Evening star., 1943-05-04

fascinated him-whatever they may
have done to you-the dramatist
has sought reason for the convic-
ton that the democracies cannot
lose the war. He has found it In
the character of the American SOL
dier and the people who sent him
off to war, the parents, the sweet
heart and all others. There is no
pretentiousness in these among the
people Mr.. Anderson has created in
his prolific, indignant years. They
are simble Americans, plain of
speech, inexorably right of motive.
They are free people, free to choose
in "The Eve of st. Mark" whether
they shall fight or whether they
shall flee from the awful realities
of war. They do not like fighting.
In fact, they loathe it. But they
must fight, not merely to the death
but through it and beyond it to
something worthy of their dream.
That is what Mr.. Anderson says
in ''The Eve of st. Mark" In the
saying he sounds remarkably like
the playwright that every one al
ways has hoped he would be again.
And, in sounding like that, he
merits attention beyond those who
merely say the words, for he pro-
vides a dramatic illustration in the
persons of Quizz West, New York
kid on Bataan, and those who be-
long within the circle Of Quizz's
relatives and friends.
This description of what Mr..
Anderson says may sound as it he
were being very grim about today,
playwright much too solemn in
a period that provides its inescapa-
BILE solemnities.
That is not true. THE Eve of
st. Mark" is no such play. It's mes
sage is confident but its statement
by no means lugubrious. Pervad-
ing 1t Is bouncing kind of humor,
that of the soldiers on Bataan who
can be comic in their deliriums
without arousing the sense that
something is amiss with the think
ing Of the playwright who created
them. And that, too, of the family
left behind to perform the dull
and routine tasks which give sol.,
sdiers courage to &c comic and hope
ful when there is no occasion to
feel either humor or hope in
situation that is as forlorn as that
on Bataan a year ago.
That is the truth, kind of awful
but wonderful truth, of "The Eve
of st. Mark" 1t has poignance and
tragedy about it, but it also has
the gustiness of American humor,
too. Mr.. Anderson is keen to make
both points, and in making them,
he never has written more enec-
lively or sounded more like the
dramatist he used to be when he
remembered most acutely that jour-
nalism was good literature, that
good reporting could be the best
kind Of writing, no matter what
brevity OF life seemed to be await
ing it.
1t is one Of the best things about
the characters in Anderson's play
that they are people without illu-
sions. They are not Americans in
a July Fourth oration. They hate
war but they fight it with no less
fervor for that fact. Above and
beyond the urgencies of duty his
soldiers go, not because they are
fanatical patriots, but because that
is the way the life of freedom is.
Maybe, they tell themselves, it will
be better, not for themselves, which
Is all they ever asked until the test,
but for those who are to be the
Americans Of tomorrow. That is
hard thing to say without sounding
hollow in the saying, but it is said
and not hollowly in The Eve of
st. Mark"
X
1t is a competent cast that has
been assembled to deliver this
among the best of Mr.. Anderson's
messages to audiences with dis
elimination enough to hear his
words. John Dali as Quizz West,