that admirably reflected notables spellbound. The Royal Dra­ the best receptions. James Tyrone's miserliness. As the matic theatre's four-and-a-half-hour As for the performances, Inga Tid­ tragedy unfolded the lighting dimmed performance—interrupted by only one blad vibrated with highstrung nerv­ until by the third act the stage took fifteen-minute intermission—reached ousness, and with her convincing lapse on a marvelous mystical atmosphere its high point at the end of the third into a drugged dream dominated the against the eerie background of a act when the fate of Mary Tyrone production in the greatest perform­ droning foghorn. As family secrets is clearly revealed. The fourth and ance of a long and distinguished ca­ were revealed the play recalled Ibsen final act seemed somewhat anticlimac- reer. Lars Hanson, himself Sweden's and particularly "Ghosts." Stockholm­ tic, with some seventy minutes de­ finest contemporary actor, excelled ers found it the most human and voted to an interesting but drawn-out in the role of the paisimonious actor- utterly realistic tragedy imaginable discussion between James Tyrone and father James Tyrone; Ulf Palme, our and felt it could pertain to any family his brother Edmund. Here the play outstanding character actor, as his here or abroad. began to lose its grip on its audience. alcoholic son Jamie; and Jarl Kulle, Newspapers unanimously praised Only in the final moments did the our leading young actor, as the tu- production and author alike. The play return to the emo­ highly conservative Sven- tional intensity of the third- ska Daghladet called 11 act scene in which Inga "the most powerful realis­ Tidblad, Sweden's out­ tic drama of the century' standing actress, playing and the Stockholm Dagem Mary Tyrone, appears in Nyheter gave similarly en­ a dressing gown holding a thusiastic praise but added bridal dress in her out­ "It is doubtful if one wi! stretched arms as she sleep­ ever see 'Long Day's Jour­ walks in a drug-induced ney Into Night' on anj dream of the past. This other stage because it is poetic and stirring ending so demanding on botl truly fits Jim, Tyrone's theatre and audience." Un­ comment, "It was the entry fortunately, it will be seei of Ophelia." here for only one montl "Long Day's Journey In­ due to a previous commit­ to Night" is the tenth ment which necessitate; Eugene O'Neill play pro­ Miss Tidblad leaving thi duced by the Swedish cast.—FREDERIC FLEISHER. Royal Dramatic Theatre, and its reception here is EDITOR'S NOTE: Frederi greater than that accorded Fleisher, who covered ihi to any of the previous ones. opening in Stockholm Feh This may be partly ex­ ruary 10, is an American plained by Sweden's pride student at the Universit] in having been selected by of Stockholm, He has re the Nobel Prizewinning ceived the Swedish degre playwright to give this new of Fil. Kand. (B.A.) and i work its world premiere. at present doing graduat It will be remembered that work in the department c Sweden's Royal Dramatic literature at the Univer Theatre picked O'Neill's —Tic'iTii Bfrgftrom. sity. He presented an hon "All God's Chillun Got j^^j ^^i,^ or's thesis on Eugen and Inga Tidblad opening night—"Stockholmers found Wmgs as the inaugural it the moiS t human and utterly realistic tragedy imaginable." O'Neill. PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 17 FICTION The Gay, Good-Bad People "That Uncertain Feeling," by ues to try on looks: the supercilious, Kingsley Amis (Harcourt, Brace. 247 the intellectual, the leering, the right­ eously indignant, the little-boy-who's- pp. $3.50), a new novel by one of the not-really, even the Humphrey Bogart better younger British writers, deals look. The amazing thing is that Mr. with the life and loves of a likable Amis makes us believe John Lewis hypocrite in Aberdacy, Wales. is also a likable fellow who honestly realizes he's moral and immoral at the same time and sincerely tries not to By Harvey Curtis Webster to be immoral in the hope morality will become habitual. You smile (close HE YOUNGER British novelists— to laughter), as John himself does, —Peter Hennessy. T—Edward Grierson, Maurice Ed- but you also say, "mon semhlahle, Mavis Gallant—"perceptive observation." elman, Rayne Kruger, P. H. Newby, mon jrere." Kingsley Amis, others—are an inter­ Mr. Amis does nearly as well with esting and promising lot. They are, the other characters: Jean, the tol­ Brief Frustration most of the time, serious but not too erant but not too tolerant Mrs. Lewis; serious. They write urbanely, wittily Elizabeth Gruffydd Williams, John's —rarely superciliously or pretentious­ practical, vague, bored, generous mis­ "The Other Paris," by Mavis Gal­ ly. They don't try, like too many of tress; her husband, an unfoolish lant {Houghton Mifflin. 240 pp. their American counterparts, to solve cuckold; a dozen others who inhabit $3.50), brings together a dozen tales the problems of the universe, the the upper, lower, and middle ground psyche, or society once and for all. in Aberdacy, Wales. All of them are, about unheroic humans beset by bewil­ They are knowledgeable, aware of in Forster's phrase, good-and-bad derment and uncertainty. their own and man's limitations, cul­ people who sometimes are ridiculous, tivate their gardens well but without sometimes nearly noble, always trying By Rose Feld excessive neatness. Naturally they're to cope with a society and an age that not yet quite as good as Joyce Gary, gives them genuine reasons for EOGRAPHICALLY Mavis Gal­ Evelyn Waugh, Aldous Huxley, the anxiety. G lant, in her collection of twelve rest. But give them ten or twenty "That Uncertain Feeling" is, in short stories, covers a far larger terri­ years and they should be. other words, in the great tradition of tory than is suggested by the title Excepting P. H. Newby, the best of British comic writing, which has al­ "The Other Paris." As background them is Kingsley Amis. He's been ways been serio-comic. The scene she has France, Austria, Canada, Ger­ compared to Evelyn Waugh (and where John Lewis is surprised by many, Spain. Something happens in often he is as outrageously amusing), Elizabeth's husband is as amusing as Paris, in Salzburg, in Montreal or to Huxley (and his comedy is as the similar scene in "Tom Jones." Madrid but essentially she is con­ basically serious as that of "Antic When, in the concluding pages, John cerned with the exploration of the Hay"). But neither his first novel, Lewis runs away from an attractive states of mind and emotion of un­ "Lucky Jim," nor his latest, "That woman because he has that uncertain heroic human beinjts caught in a web Uncertain Feeling," shows the bitter­ feeling again the unobtrusive point is of bewilderment, ineffectuality, and ness of "Vile Bodies" or the ped­ as hilarious-moral as Tom Jones's compromise. Whether they are Amer­ antry that sometimes spoils "Point flight from Mrs. Waters. It is danger­ icans, Austrians, Spaniards, they carry Counter Point." Mr.

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