'All God's Chillun' at Brandeis

The Brandeis Forum Theater has presented four plays this summer dealing with "social problems." Two earlier plays, All The King's Men and Death Of a Salesman, used specific incidents of political corruption and man's estrangement from society to illuminate and comment on universal moral dilemmas. Eugene O'Neill's All God's Chillun Got Wings, which opened at Brandeis Tuesday, is not as successful as its predecessors for several reasons. But a major reason is extraneous to both the play itself and the present production of it.

All God's Chillun Got Wings is an autobiographical play which bears a striking resemblance to O'Neill's explicit personal story, Long Day's Journey Into-Night. It is the story of the marriage of Ella, a white girl of bourgeois background and Jim, a Negro; but as O'Neill himself wrote: "The Negro question...it must be remembered, is not an issue in the play." All God's Chillun is about two people consumed by love for each other who at the same time hate each other for their inherent differences. The theme is basically the "love-hatred" relationship described by Strindberg, who greatly influenced O'Neill at the time he was writing the play. The characters are O'Neill's parents: a genteel, sheltered girl and a worldly, yet uncouth Irish actor.

Despite O'Neill's intentions, one cannot escape from the "real world," even in the theatre: the most pressing political and social issue of the day is precisely the "Negro question" O'Neill said his play was not about.

Thus one is unavoidably engaged by the specifically "Negro" aspects of the story: Jim's sister's speeches about "fighting for our race;" Jim's inner torment over being the only Negro in his law school class; Ella's shame at having married a Negro. O'Neill's basic theme, the passionately destructive relationship between Ella and Jim, cannot help but be obscured by the incidental racial questions.

In addition, some technical weaknesses mar the production. The stage in the Ullman Amphitheater is huge, and its full breadth is utilized in the opening scene on the streets of New York. Even though the important action takes place on center stage, it is hazy and unfocussed in the the midst of the expansive platform. Further, director Thomas Hill has slowed down several sequences, seeking a tension that never quite builds.

For instance, after Ella and Jim's wedding the two families, white and black, line up on either side of the church steps. The tableau is striking, but the terrible anxiety of the moment is lost for two reasons: a vapid accordion intrudes, and Anne Gerety as Ella substitutes a sort of open-mouthed gawk for a dramatic gesture.

Perhaps Hill will speed the production up in spots, or find some device to communicate the tension now missing. But I doubt if he can do too much with Miss Gerety, who gives a distressingly uneven performance. She is powerful while seized with madness in the final scene, when she is alone on the stage, but unconvincing both as a brash schoolgirl and as a discarded girlfriend. Franklin Johnson's Jim is adequate, but not commanding enough to save Miss Gerety's poorer scenes. He hardly ever rises to the level of high passion O'Neill demands.

Several minor characters give excellent performances. Robert Blackburn as Mickey, a prize fighter who loved and left Ella, is marvelously cocky, and provides most of the few light moments of the evening. Jim Spruill, as a boyhood friend of Jim, is successful in conveying the differences between the races--the joviality of the Negroes, the awkardness of the whites--O'Neill seeks to establish in the first two scenes. Bradley Marable as Jim's mother is also excellent, delivering the line "Dey ain't many strong. Dey ain't many happy neider" with moving compassion.

Despite all the drawbacks, both the avoidable and the unavoidable, I would still suggest you see All Gods Chillun, which is the final production at Brandeis this summer. If the production suffers because one finds it difficult to transcend narrow concerns, and see broader moral implications, it also provides a valuable commentary on that narrow concern, the "Negro problem," as an example of race prejudice in all forms. Although this summer has been dominated by the struggle of the Negro to gain justice and freedom, the issue usually seems to be a "social" or "political," and therefore impersonal, problem. This play, written 40 years ago, makes the problem of race prejudice a real and living one for two people, and therefore more meaningful for us.