248
PARTISAN REVIEW
5.
On the next rung is Franz Werfel. He knows more about life
than Mr. Yordan and probably wouldn't tell so many deliberate lies
al'out it; his specialty is not deceiving others but deceiving himself.
Werfel is therefore the first author so far mentioned who might con–
ceivably be considered highbrow. By some he is still considered an
arti st. He is one of the few living writers whom professors in German
Departments have heard of. A long time ago he wrote a play about
a munster, which, being unrealistic, invited highbrow attention and
settings by arty designers. Werfel was once known for such lyrics as
the one that opens: "My only wish is to be related to Thee, 0 Man!"
Today he is known for
Song of Bernadette, Embezzled Heaven,
and
a phiiosophical work which
The Nation
did not allow me to ignore
last fall.
The Wcrfel play of the times is
]acobowsky and the Coionel,
adapted to Broadway by Mr. Behrman, who is obviously cut out for
the job, and now published in a professorial translation which shows
that Werfel is not much worse than Behrman. The printed play adds
to the Broadway version, if my memory serves me, a symbolic inter–
polation of St. Francis and the Wandering Jew, two gentlemen whom
Mr. Werfel loves to pose as. Adapted or restored, acted or printed,
it is a dreadful play. Only the subtitle- Comedy of a Tragedy-is
apt, for one is embarrassed, throughout by all this fooling and footling
in the midst of death. I never would have thought-till I witnessed
it--that an audience could so enjoy the fall of France.
6.
On the next rung-if I may blaspheme against the box office–
come two writers whose most recent works have either failed on
Broadway or have not appeared there at all: William Saroyan and
J.
B. Priestley. For all the evident differences between them these
two playwrights are fundamentally of the same caliber. Equally
energetic, talented, missionary, they are faced by the same dilemmas,
the dilemmas of the middlebrow, the dilemmas of the writer who is
gifted but not supremely gifted, the man who, being a small artist,
knows he might be a large entertainer, the man whose seriousness
is
all too easily compromised by his knowledge that he will reach a
broader public if he is not
too
serious.
Saroyan tries to sell his stuff by direct self-advertisement and by
disclaiming high intentions.
((Get Away Old Man,''
he writes, "is an
