THE THEATRE
IT is an unusual experience to hear the name of God pronounced on the stage in New York. In moments of high velocity any character in any piece may call upon the sacred name to give emphasis to a vow or to a curse, but our playmakers and our producers all seem to feel that to speak of God seriously is a shade in bad taste. It remained for the Theatre Guild to bring forth The Power of Darkness and to allow Father Akim to speak of God fervently and passionately and in his fumbling utterance to restate the sublime platitude of a righteous life. The event has more than one circumstance of dignity, and not the least of them is that a very modern group of people has presented to an over-sophisticated audience a play which is profoundly and honestly religious.
I think that the whole bearing of The Power of Darkness can be felt by comparing it with such a piece as The Servant in the House. In that piece the man of God became a drainman; in this, the cleaner of cesspools becomes the man of God. The one is modern; but whatever the play may be, the theme which Tolstoi worked out in such a welter of corruption, is eternal. It is possible that both atheists and believers will be offended by the dogmatic assurance with which the will of God is mentioned by Father Akim; that is outside the limits of a play-review. Dramatically the event remains important because, although a generation of playgoers know the piece abroad, The Power of Darkness has not been done before in this country, and, being done with some success, is a hopeful thing.
Neither Tolstoi nor his present producers expounded fully the things which make The Power of Darkness so moving. I take it that nothing is so important as the struggle between God and the Devil for Nikita's soul. His father is the authentic representative of the Heavenly Power; virtually every one else is there as an instrument or advocate of the Devil. Obviously the whole conflict is "off stage," because it is in the play of unspoken thoughts and of emotions which hardly arrive at action. There is a moment, toward the end of the play, when Nikita is alone, hunted by his conscience, when the sense that the persons of the play are only insubstantial shadows becomes the dominant emotion of the play.
