The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-03-28
The World of
the Theatre
BY MELVIN P. LEVY

IN EVERYTHING that John Howard
1 Lawson has written-from the
time he brought one of the earliest
plays about workers to the Ameri-
can stage with his professional"
until the other evening when the
Group Theatre first presented
"Gentlewoman" at the Cort-he has
reiterated his left position and
made it very clear where his SYM
pathies and convictions lay. It is
partly for this reason that he is
one of the most Broadway critic
ill-treated of all playwrights. He is
in the peculiar position of being
recognized by them as one of the
country's outstanding playwrights
on the basis of plays which, when
they we're produced, have been
treated with scorn, contempt and
bitterness. But that is not the
whole story. If John Howard Law
son makes his convictions clear. he
too frequently does not succeed in
stating them with equal clarity. He
lays himself wide to the attacks
Of his enemies without at the
same time forcing, by clarity and
simplicity, the support of his ma
tural allies.
"Gentlewoman" is a case in point.
The play is important. 1t is al
most essential to have seen it to
understand the force of the left
ward movement among intellectual
revolutionary sympathizers, and the
problems, personal and external,
which that movement creates. 1t is
also important, howver, to add
that the play cannot be seen merely
as an intellectual exercise or an OBJ
ject of historical Importance. 1t has
power of its own. A large part of
it is stated clearly and unescapably.
Much Of the writing is distinguished
by the peculiarly fluid and contem-
porary poetic quality which is Law
sons own contribution to the litera-
ture of our times.
"NENTLEWONfAN'' is a play about
Ocapitalism in this period, decay
ing inwardly and attacked from
without. Its heroic figures are its
insults and Kruegers and the sui
eide of Ballantine, whose newly
made widow is the gentlewoman of
the play. Their positions and for
tunes, which seem as solid as their
splendid houses, are really being
balanced precariously while rivals
jog the trickster's elbow. Occasion
ally there is a fall which threatens
to carry with it the whole show.
The people have no future. Even
their present, when it is relaxed and
cultural" expresses itself as
yearning for the past. Ballantine.
the f1nancier, whose ancestors
sailed ships" spent his days and
nights making paper and silk
models of their craft; and his wife,
when contact with reality grew
pressing, yearned Historically to re-
turn to her old house, musty and
filled with the ghosts of the past.
These peoples bodies are sleek and
well-cared for. Everything else
about them is sick. They have
workers shot to defend their stocks
and bonds and then pay a psyche
analyst $50 to tell them not to wor-
ry about it.
This part of "Gentlewoman" is
real and emotionally and intellec-
tually convincing. 1t is even full of
hope, because we constantly hear
through it, the reverberations of an
advancing working class-Dniepro-
stroy, the Soviet Union, strikes on
the waterfront and among the Iowa
farmers.
The play is weakest when it por-
trays the advance directly. This is
done through the medium of Rudy
Flanagan. who falls in love with
Gwyn Ballantine; who is on the
fringe" of the Communist move
ment when we first see him and is
on his way to agitate and picket in
the Iowa farm strike when the final
curtain falls.
Inc weakness here is in large part
that of Lloyd Nolan, who plays the
part. He is the son of a miner,
brought up lin the school of muscle
and sweat" But nothing in his
manner or his approach to life in
dicates that. Nor does he succeed
in making us believe that he pos
sesses latent powers of leadership,