The Cradle Song

The Cradle Song as a play has certain disadvantages. It is so unpretentious as to be unsuited to any production style less intimate than very small theater-in-the-round. In addition, it has virtually no plot. Playwrights Gregorio and Maria Martinez Sierra have merely chronicled two days eighteen years apart. In the first act, an unwanted infant girl is left on the doorstep of a convent of Dominican nuns, and the sisters decide to raise the child. In the second, the girl, now eighteen years old, is leaving the convent to get married. In terms of standard theatrical material, that's all there is.

Yet for my money Cradle Song is still a perfect gem of a play. The Sierras have used very few words from the dramatic alphabet, but with them they have managed to say a great many things about human nature. Indeed, the irrepressibility of human nature--of personality, of emotions, of love--seems to be the central theme of the play. The young girls in the convent have renounced worldly things, yet within the limits of monastic walls and rules their youthfulness and vitality burst forth in many ways--in girlish giggling, in writing poems, in squabbling with the other nuns. Most important, their maternal instincts awake immediately upon the arrival of the baby. The play does not hide the unnatural and even pathetic aspects of the monastic life, but it treats the convent and its inhabitants with such tenderness and compassion that the Church itself would probably approve. Especially moving is the contrast presented in the second act, when the young Teresa says goodbye to the nuns who have raised her and introduces her finance to them. The nuns have long since renounced all interest in men and do not regret it, and yet they understand Teresa's feelings perfectly.

With all these delicate shades of meaning, and with all the latent pathos of young girls confined to a convent, Cradle Song can be a wonderfully touching piece of theater. Its off-Broadway performances last winter at New York's Circle-in-the-Square brought handkerchiefs to the eyes of virtually the whole audience, male as well as female. But since the play is intimate and fragile, its emotional effect depends heavily on the skill and subtlety with which it is acted and directed. In this respect the current production at Tufts is only a partial success.

The main trouble is that Director John R. Woodruff and his cast have failed to make their acting natural and spontaneous enough. Almost every role is tinged with didacticism; the actors seem obviously to be reciting lines from a play. This difficulty leads to a considerable loss of emotional content and also of humor--the play is, after all, billed as "a comedy." At times, as in the repartee between Teresa's fiance Antonio and the nuns, Woodruff's direction is simply too slow, so that the question-answer sequence proceeds too jerkily and much of its humor evaporates. The director has also missed an important element of the play by neglecting the time dimension; he has failed to effect any change in his characters in the second act to indicate that they are now eighteen years older. True, he does give the doctor a more feeble walk, but he should have made evident a subtle but important change in the character and outlook of all the "young" nuns--a quieting of zest and a resignation to their way of life.

Apropos of the time gap between acts, the Tufts people have been ill-advised in dropping the "poet's monologue" that is supposed to follow the intermission. This speech was used to great advantage by the Circle-in-the-Square. It not only helps to bridge the eighteen years, but focuses on what is going on in the minds and hearts of the nuns, and happens also to be beautifully written. It was a pity to see it left out.

Although the Tufts cast was young and relatively inexperienced, several of the actresses gave admirable performances. Judith LaFrance, as the Prioress of the Convent, was an impressive combination of patience, understanding, and mild authority. Margaret Smith as the crotchety but good-hearted Mistress of Novices rendered the part excellently--quite as well, I thought, as it was done in New York. And Carol Ganem, as "Sister Crucifixion," captured that character's holier-than-thou attitude very well. In the second act, however, she failed to demonstrate the latent love and sympathy that should surge up when she says farewell to Teresa.

The other roles were less successful. Jacquelyn Zollo was disappointing as Teresa. She lacked the spontaneous, gay, zestful spirit that the young girl should bring into the convent to contrast with the cool resignation of the nuns. In her interpretation of the role, lines and actions that should have seemed perfectly natural appeared as blatant overacting. No one, for example, could envision her climbing a tree, as Teresa is supposed to have done. Miss Zollo's uninteresting performance unfortunately made the second act much less successful than the first--made it, in fact, quite dull in spots.

As Sister Joanna of the Cross, Julie Curtis displays a convincing maternal instinct in the first act, but later became insipid in her farewell scene with Teresa. Joyce White as Sister Marcella was miscast; she lacked the youth and radiance that this nun, who secretly keeps a mirror to catch sunbeams with, should have. In the male roles, Donald McAllister as the Doctor was stiff, formal, and didactic where he should have been casual, worldly, and sarcastic. As Antonio, Robert J. Morris was earnest enough, but substituted too much savoir faire and pompousness for what should have been a certain degree of awkwardness before the nuns.

As a last quibble, I must observe that John Carrett Underhill's translation of Cradle Song has contaminated it with what can only be called some pretty lousy English. So delicate and tasteful a play as this should not contain such lines as "I feel like I could fly" or--as Teresa exclaims when she looks to see if it is Antonio who has rung the bell--"Yes, it's him!"