Evening star., 1947-07-21

Conventional entertainment is
in mind. He is an experimenter,'
not merely in the word magic i'm
plicit in a verse play, but in his
choice of theme which, in Kingdom
of the Blind" is diabolical possess
sion.
AS innovators so often are, he is
more interested in what he appar-
emily is trying to do than in what
he does. Kingdom of the Blind"
presents the spectacle of strong.
courageous and undeniably gifted
young playwright wrestling with the
devil. He has every one on his side
even when he leaves them in con-
siderable doubt as to who won. In
the first fall, he puts on a good
enough show to hold his audiences
attention and who knows what the
result will be when the pair come
out for the second go?
That is the way it is with the best
of the experimental theater; the
results OF the experiment are too
indecisive. The audience which is
not willing to accept this result is
the one the conventional theater
thrives on.
It is no new truth that Kingdom
of the Blind" undertakes to reveal,
but its author is arrestingly vehe-
ment and reasonably coherent in
repeating that morality is an in
dividual responsibility. His faith is
that what has happened to the
world need not happen again II
humans chose good instead of capit-
ulating to evil. To keep his reitera-
ton of this point from being dull,
he has tossed realism so violently
out the window that the super
natural splashed In. The latter never
has been easily controllable ma
terial in a playwright's very human
hands. Fords are no exception.
Kingdom of the Blind" finds its
scene in q Midwestern farmhouse.
The dominant figure in The house
hold is the lovely daughter whose
loveliness is marred by violent at
tack of schizophrenia. At least that
is what the psychiatrist labels 1t.
His diagnosis is challenged by the
parish priest, futile sort, brave
enough to offer the suggestion that
the girl is possessed by a devil.
If only for dramatic purposes, the
playwright is on the side OF the
priest, which naturally is the privi-
lege of anyone eligible to exercise
free choice. 1t is not that he ad-
mires the priest, which he does not,
nor that he relishes cutting down
the pretenses of science, which again
he does not. Because his play re-
ouires it, he stacks the cards against
the mind doctor and in the frances
which aff1ict the girl, he finds the
action of his drama.
In these traumatic states, the girl
induces every member OF the har-
raised, haunted household to reveal
the shape of his most miSshaping sin.
The mother and father are the first.
The former is afraid of death, asso-
ciates it with birth, and hates her
husband for the act which produced
the lunatic daughter. He, In turn,
hates her for her fears and the
unnaturalness of their marriage.
The second victim of this exposure
is the newspaperman, too expedlently
present to cover her case for the
Sunday supplements. He betrayed
the only decent love of his ex-
perience and he is defeated for it.
These revelations are followed by
the ruthless exposure of the priests
sin, the grievous one of humility
so false it amounted to deforming
pride, an inability to believe in what
he preached.
The psychiatrist is rocking on his
heels long before these exposures
are completed, but it is in the sec
ond act that he gets the knockout
blow. 1t takes the form of revela-
ton that he had committed matri-
eide, took the life of his mother, a
woman who came as close to de-
serving it as humans ever do, but
who proved the evil core of her son
in the act of dying.
X X
Two acts are required for Satan