Countess Bountiful

"But that's only a word!" exclaims one of Christopher Fry's characters early in the 'winter comedy' that opened at the Anta Theater Wednesday. 'still." Replies someone who is obviously friend of the author's "a word stays in the mind"and has its children, too."

At long last"and in spite of certain very real difficulties in the play at hand"it seems to me that Mr. Fry's words are ready to give up philandering, settle down and perhaps produce grandchildren. Until now the unexpected poet who gave us "The Lady's Not for Burning" and a number of even more fantastic conceits has had enormous fun with the language"teasing it, tormenting it, making it laugh in a manner to which it has been unaccustomed, and sometimes skyrocketing it right over the garden wall. It was often exhilarating, sometimes irrepressible to the point of irresponsibility.

In "The Dark is Light Enough" it is ready to come home and stay with people"even belong to them. As Katharine Cornell, playing an Austrian countess of the 1860's, chooses to risk her life and endanger her loved ones in order to perform an entirely quixotic act of mercy, she speaks now with a quiet self-confidence ("I am always perfectly guilty of what I do,") now with tartness ("People are always ready to died for what death will take away from them") now with humor ("Are you military by nature or misfortune""). And each of the lines belongs not to a fanciful flight of Mr. Fry's more errant invention, but to the woman who is thinking it.

Elsewhere in this melodramatic poem in praise of human generosity there are further evidences of the author's beginning tryst with reality, his beginning fondness for dimension as well as dexterity. Much of the second act is concerned with an elusive, tantalizing, yet thoroughly alive relationship between a good-for-nothing deserter and a woman"the Countess" daughter"who has loved him, lost him, and is now risking the destruction of her second marriage by giving him the time of day, and the kindness of her heart. As Marian Winters and Tyrone Power move clumsily, then impulsively toward one another, we are never certain what this lingering affection means, or where it is going to lead. But it exists. For the moment something very concrete, thoroughly clothed in flesh, is working out its peculiar destiny before us"and the moment means that Mr. Fry has begun to see his characters in terms of their secrets rather than their syntax.

Thus, toward the end of the evening, when one of the puzzled people whose lives have been turned topsy-turvy by meaningless was pauses to remark that he knows a certain truth "in the still of my mind," it is possible to believe that these figures do have still reservoirs, places of rest, behind their bright and eager phrase-making"and this discovery of depth represents, I think, a tremendous advance for Mr. Fry.

These heartening things apart, it is still necessary to say that some of "The Dark is Light Enough" is too elusive by far: if the characters grope with great honesty, they often do not get their fists on anything that is very final, or very firm. The play is almost always arresting in mid-act, and then dust in the fingers just at curtain-fall.

It is also hindered it its current production by a light-weight performance from Tyrone Power, in the enormously difficult role of a man who believes that "good has rejected him" and who thereupon turns himself into the sort of graceless and ungrateful scoundrel who taunts his own rescuers. The part is complex"Richard Gettner vacillates between yearning for love and whiplashing it our of existence"but Mr. Power has been able to do little more than read it line by line, letting the disparate values fall where they may.

As the lady who quietly wings her way home through a world of complexity, Miss Cornell is lovely to look upon, and a quiet joy to listen to. The measure of her grace and skill may be taken by the fact that her final scenes in which, dying, she enunciates the humane little thoughts which are man to make a tattered universe tolerable"are her best. John Williams is a bristling delight as a bearded and snappish member of the great lady's salon; Donald Harron is first-rate as a humorless man of more than necessary honor; Christopher Plummer brings great strength and intensity to his extremely understanding husband; and Paul Roebling, Eva Condon, Marian Winters, and Arnold Moss add color at every turn.

