35. Therese
„
box 6/2
plexity those which confront the Indian And-British people to¬
day. Happily, on Both sides therefate Englishmen and Indians
of great insight and great disinterestedness who may yet play¬
their effective partl in showing how peoples of different colors
and cultures may become genuine partners in the fine but un¬
discovered art off international self-government.
EnwARD C. CAaTER
The Inquiry
Fred Eastman, Pioneer
MODERN RELIGIOUS DRAMA, collested by Fred Eastman. Holt.
324 pp. Price 83.00 postpaid of Jurren Graphic.
URED EASTMAN pioneered when he went to the Chicago
1 Theological Seminary to take the Department of Religious
Drama. The writer is of the opinion that up to that time
only one or two educational institutions had ever given credit
in their graduate departments for the study of drama as an
aid to and an expression of religion. Now that the idea is
proving its worth, many schools and seminaries are beginning
to offer courses of this genera. nature.
Eastman pioneered also in writing a new definition of re¬
ligious drama. It is, he says, not Biblical drama, nor mis¬
sionary drama, nor dramatized Bible stories, nor church prop¬
aganda thinly veiled. Rather, it is any form of drama which
has a religious effect upon players and audience. To those
who have grown disgusted with the weak and trashy plays and
pageants which have been built up out of stereotyped religious
forms in the immediate past, this new definition will come as
a breath of fresh air. It is symptomatic of the wider angles
in today’s religion that Professor Eastman should find high
religious values in drama which—like the Book of Esther—may
not even mention the name of God, but which deal power¬
fully with the hopes and fearsof His people.
And now Eastman pioneers again in assembling a group of
plays which are easy to act, easy to produce, definitely religious
in their effect, and withal true to the finest traditions of play¬
making. There is not a poor or weak play in the collection.
Neither###there a Biblical play. But there are The Neigh¬
bors, by Zona Gale, Dust of the Road, by Kenneth Sawyer
Goodman, The Color Line, by Irene Taylor MacNair, and
ten other plays and pageants, any one of which will leave an
audience tingliug with a definite experience of religion.
This bool is yorth more than it costs, merely as a collec¬
tion of e#####t plays and pageants. It is worth far more
than that as a text for stud), Its greatest value, however,
is this: It is a forecast of new values in religion, and of new
sensitiveness and vigor in the social conscience.
CHARLEs S. BkowN
A Caseworker Looks at Schnitzler
THERESA, by Artkur Schnitzler. Simon & Schuster. 460 pp. Price 82.50
postdaid of Survey Graphic.
□HERESA comes to us as the sixteen-year-old daughter of
1 a retired officer of the Austrian army and of a mother wio
writes weepy novels for the daily papers. She has a brother,
a student, whe feels superior to the family and very soon leaves
them to goto Vienna to continue his studies. When the father’s
grandiose notions became too obvious, he is taken to a hospital
for mental diseases. (We are led to suspect syphilis of the
nervous system.) After this, Theresa’s mother enters into a
questionable mode of life and Theresa experiences a disillusion¬
ment with her first lover. She decides to go to Vienna to
escape the unpleasant situation at home and the depressing at¬
mosphere of their village.
Her life thereafter is a series of pathetic attempts to estab¬
lish herself, to gain a feeling of security, and a striving to hold
the love of her illegitimate child whom she hides in an ill¬
chosen foster home.
When Theresa found herself pregnant, and realized there
was nothing she could do about it, she seemed to flounder about
so unnecessarily. She shudders at the thought of going to the#
(In answering advertisements 1
45
24
—0 C
27
„
box 6/2
plexity those which confront the Indian And-British people to¬
day. Happily, on Both sides therefate Englishmen and Indians
of great insight and great disinterestedness who may yet play¬
their effective partl in showing how peoples of different colors
and cultures may become genuine partners in the fine but un¬
discovered art off international self-government.
EnwARD C. CAaTER
The Inquiry
Fred Eastman, Pioneer
MODERN RELIGIOUS DRAMA, collested by Fred Eastman. Holt.
324 pp. Price 83.00 postpaid of Jurren Graphic.
URED EASTMAN pioneered when he went to the Chicago
1 Theological Seminary to take the Department of Religious
Drama. The writer is of the opinion that up to that time
only one or two educational institutions had ever given credit
in their graduate departments for the study of drama as an
aid to and an expression of religion. Now that the idea is
proving its worth, many schools and seminaries are beginning
to offer courses of this genera. nature.
Eastman pioneered also in writing a new definition of re¬
ligious drama. It is, he says, not Biblical drama, nor mis¬
sionary drama, nor dramatized Bible stories, nor church prop¬
aganda thinly veiled. Rather, it is any form of drama which
has a religious effect upon players and audience. To those
who have grown disgusted with the weak and trashy plays and
pageants which have been built up out of stereotyped religious
forms in the immediate past, this new definition will come as
a breath of fresh air. It is symptomatic of the wider angles
in today’s religion that Professor Eastman should find high
religious values in drama which—like the Book of Esther—may
not even mention the name of God, but which deal power¬
fully with the hopes and fearsof His people.
And now Eastman pioneers again in assembling a group of
plays which are easy to act, easy to produce, definitely religious
in their effect, and withal true to the finest traditions of play¬
making. There is not a poor or weak play in the collection.
Neither###there a Biblical play. But there are The Neigh¬
bors, by Zona Gale, Dust of the Road, by Kenneth Sawyer
Goodman, The Color Line, by Irene Taylor MacNair, and
ten other plays and pageants, any one of which will leave an
audience tingliug with a definite experience of religion.
This bool is yorth more than it costs, merely as a collec¬
tion of e#####t plays and pageants. It is worth far more
than that as a text for stud), Its greatest value, however,
is this: It is a forecast of new values in religion, and of new
sensitiveness and vigor in the social conscience.
CHARLEs S. BkowN
A Caseworker Looks at Schnitzler
THERESA, by Artkur Schnitzler. Simon & Schuster. 460 pp. Price 82.50
postdaid of Survey Graphic.
□HERESA comes to us as the sixteen-year-old daughter of
1 a retired officer of the Austrian army and of a mother wio
writes weepy novels for the daily papers. She has a brother,
a student, whe feels superior to the family and very soon leaves
them to goto Vienna to continue his studies. When the father’s
grandiose notions became too obvious, he is taken to a hospital
for mental diseases. (We are led to suspect syphilis of the
nervous system.) After this, Theresa’s mother enters into a
questionable mode of life and Theresa experiences a disillusion¬
ment with her first lover. She decides to go to Vienna to
escape the unpleasant situation at home and the depressing at¬
mosphere of their village.
Her life thereafter is a series of pathetic attempts to estab¬
lish herself, to gain a feeling of security, and a striving to hold
the love of her illegitimate child whom she hides in an ill¬
chosen foster home.
When Theresa found herself pregnant, and realized there
was nothing she could do about it, she seemed to flounder about
so unnecessarily. She shudders at the thought of going to the#
(In answering advertisements 1
45
24
—0 C
27