620
PARTISAN REVIEW
A minor phenomenon of the theater today is the milieu: kitchens
in Kansas, cold-water flats, Bronx apartments, the lower-middle-class
venue
depicted
in
naturalistic terms by "truthful" actors before an audi–
ence of expensively dressed, overfed burghers. How does that audience
stand it, even when it's good? Is it that they enjoy a nostalgic frisson at
looking back to their own origins? Or is there a desire to know about
things today? To observe the instructive narcissism of John Osborne
who tells them: this is the way we are, young, angry, unique! And the
burghers nod and belch softly and some doze: it is the theater of the
Editorial and the Survey. Even those who dislike Tennessee Williams
must give him credit for castrating a hero here, eating one there, and
with Elia Kazan racketing the actors a:bout the stage it is not
easy
to
sleep. I save any further defense of Williams for another occasion, since
my intention in these notes is entirely destructive.
And now where do we go from here? I confess I have no very
clear notion of what I would like to see the theater become. As a play–
wright I am a sport, whose only serious interest is the subversion of a
society which bores and appals me (no world elsewhere, alas;
this
is the
one to fix). Unlike my
confreres,
I have no delusions about my theatri–
cal talents which are, to say the least, haphazard (as I write these
dis–
honest words, I catch myself smiling tightly, lower teeth clamping hard
on upper bridge : I shall do such things . . .!) All
in
all, I don't see
much change for the good. Plays cost too much to put on. That means
investors will
be
wary of new things. I also suspect that despite the en–
viable example of the French, our comparable good writers are not apt
to be much of an improvement on the ones already
in
the theater. As
Flaubert observed, the theater is not an
art
but a secret, and unless the
riddle's answer comes easily I don't think it worth the time of the serious
writer. In England, the Royal Court theater has offered hospitality to
some of the better writers but the plays so far produced have been
dis–
appointing. In fact, it may very well be that the simple-mindedness
we
score in our playwrights is a necessary characteristic.
In any case, there
is
no use
in
worrying about Broadway. Expect
less rather than more intelligence on the stage, especially as costs
in–
crease. Revel in the graver efforts which will more and more resemble
J.R.-that portentous magnum of chloroform Mr. Elia Kazan so accur–
ately broke across our collective brows, launching us upon a glum sea
anodyne. In fact, the former Assistant Secretary of State may well have
got our age's number back in the 'thirties when he decided that a poem
should not mean but 'be. Our theater certainly does not mean; it is. Yet
to the extent it is, it mirrors us. Look in it and you will see quite plain
the unLoved face of Caliban.
