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box 31/5
25. ProfessorF1 2
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Date of Issue
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he has
Zernhardi
given West
the oppor¬
tunity of seeingee+of the most
admirable productions for which the
Embassy has been responsible.
Schnitzler’s drama of conflict between
the man who thinks only of his personal
integrity and does what he thinks right.
regardless of consequences, and the man
sho palters with the truth, if the end in
view justifies the paltering, is beautifully
worked out.
The play opens in the vestibule of a
ward in a Viennese hospital, where a
girl lies dying as the result of an illegal
operation. She is a patient of the famous
Bernhardi, Jew, scientist, and agnostic,
and as death draws near she is serenely
happy in the conviction that she has
been cured.
Someone, however, has sent for a
priest, and he comes, only to be pre¬
vented by the professor from entering
the ward. Nor will the scientist give
way for all the arguments of the priest.
Let her die happy in her delusion, says
the doctor. Let her die absolved of her
sins, says the priest. While they argue,
the doctor barring the way, a nurse slips
in and tells the girl the priest has come,
and she dies in an agony of fear,
unshriven.
From that scene where the two well¬
meaning men stand, both defeated, there
grows a maze of complications, in which
political, professional, and anti-Semitic
intrigues so twist the professor’s act that
he is at last publicly denounced as an
enemy of Christianity, and suffers two
months’ imprisonment.
Henever doubts, however. He seesthe
truth and speaks the truth, and in so
doing almost brings to himself all he
values in life.
The play, which is for those who can
enjoy good talk about things that matter,
talk that is set in situations dramatically
exeiting, is brilliantly acted by Abraham
Sofaer, as the professor: Ronald Adam,
as a time-serving politician; Bernard
Merefield, as the priest; Alan Wheatley,
as a young official; and a crowd of
talented people as the quarrelling
doctors.