CHAPTER VI ROBERT SHERWOOD I Believe in Two Things, True
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CHAPTER VI ROBERT SHERWOOD I believe in two things, true Democracy and true Christianity. I hope to Qod that neither of them dies before I d o . Certainly nothing can kill then but brutal stupidity.*.. All I want to do vith my life is to go on attacking such betrsyers of the human race and expanding the simple doctrine In the Sermon on the Mount. Robert Sherwood It would be no easy task to find a dramatist of the thirties who differs so completely from Clifford Odets in background, outlook, committment and dramatic achievement as Robert Sherwood. Odets was filled at least at first, with a burning seal to preach a social reformation through his plays. Sherwood's message was articulated after much soul searching, almost with reluctance, because he could no longer keep silent about certain momentous Issues. Deeply introspective, an intellectual who brooded over the sombre state of the world, Sherwood tried to believe in man's essential wisdom and goodness but was always stopped short when he cams up against human actions which betrayed the lack of these qualities. He wss already a reputed playwright when Odets burst on the theatrical scene like a fiery meteor. Sherwood came from a long line of distinguished forbears that had included lawyers, scientists, sculptors and artists. 20* 209 One of his ancestors on his ■other1® side was ths famed patriot, Robert S u e t , who had boon executed by the English for his part in Ireland's freedom struggle.1 Born in 1896, Sherwood was raised In affluent surround ings, and acquired a reputation for playing pranke at sehool and at Harvard. When hs wss In his senior year at college, an event took place which not only turned the course of his own life , but affected world history. America decided to join the First VJorld War. Like myriads of young Americans, Robert could hardly wait to enlist, but to his dismay he was rejected by the United States Army and Navy because of his great height of six feet, seven inches. He was finally accepted by the Canadian Black Watch which prescribed kilts as a uniform. R. Baird Shuman records : "So tall was Sherwood that, when a photographer tried to photograph him in his kilts, he found It impossible to have both the head and the legs in focus simultaneously. Hence, the pictures which Sherwood's family had taken of him showed the granite-like Emmet features with great clarity, but showed his legs only aa long, fussy vertical structures." 1. S.N. Behrman, The Suspended Drawing Room (New York I Stein and Day, 1965J, p. l55.1 2. R. Baird Shuman, Robert Sherwood (New Haven i College and University Press, 1^61), p. 23. 2 1 0 Sherwood vat gassed at ¥i*y Ridge, hospitalised, and on bis return to the front was shot in tooth legs. Convales cing in England, he found an opportunity to converse vith other wounded men. He wrote later s In one hospital the occupant of the bed on one side of mine waa an Australian who had been horribly burned by liquid fire in the crater at Looa three years before. In the bed on the other *lde of uincyWas a South African Jew, a machine gun bullet had lodged in the base of his spine and he knew he would never walk again. It waa a great surprise to me to discover that these two men, and all other men, whom I got to know well, thought and acted and talked and reacted just about as I did. 2/ Sherwood's first anti-war play, The Road to Rome (1927), attempted to explain why, when Hannibal arrived in 216 B.C. on the outskirts of the Eternal City, he failed to annihilate it as planned. He is visited by the beautiful wife of Fabius Maximus, Dictator of Rome. Amytls of the bright spirit has nothing in common with her pompous bore of a husband. With Hannibal she pleads the cause of the innocents who are need lessly slaughtered in war. She predicts that some day he will "realise that there's a thing called the human equation. 4 It 's so much more beautiful than war." Unconvinced at first, 3. Robert Sherwood, Author's Preface to There Shall Sc No Night. The Ordeal of a Playwright t Robert . Sherwood and the Challenge of Var by ionn Mason Brown (Mow York : Harper and How, 1976), p. I30. 4 . The Road to Rome. by Robert Sherwood, Twenty-Five Best Plavs of the Modern American Theatre. Early Merles, ed. John flassner (fcew tork t £rown Publishers, 1949), p* 323. 