The production as a whole, then, is handsome but less than perfect. The play has its own occasional obscurities, nooks in which there is not really light enough. But Mr. Fry is slowly and patiently putting flesh on those dancing bones.

back to top

For Katharine Cornell's new play, "The Dark is Light Enough," Oliver Messel has designed three wonderful settings, all full of twists and doodads and curlicues, depicting an Austro-Hungarian country house in the middle of the last century. For the play itself, poet Christopher Fry has devised three not-so-wonderful acts, full of twists and doodads and curlicues, but containing little excitement. At one point in the drama, a character remarks, "the language is full of yes not and no yes." Amen.

Ever a lover of costume drama, Miss Cornell has seen to it that everything and everybody is richly caparisoned. Her leading man, Tyrone Power, looks like the Chocolate Soldier"and his role is not unlike that of Shaw's rascally warrior; but Shaw wrote it more clearly and with sharper wit. I am not at all clear in my mind concerning what Fry is driving at, but sometimes he sounds like warmed-over Oscar Wilde, as in "It would be easier to love you than like you."

A Lovely Countess

Anyhow, Miss Cornell, very regal and very lovely, is a countess who has the rococo home. The Hungarians have rebelled against the Austrians, and her house seems to be a meeting place"particularly when she has her Thursday at-homes"for both sides. So the stage is usually full of people, and most of the people stand around most of the time waiting for somebody else to stop talking. This takes time, for the drama is in unrhymed verse.

When Power is doing the talking, "The Dark is Light Enough" does become alive, for he is a handsome vigorous actor with one of the best and clearest voices on the stage today. But even what he says strikes me as being vague, so he didn"t offer me much guidance in groping my way through a plot of indescribable complexity at last evening's premier at the ANAT Theatre.

A Colorful Cast

There are other colorful performances"if not helpful"by John Williams, Arnold Moss, Marian Winters and Christopher Plummer. Helene Pons has done some fine costumes, particularly the gowns for the imperial Miss Cornell.

The dark may be light enough for Mr. Fry and all the actors and actresses at the ANTA Theatre, but I don"t think I"d be able to find my way through the drama with a Seeing Eye dog. This may be due to my own mental blindness, of course. I even flunked math in college, and my English profs never could get to read anything highfalutin.

back to top

Christopher Fry's "The Dark is Light Enough" is an exotic drama at the ANTA Theater.

It tells a strange love story, set in the Hungarian revolution against the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1848.

This love is neither romantic nor passionate, but is based on need and usefulness. The older woman is a true sophisticate. She is witty and, above all, merciful. She has a sense of proportion which lets her admits her mistakes with gay assurance.

The man is biter, shifting, vengeful and uncertain. Hi loves the woman with need, because she is a rock, for all her delicacy. She cares for him impersonally, as one more unit of humanity that deserves freedom.

Helps Hide Him

This older countess has had no good of the man, who was once briefly her son-in-law. Yet she hides him from the Army he deserted. She protects him, at the price of the liberty of her present son-in-law.

Later she does the same thing, when the tide of war has turned, to his pursuer. With her death, she forces the coward who needed her to make a courageous decision for the first time.

The script rides on the brink of obscurity most of the time. Fry abhors a simple statement of fact. He writes poetically, rich with metaphors, allusions, and a flowery tinkle of words.

His characters have a certain gallantry of breeding which makes them flippant on the surface, when they are actually most disturbed. His witticisms should zing past your ears like crystal needles from a blowgun, sounding their best after they have passed.

Not Up to Glitter

The present company rarely has the elegance and precise invention to give the Fry lines the glitter they need.

Katharine Cornell plays the Countess with a weary gentleness as she literally breathes personal struggle for the freedom of man.

Tyrone Power is the younger weak egotist who depends so on the Countess.

Of the rest of the cast no one is so successful as John Williams at capturing the caustic lilt of Mr. Fry's writing.

Christopher Plummer has vigor and graceful speech as the present son-in-law. As his wife, Marian Winters is sensitive and tender.

Arnold Moss is direct and ascetic as the invading Colonel.

