New-York tribune., 1919-01-26
By Ralph Block

Lord Dunsany is poet. and 1t is a
wrong thing to put other words and
Patterns into the design of q man
whose work it is to weave them.
But Lord Dunsany talks of the gods
and he means human beings; he speaks
offatc. and distinctly in the background
Of his mind he is figuring the fates
that lie imbedded in human character.
He is not always aware of his lnten-
ton: he is TOO much the poet to be
aware To be able to see clearly, he
seeing at all To be a poet is like
having dram To turn opened and
searching eyes upon the tenuous frag-
men. of reality that is involved in
dream is to dispel it-lose it utterly.
A philosopher tries to reduce life to
a system; a poet sees how much it
transccrds all systems, all patterns all
schemes and constructions. There are
not words enough in the world, nor
phrases enough, nor ways of speech to
seize and give articulation to all the
intricacios and interwoven ways that
the poet sees in living. To become
expressive and impart his clear vision
80 others, the poet must make use of
symbolism. and every possible way of
meaning one thing more clearly by
saying another
Philosophers talk of life in terms of
severe clarity. Dunsany in his plays
Of gods and men refuses explanation,
but under the clear music of his ,an-
cuaeo is a murmur of other meanings.
A treadlng of other feet sounds vaguely
beneath the rhythm of his sentences,
full Of implication and troubling in
tcntion
Maeterlnck hes set the fashion for
this kind of expression in the modern
world. but Maetcrinck only succeeded
at it in his plays for marionettes.
When he attempted TO cmbody the
powers that limit and decide human
action IN Il larger form he failed of
delicacy and defeated the carnestness
of his purpose by the very conscious
manner Of his projection. He tried so
hard to teach people to beware Of the
fates that after a while nobody would
believe him.
Dunsany turns the method about he
starts out by discrediting the fatcs.
But when they begin laughing off stage
or their great stone boots come mo-
notouously across the plains outside,
there is something inevitable about
them that Maeterlinck never achieves.
1t is as il they existed terribly and
finally against all protestation to the
contrary.
"The laughter Of the Gods which
Stuart Walker is presenting at the
Punch and Judy Theatre, is quite typ
ically this kind of Dunssay play. For
purposes Of dramatic terror it does
no. contain such great and moving
force as The Gods of the Mountain"
which was presented by the Portman-
teau Players several years ago and is
planned for early presentation again at
the Funch and Judy. "1he Gods Of the
Mountain expands more deeply and
wideiy into living; there is sweat in
Il. and dirt and misery and hunger
all these real terrors added to the
shadows that lurk through every mans
soni and dog his spirit. The Laugh
ter q the Gods" deals more lightly
with man. MS vanities, his fantasies,
fis dreams Of beauty. The king who
YnovoG his capital because the orchids
were more profuse and of deeper hue
elsewhere the lords and ladies' who
fired or the monotoay of mere beauty
and sighed for the rich confusion OF
fhelr old home these are but tn.
shadow of ourselves or Of the people
we might somewhere once have been
Rnt tho desperate bcggars who play
the paris Of gods in their desperation.
who gamble feverishly against tn.
fzfes within and without them. thesc
arc iruiy ourselves, who are all of u
In the dust trying by some strategy to
flcn some riches from the impassve
order OF things
There is difference in quality,
bnt the method iu both plays is
the same The existence of the gods