211 Hannibal gradually Is Bored by the persuasive charm of Amytls. She spends the night with him, slippin^away next morning just as Fablus a r r i v e s to confer with/conqueror. He Is nerer to realise why Hannibal decided not to destroy Rome, Through Amytis, the dramatist pointed out the futility and needless destruction of war, but the spectator was more Impressed by the coalc and romantic situations than the play's serious message. Witty, entertaining, filled as it was with Intriguing situations, The Road to Roae was a pointer to the attitude of its youthful creator towards war. In later years, Sherwood referred to the fact that those who recalled The Road to Roae remembered It for soae of its last lines : Hannibal t Fablus. I wish happiness and prosperity to you, your wife, and your sons. Fablus s Thank you, but I hare no sons. Hannibal : You may h a r e .... (p .3321, Sherwood's first effort in the thirties was another light-hearted comedy which captured the roaantic mood of Vienna, of dancing to the strains of Strauss's waltzes and of secret assignations. Reunion in Vienna (1931) was one of those plays which transport the spectator Into a different world. It Is August of 1930 when the play opens, and the one hundredth birthday of the late Emperor Frans Joseph I is soon to take place. A grand celebration is being planned, as in the good old days, at the famed Hotel Lucher. Aristocratic 212 Austrian emigres converge on the hotel* One important ques tion they discuss is whether the Archduke Rudolf Maximillian ▼on Habsburg will attend. There is a slight awkwardness involved in his possible arrival, not so such because he is persona non grata In Vienna but because his former mistress, Elena, is now the wife of an eminent psychoanalyst, Dr. Anton Krug. Elena doea not wish to attend the reunion, but Krug, believing It will help her finally to sever the cord which still binds her to her old social group, advises her to go. In the meantime, Rudolf has breeaed in, slipping past the police who are keeping the Hotel Lueher under surveillance. Still every inch an Archduke, he orders all comforts, and no one would know that he makes a living as a taxi driver in Nice. When he finally confronts Elena, he makea it clear that he wants to resuae their old relationship, but Elena tells him that she loves her husband and will not yield to his charming persuasion. Some how ahe man agee to slip away and reach home, with Rudolf following her, fully determined to bring her back. The Archduke la astonished at the courtesy with which Elena's husband apeaks to him. With characteristic frankness, he aaks Krug to allow Elena to spend one night with him. This, he claims, will be in the nature of a therapy for him, and perhaps then he can forget her completely. The doctor 213 finds biasslf responding like any jealous husband but controls his natural impulses. They are interrupted by the news that the police have learned of Rudolf's presence In Vienna and in the Krug hone. Since Anton is on excellent terms with the authorities, he goes off to intervene on behalf of the Habsburg, wisely leaving him on his honour under the same roof as Elena. For the first time, some of Rudolf's superb self- confidence deserts him. Elena looking at him, notes his dejection, his tarnished medals and the torn coat he wears. She is aware of his sudden realization that he is no longer a prince but a taxi-driver, and the knowledge moves her as all his earlier egotism had failed to do. Going into her bedroom, she calls him in . Next morning finds Rudolf his old arrogant self and Elena radiantly happy. The spark is not dimmed even when Krug returns to escort Rudolf out of 5 Vienna with the permission of the authorities. In a comedy like Reunion in Vienna the appeal lies in the situation that is presented, full of intriguing moments. Here is an exiled prl&ee^bout to meet his former mistress, now the wife of someone else and at once the 5 . Reunion in Vienna bv Robert Sherwood was first orodueed by the TKeaire fluTId' at the Martin Beck Theatre, New York on November 16, 1931. It ran for 264 performances. 214 audience can expect a delightful evening's entertainment. Added to this, the husband is not an ordinary person but a famed psychoanalyst, once resident in the hone of Sigmund Freud himself. Long before Rudolf actually appears, we have a good idea of the kind of man he is. The ground work for his appearance has already been laid in the first part of the play vhen a student of Krug, Ilse, describes a strange experience she had s It was very strange, and terribly disturbing.