THEATER CHRONICLE
10)
Green Eyes shines in the cell like a steady burning jewel, quickening
in Lefranc, a small-time thief and liar, an impulse to rob him of his
glory, that is, to become his equal by committing a murder of his own.
He strangles Maurice, Green Eyes's lover, the third occupant of the cell.
But he is not "big" enough for his action, which remains a mere inert
byproduct of his petty will and thieving ambition. "What am I going
to do? Green Eyes, help me," he cries out, and Green Eyes replies, "1
help you? You disgust me. To rub out a boy who hadn't done a thing.
For nothing. For glory.... You disgust me." Green Eyes, a natural
be–
ing, had not wanted his own unnatural crime; it had chosen him, singled
him out as he walked down the street with a sprig of lilac in his teeth.
God or the devil had presented
him
with his "glory," a dubious gift,
that had caused him much suffering to accept. In the words of society,
he has paid for his crime. Lefranc's misunderstanding of all this is
what keeps him from belonging, from being accepted in the prison,
even by the guards. "You are right. I am really alone," says Lefranc
as the curtain falls.
Lefranc, though not an artist in crime, is an artist in words; he
has been writing Green Eyes's letters to his wife. "I am the postoffice,"
he says at one point, recalling Joyce's Shem the Postman. The word–
artist is the permanent outsider; even the humblest criminals, like
Maurice, will not accept him as one of them. For John Osborne in
Epitaph for George Dillon,
it is the shabby smallness of George Dillon
that marks him straight off for an artist. You would know he was some
sort of actor or writer (actually, he is both) because of his long rather
greasy hair, with the forelock hanging down, hungry, ferret face, sleepy
gait, selfishness, and mooching habits; added to this, he is a vegetarian,
speaks in an educated voice, and tells lies. No ordinary person could
be as awful as George, and he is half-persuaded of this himself. The
very word,
actor,
which is what he is, strikes him as derisory and shame–
ful. Toward ordinary people, among whom he is thrown by necessity!,
his attitude is one of mingled contempt and stark wonder. A brisk, sen–
timental, lower-middle-class woman, Mrs. Elliot, has brought him home
from the office to live with her family because she "believes" in him
and his future; to George, her belief is at once grotesque and wonder–
ful. She identifies him, quite illusorily, with her son, who was killed
in the war and whose room George moves into as a non-paying boarder.
"You stupid-looking bastard," exclaims George violently, as soon as he
is left alone with the cherished son's photo.
The saddest part about George-the source of confusion-is that
he is not altogether a faker. The play he has been writing improbably
