From the Pit

When the curtain goes up on the Harvard Dramatic Club-Radcliffe Idler winter production Thursday evening, the audience will for the most part be unaware that the title of Henry James' one-act play is not, as billed, "Owen Wingrave." It was originally called "The Saloon," and that title has apparently been dropped because of the American interpretation of that word. In England, where James wrote the play, a saloon is a large drawing room; one drinks his intoxicating liquor at the pub.

"Owen Wingrave" is not James' only essay into the theatre, though his plays are far overshadowed by his novels and are almost never mentioned by his critics. Of the seven or eight plays that he wrote between 1889 and 1894, only two were ever seen upon the stage. The first of these was a dramatic version of his novel, "The American," which did fairly well on the straw-hat circuit but ran for only about two months in London during the fall of 1891. In its later provincial life it was played with a re-written last act, wherein, much against his will, James conceded to popular taste a happy ending for his hero and heroine. Characteristically, James, in a letter to Edmund Gosse, anticipated the opening night of "The American" as a vulgar ordeal.

The only other play that was produced, his unpopular, elaborate, most ambitious--and probably best--"Guy Domville," was never published. James accepted its failure as the end of his attempts at play-writing. Writing to his brother, William James, about a month after the failure of "Guy Domville," Henry James said, "The whole odiousness of the thing lies in connection between the drama and the theatre. The one is admirable in its interest and difficulty, the other loathe-some in its conditions. If the drama could only be theoretically or hypothetically acted, the fascination resident in its all but unconquerable . . form would be unimpaired, and one would be able to have the exquisite exercise without the horrid sacrifice."

The foregoing raises the question of whether James' plays should be categorized as closet-drama and relegated to the library. The HDC-Idler effort to stage "Owen Wingrave" may indicate an answer to that question.

The premiere of "Owen Wingrave" comes during a period of revival for Henry James, marked by new collections edited by Philip Rahv and Professor Matthiessen, and by the latter's analysis of four Jamesian novels in his book, "The Major Phase." In the light of Time magazine's recent, generally accepted comment ("James' stories are meant for slow reading. A little of them goes a long way. Condensed, mellow, with their felicitous phrases and generous perceptions woven unobtrusively into the slow, deliberate prose, they have a flavor that no other fiction possesses."), considerable interest has focussed on the ability of James and of the current producers to meet the drama's demands of immediate, direct response. wkt