box 31/5
25. Professor Bernhandi
—
EXTRACT FROM
STAR,
19. Bouverie Street, E.C.4.
1 6 JUNE 1936
THE STAR, TUESDAY, JUNE 10
SCHNITZLER IN A
COVENT G.
6
SERIOUS MOOD
MULLU. BALLET BE
PRILST
TINZ
DUUTCN

FPRUSLEM

SCHNITZLER PLAY

ATTHE EMBASSY



Bu A. E. WILSON
4
PROFESSOR BERNHARDI.“ By Arthur
Schnitzler. Adupted by Louts

Borell and Ronald Adam. Embassy
Theatre.
HERE is nothing of the
familiar light, genial and
flippant Schnitzler in“ Pro¬
fessor Bernhardi' which has a
theme of serious purpose
developed very much in the
manner that Shaw might have
employed.
Racial prejudice and the pursuit of
truth are strands in the theme. Pro¬
fesser Bernhardi, the Jewish chief of
Abraham Sojaer and Ronald Adam in the play.
a hospital,, offends the anti-Semites
and the clerical party by refusing to
allow a priest to administer the Last

Sacrament to a dving girl on the
grounds that her last hours should be
undisturbed.
The case is seized upon by the
professor’s mang enemies and rivals
and magnilied out of all proportion to
its importance.
The aflair is taken up in Parlia¬
ment: it becomes a case for criminal
prosecution, and the professor goes
to prison.
All along the professor might have
saved himself by sacrificing his prin¬
ciples, by consenting to the nomina¬
tion on his staff of an incompetent
doctor, but he refuses t0 compromise.
The.priest who is willing to exeuse
the professor in private will not do
so in public. That would be damaging
to his sacred cause, and in his view¬
the cause is greater than the man. Each
pursues the truth as he secs it.