Evening star., 1935-10-13


been so forbearing. Against the very:
rage and tyranny" of the reviews the
plays partisans, like the Merchant Of
Venice, have opposed patience and a
quietness Of spirit. For instance, l.
minor culprit, have received only 1924
letters about IF This Be Treason"
1888 of them condemnatory and one
(an unsigned post card) containing a
pat on the back.
Perhaps Mr.. Stark Young critic for
"The New Republic" has been less
neglected than I. Mr.. Young, after de-
scribing the play as "tricked up" "vul-
gar" and mere well-intentioned trash
went On to remark that it is "fatuous."
Now "fatuous' Is fighting word in the
neighborhOOd ] come from, and when
one says it one must say it with smile.
But Mr.. Young seldom smiles, and ne
was never more in earnest than when
he called IF This Be Treason" fatuous.
Even the actors" he continued. but
for their egos, would laugh at it." As
TO it's admiring audience he makes the
cruel apology, In mediocre persons
life is mediocre, and SO may be served
by mediocre art"
The drama critic of Time" wrote
that ''pragmatic spectators of the per-
formance got strong whiff Of the
parsonage from its incorrigible un-
reality" and he credited the play with
about as much savior faire as Sun
day school cantata. However. he made
amends for these sneers by referring to
DR.. Holmes as "Manhattan's most pub
icized preacher" and as moving spirit
in such assorted sodalities as the Ma
tional Association for the Advance
ment of Colored People. the All World
Gandhi Fellowship and the War Re-
sisters League.
Mr.. Wolcott Gibbs, who expresses
his love for the drama in THE New
Yorker" wrote that with all respect
to the author and the Theater Guild
he'd be darned if he could see any
merit whatever in IF This Be Trea-
SON." 1t caused him to hate peace,
said he, with ''itS juicy and intermin-
able oratory" Whereas the critic of
Time estimated the President of the
United States tMr. Mckay Norris as
"the dramas best looking bald man"
Mr.. Gibbs in the New Yorker discover
ed him to be "a f1orid extrovert in
spats" whose manner suggested the
personnel director of fairly large de-
partment store. He wondered why the
japanese didn't drop him into vol
cano Through the New York
Times Mr.. Brooks Atkinson broadcast
his impression that DR.. Holmes work
from an artistic point of view is
trash" that it is "as imposing as a
Tammany funeral" and that yet it
speaks with damnable plausibility."
All Of which is, dare say, a good
trick if you can do it.
Much of the so-called critical objec-
ton to If This Be Treason" is de-
structive, aiming to raze Dr. Holmes
pious basilica without lifting ham,
mer to build it up again. The situa-
ton should inspire new drive for
constructive" criticism-criticism of
the Good Samaritan sort that admin
listers oil and tuppence rather than
venom and a kick from behind. Now
if the destructive critics for Time, the
New Yorker, the New Republic and
the New York Times should go to DR..
Holmes and the Theater Guild and
teach them how to write, produce and
act plays, then would the dramas
millennium be at hand A construc-
tive suggestion from Stark Young,
Mr.. Krutch. George Jean Nathan
might, though it might not, be listened
to by Eugene O'Neill or Miss Beatrice
Lille. If they were constructively to
tell Leslie Howard how to interpret
Hamlet, or to hint to Mr.. Lunt that he
is much too Minsky with Miss Fon-
tame in The Tanning of the Shrew,"
they might change their ways at once,