Word: alonso
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...good to see Mother lose her head once in a while, even when it's as unenthusiastically as she does in the Winter Issue over Juan M. Alonso's The Death of Don Juan. The play, except for a short piece by John Ratte, comprises the entire number, and seems to be a very honest and ambitious attempt. But Mother won't admit she likes the play, which has qualities that even the most prudent might admire; she observes pontifically, "It is probably the only play of the past few years written by an undergraduate that has received any serious...
...Alonso's play has lots of honorable things about it, specifically, its honesty. If the reader gets past an unfortunate dedication ("to Betsy the midget"), he is immediately aware that here is thoughtful and imaginative work. Alonso is dealing with several intriguing problems--Love, Success, Eternity, Law, Individuality, and Suicide, to name a few--and for much of the time avoids turning his lines into aphorisms. The plot line, concerning Don Juan (who had an angel for a father and a mortal for a mother) and his search for a woman he can love, is original and lively...
Technically, the play is disappointing. The major action, other than Don Juan's death, is the seduction of the girl. But Alonso does this off stage, leaving his readers panting to know just how this Don Juan is so clever with the ladies. The early scenes are loaded with lines which introduce the facts about Don Juan abruptly and in a back-handed way. His supernatural mother slips in, amidst great comforting of his unhappiness, "No man can harm you because you're the son of an angel, but you could end your sorrow yourself." There is no indication...
...major complaint with the handling of the material is in its language. Here are village peasants showing us universal problems. They must talk significantly, but they also must talk simply. Alonso seems to have used the vocabulary of an Eliot House cocktail party. "Legality is only superfluous," Fernando believes. Or "the going is uncontrollably downhill," or "eternity would be consciousness in a vacuum," or "perhaps love succeeded in vaccinating your dignity." These phrases become particularly sticky in love scenes between Gloria and Fernando, making them appear to be immature remembrances of a sophomore's love quarrels...
...laurels must go to Simon, who was in perfect voice, with ne'er a hint of a rough-edged tone. His diction, in four languages, was always impeccably clear. I was particularly impressed by his singing of the medieval Sainte Marie, Alonso de Mudarra's Triste estaba, and Oswald v. Wolkenstein's Der May. The last is one of the oldest descriptive pieces, wherein the calls of many birds are imitated at great speed, in the manner of a Gilbert & Sullivan patter song...