Evening star., 1946-03-05

way, Olle WHO IldQ checked upon II
At any rate his line about letting old
and seemed worthy of being in
corporated into the philosophy of all
who heard it.
1t turns out, however, that not
even the Theater Guild itself re-
membered the line In reviving He
Who Gets Slapped" it yielded to the
haunting memory of the exciting
success of the play back in 1922
The new production which came to
the National Theater last night for
a fortnight's engagement is a mere
ghost of its old self, quite gaudy
ghost, but quite lifeless. That it is
so must come as quite a special
shock to the guild, whose loving
memory of the drama inspired some
lofty casting and great deal of
pother about production.
This is new version of An
dreyev's drama of a sardonic intel
lectual who sought refuge in becom-
ing circus clown. 1t is the work of
Judith Guthrie. Unfortunately, the
adaptation has the quality of cos
metic undertaking, rerougeing
that does no more than a new make
up usually does to two decades
which came at the wrong time. The
effect is merely pretentious.
1t is hard to accept that there is
anything wrong with the theme of
He Who Gets Slapped" Written
at the pinnacle of Andreyev's Rus
sian wretchedness-the worst va
riety produced in the 10Th century.
it tells of the intellectual who has
rationalized existence into complete
diSillusionment. In that predica-
ment in these times he should be a
tragic and pitiable figure. He comes
off, however, merely as an irritat-
ingly confused character in a frame
much more promising than those of
probably many in the audience. In
the atomic age, although he is
played to the symbolic hilt by Den
mis- King, he must strike today'S
realists as something out of the good
old days.
That surely must be the very point
the guild overlooked in deciding to
give contemporary theatergoers a
look at He"
X y r X
He" by the way, no longer is
called that. The characters name
in the Guthrie version has become
Funny" The new name works out
quite well except for one line in the
dialogue, which may have been a
tumble, in which the desolate clown
is told, Don't be funny" That
seemed quite an unnecessary piece OF
advice, for very little of what goes
on in the cluttered, spangly circus
but melancholy.
TWenty-four are a lot of years,
but it comes back that one of the
high dramatic effects of Andreyev'S
original was the contrast between
the gayety of the setting of He
Who Gets Slapped" and the sadness
in the lives of those in it. In the
current production, the personal
merely gets lost in the symbol, and
the audience rarely has the feeling
that it is sharing anything with
those on the stage except the same
piece of real estate. That is not
enough to vitalize a new play, much
less revitaliZe an old one.
Neither the Guthries, she who
wrote and he who directed He Who
Gets Slapped nor any of their
performers manage to create the ef
feet that the audience is looking at
genuine human beings. Mr.. King is
Funny" decolated, lonely man
who has left the philosophic strato-
sphere to get slapped by fellow
clown for the amusement of provin-
cial mobs. He should arouse pity
and terror for this clearly is no
proper fate for the great and noble
mind. But these emotions are only
feetingly evoked, as if most of the
time he were acting too hard for you
to go along with him.
The same is true of Stella Adler's
of the lion tanner
who, in the welter of humans and
emotions in the circus dressing tent,
never stands out clearly as the de-
monically proud female who must
bend lions and godlike men equally
to her will. 1t should be sad that
she is so frustrated. On the con-
trary, her yearnings merely seem