"The Dark is Light Enough" suffered a great disadvantage in the delay caused by Mr. Power's illness, on the eve of its New York opening. This may understandably have drained out of the performance some of its yeastiness which can be recaptured.

back to top

There is nothing commonplace about Christopher Fry, and that is a great comfort. There is a fine capacity for eloquence in him, too, and that also deserves commendation. He likewise possesses a pretty wit, sharp and epigrammatic, when he feels like using it, and this, I think, merits not only approval but encouragement. All of these high virtues are present, in his "winter comedy" called "The Dark is Light Enough," which opened last night at the ANTA Theater, but, despite these qualities that I so admire, I still find myself unable to like his new play.

I can"t help feeling now about "The Dark is Light Enough" as I did when I saw it in London last summer, that it reveals virtues turned into defects, that it shows its author so bemused by the impressive sound of his won words that he has become pretentious, ponderous, even a bit pompous. The grace and frequent beauty of his imagery and the subtle implications of his brooding philosophical contemplation have somehow drained away all emotion and dramatic forcefulness. Only in the third act, I think, does the play come momentarily to theatrical life.

HUNGARY, 1848: For the background of his narrative, Mr. Fry has taken the Hungarian Revolution against Austria in 1848, conceivable on the theory that it is the revolt on which audiences of today can look with the greatest amount of equanimity. So far as plot outline goes, the play is concerned with the efforts of a tolerant and understanding countess to save from a rebel firing squad a worthless and ungrateful deserter, who had been briefly married to her daughter. If you know your Christopher Fry, thought, you"ll realize that he has other things on his mind.

What they are, I"m not sure I can set down in any manner that will satisfy either the author, himself, or any other playgoer or reader of the text. I can well believe that there might be a dozen interpretations of the work's basic meaning, each one valid to the person propounding it. I can only offer my own guess, frankly confessing that it is nothing else. I believe Mr. Fry is providing another parable of the competition between Good and Evil, or, at lest, of tolerance, compassion and understanding against selfishness, cynicism and callousness.

THE COUNTESS: Mr. Fry's countess is the foe of cruelty, hatred, destruction and all that would destroy decency and graciousness. If her chief antagonist is the man she saves from death, her opposition is by no means confined to him. Sympathizing with both the rebellious Hungarians and their Austrian foes, she is against both of them when they fall back on violence and intolerance. I guess she might even be called a neutralist or a third force. And it appears to be the author's faith that some of her goodness will in the end infect others. I merely wish he were more dramatic in saying so.

As the playwright's protagonist, Katharine Cornell offers one of her loveliest and most gracious performances. Tyrone Power, an excellent actor, is impressively forthright in the curiously unsatisfactory and equivocal role of the deserter. In addition, there are especially good portrayals by Arnold Moss as a Hungarian officer, Christopher Plummer as a young man of god will, and the unfailing John Williams as a friend of the family. Marian Winters can"t be blamed for keeping the daughter rather an obscure figure. Oliver Messel has contributed tow of his fine sets. But Mr. Fry's play is lost in its own words.

back to top

Katharine Cornell has found a good part in a heavy play, Christopher Fry's "The Dark is Light Enough," acted at the ANTA Theatre last evening.

At lest, it seems like a good part. For Miss Cornell plays it with the regality, kindness and nobility of her best art. With theatricality, too, let it us add. She is the essence of theatre in the grand manner. In the most lavish part she has had for years, she gives an admirable performance.

"The Dark is Light Enough" is set in an Austrian country house in the winter of 1848-49 during a futile uprising of the Hungarians against Austrian rule. The play is concerned with the impact this rebellion has on the inhabitants of the house. Foremost among them is the countess-and eminent lady of wit, independence, compassion and honesty. At the bottom of the heap is a highly intelligent scoundrel with no character at all.

Apart from several other well-drawn people, representing either amusing worldliness or earnest convictions, the play concentrates on the ordeal of the countess' conscience. Although she is above petty acromonies, although she overflows with forgiveness, she is grievously hurt by the callousness of the scoundrel's unprincipled behavior. She dies in the last scene.

