462
PARTISAN REVIEW
staging of Opera brought the general level of performances above the
New York Met. The Ballet, which belonged to British Army Education,
was the same story, only more so, except for a very ingratiating prima
ballerina, Attilia Radice, who may appear in New York next year.
One step beyond the world of the Allies, who were cut off from
it by the barrier of language, the Theatre also had a busy, if not memor–
able, season. Here the corrupting force was not the presence of the troops,
but of the nouveaux riches, the black marketeers, who were attending
theatres for the first time, and also probably the inertia of the habits of
the theatre under Fascism, when it had tended toward pure "diverti–
mento." The result was a season of reviews, French boudoir comedy and
19th century French romantic comedy. Nevertheless, the Italian theatric–
al tradition (the oldest in modern Europe) for excellent acting perform–
ance did manage to assert itself, and in the biggest success of the season,
an Italian version of Jean Cocteau's
Parents Terrible,
one experienced
a kind of performance which could never see the footlights of Broadway.
When one comes to writing, the situation becomes at once more
articulate, and the forces at work explicit. One begins to see the diffi–
culty of bringing back into the international family a mentality (however
admirable, honest or struggling to be honest, and in principle anti-fas–
cist) that after living 25
y~ars
under Fascism has lost the sense of the
international audience, the sense of being in the main stream, without
which no literature with any claim to being really modern can be pro–
duced. The Italians who stayed at hori-Ie under the dictatorship are not
yet fully aware of the degree to which Fascism permeated areas of cul–
ture that seemed apolitical. It pleased Mussolini to imagine himself in
the role of a Renaissance pope as a patron of learning and the arts,
and under Fascism literary men were in many ways a pampered group;
there was a tremendous amount of publishing, of translation, of good
printing, but the atmosphere of free discussion, the breath of life to him,
was denied the writer: and his work, if he himself was not to compro–
mise completely, was driven into ever narrower and narrower channels.
Despite this great stretch of territory to be reconquered, it's en- ,
couraging to see that a lot of publishing is being done. Most of it is the
smaller kind, reviews and periodicals, for which a good many younger
people are writing. So far as I know, no not9-ble new individual talent
has as yet detached itself, but the assumption that such activity is a
sign of promise is not altogether unfounded on past experience, though,
here as elsewhere, the promise hangs upon the question whether Italy
will be able to realize its
de~ocratic
possibilities as a small nation. In
fact, the conflict and resentment-sometimes disguised, but just as often
quite aboveboard-between the returning exiles and those who survived
at home may in its own way contribute to some healthy stimulation.
lgnazio Silone is back, to meet with a very .mixed reaction, dictated in
large part by these unfortunate and extraliterary motives, as well as by
