Traveling Poem

Liveliest experiment in the U.S. theater last season--and the greatest triumph--was the brilliant, bare-stage reading of Shaw's Don Juan in Hell (TIME, Nov. 5, 1951). Flushed by such success, Producer Paul Gregory has launched a prompt successor: Stephen Vincent Benet's 1929 Pulitzer Prizewinning narrative poem, John Brown's Body. With Charles Laughton again directing and with another name cast--Judith Anderson, Raymond Massey, Tyrone Power--the production opened in California in November, plans to get to Broadway in February. Meanwhile, it is playing one-night stands throughout the U.S. to the tune of such critical cries from local critics as "thrilling," "stirring."

In popular appeal, Benet's eloquent chronicle of the Civil War has more to offer than Shaw's dazzling moral debate. It tells an epic, yet hallowed and human story; it treats of divided lovers as well as a divided land. Though not the work of such a great master of stage dialogue as Shaw, the poem pretty well lends itself to stage use, has touching moments, fluid movement, big climaxes. It has also, on the whole, been well condensed.

With its chorus of 20 and its criss-crossing of themes, John Brown is outwardly more of a production than Don Juan was. Sometimes narrating events, sometimes reciting poetry, sometimes impersonating character, the stars move back & forth to the mike in a variety of roles. Beyond the appeal of the story, there is the novelty of the method.

What is missing is artistic distinction. There is not Don Juan's fine welding of style and showmanship: all the concealed dramatic art that lay behind an ostensible mere reading. Thus far, John Brown has not forged a unified style at all. With his clear, Midwestern voice and manner, Tyrone Power seems the most American, the most unobtrusive, the most effective performer. In contrast, Judith Anderson's manner seems at times a little too elevated, Raymond Massey's a little too elocutionary. The chorus is well trained, but trained to do popular tricks. For every lusty "Jubili, Jubilo," there are a number of radio-like vocal gadgets and sound effects. Thus, over & over, the chorus--in a goblins'll-git-you voice--intones: "John Brown's body lies a mooolderin' in the grave." With the combined appeal of John Brown's stars and its story, there is no reason why Laughton shouldn't strike twice. But his fixed model should be the stage and Stephen Vincent Benet, not the air waves and Norman Corwin.

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