As a poet, Mr. Fry is a gifted phrase-maker-very witty at times. "The Dark is Light Enough" is written in elaborate style, and the character of the countess acquires stature from the writing. But Mr. Fry, a mystic, leaves a good deal of his play in obscurity. The motivations of some of his characters are puzzling.

Even the them is a nebulous one. As he develops as a poetic dramatist, Mr. Fry becomes increasingly involved in thought processes and intricate expression. Like "Venus Observed," "The Dark is Light Enough" moves in the direction of private art. It is vexed with spiritual and dramatic secrets.

Believing in the literary distinction of the play, Guthrie McClintic has given it the careful and opulent production common to all the Cornell works. Oliver Messel has designed the country house with his customary splendor-curving staircase, rococo lamps elegant furniture. And the costumes for the ladies are great, flaring creations that look like theater; and the costumes for the men are colorful, also.

Tyrone Power, who is co-starred with Miss Cornell, gives a forthright, vigorous performance in a negative part. For Richard Gettner represents the evil that destroys even the noble ones, or perhaps the evil that evokes nobility from his betters. It is a graceless role, unredeemed by wit, brilliance or cleverness. It is greatly to Mr. Power's credit that he can give it such a solid performance.

Among those present is John Williams, playing with insourciance and humor-a tower of strength to the group performance. Marian Winters acts the countess" daughter with affecting submission. Arnold Moss" crispness and energy in the part of an anxious army officer sharpen the ethical conflicts of the drama.

Christopher Plummer as a courageous son-in-law with a sense of principle; Eva Condon as a motherly servant; Paul Roebling as a gently, apprehensive son; William Podmore as a sharp-witted doctor; Donald Harron as a hot-headed friend of the family give carefully detailed, professional performances.

What shines, however, is Miss Cornell's limpid, civilized acting. For "The Dark is Light Enough" is a literary exercise'somber in tone and labyrinthian in thought, despite its high-minded attitude toward life. In his early plays Mr. Fry wrote for the theatre. He is writing for posterity now, and not with much passion or enthusiasm.

back to top

In "The Dark is Light Enough," Katharine Cornell is currently impersonating a Hungarian countess who remains serene and generous throughout the ill-fated Revolution of 1848 against the Austrian Empire. She tries to see some god in everything and everybody, including a former son-in-law and an officer who has caused inconvenience to her household.

The son-in-law, even though played by Tyrone Power, is just abut as worthless a fellow as you're likely to find in a play this or any other season. Even author Christopher Fry doesn"t think very much of him.

ONE CHARACTER observes: "Nothing he does is worth a thought," while another comments: "What has he ever done that's good enough to forget"" Nevertheless, we had to take him for three acts, and shall try to forget him as soon as possible.

Miss Cornell and Roger L. Stevens have given the Fry opus a handsome production indeed. There are opulent settings by Oliver Messel, a solid cast and respectful direction by Guthrie McClintic. In fact, the staging is so respectful that an evening at the ANTA Theatre is a pretty static affair.

Miss Cornell has ample opportunities to display her talents, and makes the most of them. Power, courageously acting the scalawag after a severe illness, is saddled with one of the most taxing and unprofitable roles that has ever come his way. John Williams, a really fine actor, does all he can as a cynical, sharp-tongued retainer.

Arnold Moss and Marian Winters get all possible from a couple of emotional roles. And Christopher Plummer, a most engaging player, struggles with an unrewarding part.

IT IS NOT pleasant to record a negative notice this morning. For Miss Cornell has brought distinction and luster to our theatre, while Fry happens to be one of our favorite playwrights. He is one of the few contemporary dramatists with poetic power and insight. He uses words beautifully.

In this instance, however, he uses too many of them to too little effect. His philosophy and his plotting are muddled and baffling. True, there are flashes of light here and there, but the over-all picture is one of darkness.

