126
PARTISAN REVIE
triumph of these two productions may mean, as I have suggested,
0
the successful discovery of a new "period." Yet there is no doubt th
both plays help to appease a certain hunger in audiences, not mere
for the American past, but for an atmosphere of real hardship, r
revolt, and real genius.
Ketti Frings's adaptation of
Look Homeward, Angel
is honest an
skillful, telescoping the many events of the novel into an intelligible a
tion of a few weeks' duration. Eugene Gant's growing rebellion agai
his mother and her boarding-house empire forms the main line of d
velopment; while his father's histrionic quasi-rebellion and his broth
Ben's failure and death provide variations, farcical and pathetic, on
same theme. Wolfe's wilder humors are given occasional expression'
the ravings of the elder Gants, as well as in the boarding-house setf
designed by }o Mielziner: a fantastic creation of towering cupolas an
far-flung roofs and porches, which manages to look both solid an
ghostly. A great deal is also contributed to the present production b
the really formidable acting of Hugh Griffith and }o Van Fleet as
M
and Mrs. Gant, and by that of Anthony Perkins as Eugene Gant. 10
fact that Perkins is a very slim, elegant and spiritualized Eugene (
Wolfe) seems almost essential to this whole retrospective enterprise, add
ing a certain dimension to the character, giving it distance, making
i
slightly ghostly too. It is with a refined nostalgia, rather than
in
angerj
that the play version of Wolfe's novel looks back upon the
gr
American
geniezeit.
F. W.
Du
