box 31/4
25. ProfesseBernhand
—
A REMARKABLE COMEDY.
PRorEsSoR BERSHARHLA Comedp
Five Acts.
Arthur Schnitzler.
Transiated by Hetty Landstonel.
London: Faber and Gwyer. Pp. 160
6s. net.
We are indebted to the publishers for
a play which may be condemned by
some of the coteries as realism; yet to
accept it as comedy might be heid to
fortify the standing of comedy. It
was produced in Berlin in 1912, and
has not been acted in England. Of a
score or möre of characters, mostly
doctors, only one is a woman, and her
part, as nurse, is a small one. The
play opens with talk between some of
the doctors at an institute in Vienna
about an appointment to the staff, and,
rapidly and dramatically, a strange
situation develops. The Director, who
is a Jew, forbids a priest to vex the
last hours of a girl who is dying in
illusion, "gay, happy, and—unre¬
pentant.?' It is not the opposition cf
medical science to religion, but of a
humane man in power to what he must
regard as fanaticism.
The scene is
beautiful, and though the patient does
not appear her Must I really die?“
reported by the nurse, is an exquisite
culmination of the emotion. This ürst
act is so extraordinarily fine that we
are left wondering whether the play is
going to be a masterpiece or whether
it will be impossible to live up to such
a beginning.
There is more than one side to the
case; there is, as the advertisement
says,“ matter for almost endless argu¬
ment.? The great scene is over, and
the succeeding four acts constitute a
tremendous wrangle. The simple case
becomes a political issue, the Diroctor
is made a scapegoat and suffers im¬
prisonment; the opposition to him has
its elements of sincere clericalism,
jealousy, timidity, discretion, mere
baseness. He has an admirable pun¬
gency of speech, and there is no soft
sentiment about him. The various dis¬
cussions are very interesting, though
the diction is sometimes rather stiff for
stage purposes. A scene between the
Director and the priest in the fourth
act makes an intricacv that might have
to be modified in performance. Indeed,
we are told that the play has been
*
produced in the majority of the
larger towns of Germany and Austria,
generally under severe censorship re¬
strictions.'
N
There is no need for
censorship beyond the author’s artistic
one, and without any sacrifice of essen¬
tials it should make a fine acting play.
Intellectually it is on a high level, and
it is never dull or difficult. The title of
comedy is admirably justified by the
Director’s final protest that he simply
did what he thought right in a par¬
ticular case without any thought of
anything beyond it.
A. N. M.
Tux Roan ro Romr. By Robert E.
Sherwood. London: Seribner’s
Sons. Pp. xiv. 178. 78. 6d. net.
This is a successful Broadway play!
about Hannibal. It is a play and a
portent, and the portent is that the
play was produced in New York with
Wianen
V 41. 4-0
25. ProfesseBernhand
—
A REMARKABLE COMEDY.
PRorEsSoR BERSHARHLA Comedp
Five Acts.
Arthur Schnitzler.
Transiated by Hetty Landstonel.
London: Faber and Gwyer. Pp. 160
6s. net.
We are indebted to the publishers for
a play which may be condemned by
some of the coteries as realism; yet to
accept it as comedy might be heid to
fortify the standing of comedy. It
was produced in Berlin in 1912, and
has not been acted in England. Of a
score or möre of characters, mostly
doctors, only one is a woman, and her
part, as nurse, is a small one. The
play opens with talk between some of
the doctors at an institute in Vienna
about an appointment to the staff, and,
rapidly and dramatically, a strange
situation develops. The Director, who
is a Jew, forbids a priest to vex the
last hours of a girl who is dying in
illusion, "gay, happy, and—unre¬
pentant.?' It is not the opposition cf
medical science to religion, but of a
humane man in power to what he must
regard as fanaticism.
The scene is
beautiful, and though the patient does
not appear her Must I really die?“
reported by the nurse, is an exquisite
culmination of the emotion. This ürst
act is so extraordinarily fine that we
are left wondering whether the play is
going to be a masterpiece or whether
it will be impossible to live up to such
a beginning.
There is more than one side to the
case; there is, as the advertisement
says,“ matter for almost endless argu¬
ment.? The great scene is over, and
the succeeding four acts constitute a
tremendous wrangle. The simple case
becomes a political issue, the Diroctor
is made a scapegoat and suffers im¬
prisonment; the opposition to him has
its elements of sincere clericalism,
jealousy, timidity, discretion, mere
baseness. He has an admirable pun¬
gency of speech, and there is no soft
sentiment about him. The various dis¬
cussions are very interesting, though
the diction is sometimes rather stiff for
stage purposes. A scene between the
Director and the priest in the fourth
act makes an intricacv that might have
to be modified in performance. Indeed,
we are told that the play has been
*
produced in the majority of the
larger towns of Germany and Austria,
generally under severe censorship re¬
strictions.'
N
There is no need for
censorship beyond the author’s artistic
one, and without any sacrifice of essen¬
tials it should make a fine acting play.
Intellectually it is on a high level, and
it is never dull or difficult. The title of
comedy is admirably justified by the
Director’s final protest that he simply
did what he thought right in a par¬
ticular case without any thought of
anything beyond it.
A. N. M.
Tux Roan ro Romr. By Robert E.
Sherwood. London: Seribner’s
Sons. Pp. xiv. 178. 78. 6d. net.
This is a successful Broadway play!
about Hannibal. It is a play and a
portent, and the portent is that the
play was produced in New York with
Wianen
V 41. 4-0