box 31/4
25. ProfesserBernhandi
L AC
DURRANTS PREss CurTInos,
St. Andrew’s House, 32 to 34 Holborn Viaduct,
and 3. St. Andrew Street, Holborn Circus, B.C.1.
TalephonhI GITV 49981
—
Birmingham Post
36 New Street, Bigmingham.
944
Cuting from issue datedr e-r
PLAYS AND PLAYERS.
PROFESSCR BERNHARDI.
Before 1914, it was quite the fashion to
admire the comedies of Arthur Schnitzler. It
is true that the admiration was centred largely
upon Anatol, tlie gracious, elegant, cynical
cyele of plays about the love affairs of that
Viennese exquisite, and particularly upon the
mnost amusing of them.“ The Fareweli Supper,
where he is“ chucked'’ by a chorus-girl. The
cyele was published with a prologue by Hugo
von Hofmannstal, a lovely thing which
described them as “ satires in silk.?' After
*Anatol,' the comedy of light love, came
* Liebelei.'' its tragedy, in which, under the
title of Light o' Love, Mr. Ainley, the
young and radiant Henry Ainley of those
days, played Fritz. This was during Sir
Herbert Tree's venture at His Majesty’s,
called the Afternoon Theatre. It would be
idlo to pretend that any ordinary knowledge of
German was enptglisto Teild Liebelei! in
the original, for it was written in the colloquial
idiomatie Viennese dialect— not merely
Wiener but Weaner.“' However, Anatol?
was beautifully translated by Granville Barker,
and" Leibelei,“ under the title of“ Playi.g
with Love? was rendered quite delightfully oy
Morton Shand, in atranslation which appeared
only a very few weeks before the outbreak of
war, and I remember at that timie writing, with
the aid of sundry French translations, a
ca#nserte upon Arthur Schnitzler, which was
destined never to appear in print. And, of
his several plays it seemed to me that the
greatest, the most austere, was “ Professor
Bernhardi.“
There is very little of the Arthur Schnitzler
who wrote Anatol and“ Playing With
Love“ in" Professor Bernhardi,' which has
nothing whatever to commend it to idle play¬
goers or idle readers. It has now been trans¬
lated into English by Miss Hetty Landstone
(Faber and Gwyer, 68.). There was a previous
translation into American by Mrs. Emil Polhi,
who compressed it very crudely and other¬
wise altered it. I looked with a certain
amount of curiosity to discover what the
various authors, English and American, who
have discoursed upon Modern European
Drama“ have said abeut it, but so far as my
own library is a testimony their silence is
unanhnous. There is a solitary exception.
That cosmopolitan eritic of drama, musie and
art, the late James Huneker, of Now York,
had an account of it in his" Ivory. Apes, and —
Peacocks.“ in ihich be
25. ProfesserBernhandi
L AC
DURRANTS PREss CurTInos,
St. Andrew’s House, 32 to 34 Holborn Viaduct,
and 3. St. Andrew Street, Holborn Circus, B.C.1.
TalephonhI GITV 49981
—
Birmingham Post
36 New Street, Bigmingham.
944
Cuting from issue datedr e-r
PLAYS AND PLAYERS.
PROFESSCR BERNHARDI.
Before 1914, it was quite the fashion to
admire the comedies of Arthur Schnitzler. It
is true that the admiration was centred largely
upon Anatol, tlie gracious, elegant, cynical
cyele of plays about the love affairs of that
Viennese exquisite, and particularly upon the
mnost amusing of them.“ The Fareweli Supper,
where he is“ chucked'’ by a chorus-girl. The
cyele was published with a prologue by Hugo
von Hofmannstal, a lovely thing which
described them as “ satires in silk.?' After
*Anatol,' the comedy of light love, came
* Liebelei.'' its tragedy, in which, under the
title of Light o' Love, Mr. Ainley, the
young and radiant Henry Ainley of those
days, played Fritz. This was during Sir
Herbert Tree's venture at His Majesty’s,
called the Afternoon Theatre. It would be
idlo to pretend that any ordinary knowledge of
German was enptglisto Teild Liebelei! in
the original, for it was written in the colloquial
idiomatie Viennese dialect— not merely
Wiener but Weaner.“' However, Anatol?
was beautifully translated by Granville Barker,
and" Leibelei,“ under the title of“ Playi.g
with Love? was rendered quite delightfully oy
Morton Shand, in atranslation which appeared
only a very few weeks before the outbreak of
war, and I remember at that timie writing, with
the aid of sundry French translations, a
ca#nserte upon Arthur Schnitzler, which was
destined never to appear in print. And, of
his several plays it seemed to me that the
greatest, the most austere, was “ Professor
Bernhardi.“
There is very little of the Arthur Schnitzler
who wrote Anatol and“ Playing With
Love“ in" Professor Bernhardi,' which has
nothing whatever to commend it to idle play¬
goers or idle readers. It has now been trans¬
lated into English by Miss Hetty Landstone
(Faber and Gwyer, 68.). There was a previous
translation into American by Mrs. Emil Polhi,
who compressed it very crudely and other¬
wise altered it. I looked with a certain
amount of curiosity to discover what the
various authors, English and American, who
have discoursed upon Modern European
Drama“ have said abeut it, but so far as my
own library is a testimony their silence is
unanhnous. There is a solitary exception.
That cosmopolitan eritic of drama, musie and
art, the late James Huneker, of Now York,
had an account of it in his" Ivory. Apes, and —
Peacocks.“ in ihich be