The Emperor Jones, Diff'rent, the Straw
by . New York: Boni and Liveright. 1921. 12mo, x+285 pp. $2.00.
THE real significance of this volume lies in its demonstration of the range and versatility of Mr. O’Neill’s power as a dramatist, and in a lesser degree in the fact that it contributes to American dramatic literature three plays of unique quality, one of which is now familiar to a large theatre-going audience.
To the reader of plays who belongs to the generation of theatre-goers and play-lovers now passing, this volume brings comfort and assurance. There is something here of the past — perhaps the only, certainly the best, inheritance from the drama of yesterday. Of how much of this Mr. O’Neill is conscious is uncertain, but there is something here lacking in much of the dramatic work of to-day. A sturdiness of structure, a sureness of touch and sense of values give these plays a feeling of hone and tissue hopelessly lacking in the flabby writing of many of the ' moderns.’ The reader having theatrical memories wonders if the stalwart figure, sonorous voice, and studied technique of the author’s father may not have cast a beneficent and restraining shadow over the work of his brilliant son.
The three plays presented offer contrasts. The subtly woven maze of human passion and weakness, the cross-currents of little lives sprung from generations of the past but getting nowhere in a world of petty inhibitions, so deftly presented in The Straw, are not of the same solar system as the Emperor Jones mumbling his incantations born of centuries of fear and superstitions in the tropic jungle. This play is now public property, and, through the interpretation of Mr. Gilpen, has made a lasting impression. The Straw is the first of Mr. O’Neill’s plays to appear in covers before its stage production; and for this reason the impression it makes upon the reader is probably a surer guide to the quality of the work than if its reading were colored and enlivened by the recollection of a stage reproduction.
Here we have Mr. O’Neill dealing with less elemental and less tumultuous material than in either The Emperor Jones or Diff’rent; but a study of this play, pitched in lower key and slower tempo than the others, reveals the quality of workmanship that characterizes all three. ’The Straw’ gives us a chance to see the care for structure — either instinctive or studied, it matters not — that makes these plays what they are, a quality easily overlooked in the tumult and clash of incident or emotion in the others; but it is there, else these plays could not carry as they do.
Yes, they are ‘modern’ plays, but modern only in the sense that they are stripped clean of the theatrical, and conceived and wrought in terms of drama.
Of Mr. O’Neill’s precision of characterization, skill in dialogue, and mastery of innuendo, it is idle to speak; the most careless reader can see and feel them. The real trouble with most modern dramatic writing is that it is not dramatic. Here we find a man who is writing plays — how great or how lasting cannot be known; but they are plays. A dramatic writer writing drama — what more could be desired?
MACGREGOR JENKINS.