We expected much from this play, and were disappointed. It is an excellent antidote for insomnia. As one first-nighter put it, on exiting: "At least it's restful!"

back to top

At some point toward the end of the first act of the "The Dark is Light Enough," which opened at the ANTA Theatre last night, I had a sudden, blinding delusion that I was in Madame Tussaud's waxworks.

There was Katharine Cornell, real as life; and Tyrone Power, and John Williams and several other actors I'd seen many times. They were carefully arranged in center stage, like a group photograph, and from some place was coming a sound track with a lot of words by Christopher Fry.

The words of Mr. Fry were good words, and they droned on relentlessly, building one in the other in a plea for pacifism, the brotherhood of man, and a series of minor matters closely associated with the characters. This is stylized and this is good, I said to myself, and pretty soon somebody will throw the switch and these figures will come to life and do something.

On and On ......

But unfortunately, this never happened. The characters continued to posture and declaim, the words ebbed and flowed around them, but to the bitter end they remained static and secure in their restful Victorian surroundings.

There will be many interpretations of what Christopher Fry was trying to say, but there should be solidarity of opinion on the fact that he takes an almost endless time doing it.

An Austrian Countess harbors a rebel officer in her house during the Hungarian Revolution of 1848-49. He had been married to her daughter, it develops, although the girl has since wed a Hungarian in the Austrian Army.

We are thus projected into something resembling an American Civil War melodrama, but with infinitely less action. In the fading stanza of the evening somebody says, "Wars only change anxieties," which is a fair condensation of several hundred preceding speeches. One leaves the premises re-dedicated to the fact that bloodshed is useless, and that playwrights, however talented, cannot always substitute speech for action,

Miss Cornell, as ever radiant, is a warm and comprehending figure around whom the play revolves; it is she who, like a butterfly, foes forward through the night..."without hesitation...and arrives in a state of perfect freshness...the dark is light enough."

Meaning, I guess, that she preservers in her dedication to tolerance. It is regrettable only that they didn't give us more exciting incidents of her flight.

Tyrone Power, certainly in our top cadre of young actors, delivers his lines with strength and assurance, projects brilliantly his characterization of the bewildered Austrian who has sought solace in a cause and repented. But he too finds himself caught in the same time-exposure, his neck fixed in a vice, as the dialogue rolls on.

The supporting cast is uniformly excellent: John Williams, Donald Harron, Arnold Moss, Marian Winters, Eva Condon, William Podmore, Christopher Plummer and Paul Roebling.

Oliver Messel provides us with a sumptuous Hungarian country house living room and stable to match. Guthrie McClintic has directed with his usual ease and understanding but, in this case, an uncommon reverence for the words of the author.

for the followers of Fry there are many scenes and passages of worth, but little would be lost if the same cast performed the show on the radio.

back to top

When Christopher Fry's "The Dark is Light Enough" opened eleven days ago, New York's most cultivated audience assembled at the ANTA Theatre.

For this is Katharine Cornell's play; and her following, not only here, but everywhere, is intelligent and appreciative. It is the fruit of her many years of responsibility towards the theatre. By now her audience has a sense of proprietorship in her career. Her individual plays are of less moment than the record of her constant faithfulness to standards.

Whatever else there is to be said about "The Dark is Light Enough," Mr. Fry has given her a becoming role. She plays a Hungarian countess who, by force of character, mediates among several ethical points of view during an uprising in 1848-49. It is costume role something that always suits her style and personality. It is also the leading role in a drama that is basically romantic and has the spaciousness and opulence of high theatre.

The countess represents goodness, in contrast with Gettner, played by Tyrone Power, who represents evil. The countess is a lady noted for her wisdom and inquiring mind. Terrible things happen to her when the rebellion surges into her mansion; her son is wounded in a senseless duel. As one point of view clashes with another, she instinctively responds according to principle, tolerating and forgiving those whom despitefully use her. Without being sanctimonious or humorless, she stands for the Christian ideal.

