BOOKS
501
It can be reconciled with a relative optImIsm as to man. For, after
all, it amounts to saying that in an unjust or indifferent world man can
save himself, and save others, by practicing the most basic sincerity and
pronouncing the most appropriate word.
In other words, don't play jokes on Mother. This is what M eursault, of
The Stranger,
saw in the same story, but even this authority is not con–
clusive. Surely it is more exact to say that the slightest weakness, the
most innocent facetious impulse, will release an absurd and implacable
destiny. Still, relatively optimistic or not, the play is flesh fitted to the
bare bones of an equation.
Caligula
is something else again.
It
has more life and irony than
any of the other plays, and it comes closer than any of the others to a
balanced, qualified statement of a complex theme. Caligula compels us
to admire his comic talents; in one unconnected episode after another,
this tyrant and mass-murderer engages our interest and even our sym–
pathy with his ingenious exposures of patrician banality and the illogic
of daily life. In his defense, this engaging monster is permitted to point
out that he has caused far fewer casualties than a major war. A success-
THE LIVING THEATRE
REPERTORY
THE
CAVE
n
AT
~
MACHPELAH
~~
PAUL
GOODMAN
THE CONNECTION
A Jazz Play
by
Jack
Gelber
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