600
DWIGHT MACDONALD
Guess there just hasn't been anybody around for years as plumb
mellow nor as straight-thinking either, as Mr. Wilder's stage–
manager. Nope. 'Cept mebbe for Eddie GueSt out Detroit way.
J.B.
resembles
OUT
Town
in its staging--'-no sets, symbolic
a,ction accompanied by commentary-but in little else. Its
language is high-falutin' where the other's is homespun, the
comment is delivered by no village sage but by God and Satan
in person, and its theme is nothing less than the relationship of
man to God. It is Profound and Soul-Searching, it deals with
the Agony of Modern Man, and it has been widely discussed,
often by the author, in the Midcult magazines.
5
Mr. MacLeish
mixes advanced staging with advanced poetry ("Death is ' a
bone that stammers.") with family stuff ("J,B., forking wish–
bone on Rebecca's plate: 'That's my
girl!''')
with tough stuff
("Four. kids in a car. They're dead. / Two were yours.") with
melodrama ("No! Don't touch me!") with a Message of the
grandest inconclusiveness. The question of God and
mail
is
chiVvied about for two hours, no decision, and is then dropped
in the laSt scene and a new toy is offered the audience, one they
are fainiliar with from other Broadway plays, namely Love:
Blow on the coal of the heart.
The candles
in
the churches are out.
5. The Midcult mind aspires toward Universality above all. A perfect
example was that "Family of Man" show of photographs Edward
Steichen put on several years ago at the Museum of Modern Art to
great applause. (The following summer it was the hit of the American
exhibition in Moscow, showing that a touch of Midcult makes the
whole world kin.) The title was typical-actually, it should have been
called Photorama. There were many excellent photographs, but they
were arranged under the most pretentious and idiotic
title~ach
section had a wall
captio~
from Whitman, Emerson, Carl Sandburg or
,some other s,age--and ,the whole effect was of
il
specially pompous issue
of
Life. ("Life
.on Life") The editorializing was insistent-the Midcult
audience always wants to be Told-and the photographs were mar–
shalled to demonstrate that although there are real Problems (death,
for instance) , it's a pretty good old world after all.