Portrait of a Lady

Ths is the sort of part that appeals to the best in Miss Cornell's acting. She is regal in style thought moods in manner, high-minded in character thought humane in her associations with all sorts of people. Costumed by Oliver Messel in decorative, flowing gowns, she moves with grace and authority. She speaks Mr. Fry's elaborate lines with rhythms that are spontaneous. She is a lady; she is playing the part of a lady, and this is her most characteristic role since "The Baretts of Wimpole Street."

Mr. Fry is high-minded too. In 1950 he burst into the theater with a verse vaudeville, entitled, "The Lady's Not for Burning." A sardonically witty antic, it restored the lost are of the use of words in the drama. Everyone was refreshed by the light-footed dance of Mr. Fry's whimsical language. There is considerable ironic by-play in the new play-a pleasant echo from "The Lady's Not for Burning." The countess- coterie of friends-worldly and sharp-converse in flashes of wit that leap brightly out of the somber poetry.

By nature, Mr. Fry is apparently a serious man, with religious scruples, a philosophical point of view and an artistic conviction that verse is the right medium for dramatic expression. His heart is really bent on exploring the problem of good and evil. In the midst of the wavering revolution, his characters analyze their responses to life in a constant preoccupation with meanings. Gettner is the catalyst. A coward, a cynic, a scoundrel with an agile mind, he wriggles in and out of the play, creating situation that test the ethics of the other people. Most of them hate him but the countess" daughter pities him. The countess mercifully accepts him for what he is. Despite his malice, she gives him the o

Verbal Quibbles

No one wishes to be lacking in appreciation of Mr. Fry's religious faith or his sincerity as a poet. The are rare enough in the theater. But it is impossible to overlook the fact that "The Dark is Light Enough" is a slow-moving drama. The verse is more concerned with a fanciful manner than with the dramatic vitality of the play. It is over-civilized. It is over-written. It abounds in verbal quibbles. It avoids the plain statement as if it were a point of honor with Mr. Fry never to say exactly what he means. The serious sequences sound as though they were written in the seclusion of the library, shut of from the life of men and women.

In the nineteenth century Browing and Tennyson wrote poetic plays that were eminently respectable but did not come to life in the theatre. Today we are inclined to regard them as cultivated posturing. As he broods over cosmic things, Mr. Fry is moving back in the direction of "closet drama." His play lacks passion and variety. It is not interested in the public.

Although the poetic drama is something that thoughtful people are always hopefully discussing, the bitter truth may be that verbal poetry is not suited to the modern theatre. T. S. Elliot has written some profound studies of the subject, wondering how the elevation of verse can be reconciled with the briskness, intimacy and pressure of modern speech. When he write a historical play for a church "Murder in the Cathedral," he created a masterpiece f thought and soaring poetry. But his experiments in verse for modern themes have resulted in a neat style that resembles prose more than poetry.

Long Perspectives

Perhaps all we really mean by "poetic drama" is a look into the privacy of human minds measured against the mind of the universe, or against the dream of a nobler world. It is a matter of perspective. In Willy Loman's anguish in "Death of a Salesman," in the lonely terror of Blanche du Bois in "A Streetcar Named Desire," there is more poetic substance than in "The Dark is Light Enough," although both those plays are written in prose.

As usual, Guthrie McClintic has given Mss Cornell's drama an imposing production. Mr. Messel's scenery is in the grand manner of stage design. As Gettner, Mr. Power has a difficult and thankless part. Gettner is the casual unacceptable visitor to civilized society, as he phrases it; he is enraged because he thinks good has rejected him, to use his exact words. Mr. Power plays him in excellent voice with a good deal of manly candor, but the part is probably much more mercurial.

In the final analysis, "The Dark is Light Enough" is Miss Cornell's drama. The part and her luminous performance fulfill the expectations that her audiences have always had for her and for her acting.