Word: dona
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Dictator Francisco Franco's insensitive police had, for the fourth time in three years, arrested Dona Luisa Maria Narvaez y Macias, Duchess of Valencia, the handsome, strong-willed first lady of Spain's monarchist movement. Before a military tribunal in Madrid last week, she faced charges of sending an anti-Franco letter to President Truman and distributing copies of it in Spain, using the mails for subversive propaganda and attempts to form a monarchist underground...
...Juan in Hell presents Shaw's view of what life is all about, through the eyes of his seemingly incongrous spokesman, Don Juan. Shaw's Hell is the fulfilment of the senses; Heaven is the fulfilment of the mind. Thus, Heaven, as Dona Ana's father discovers, is a great bore to all but the men of genius whom the Life Force urges to greater and greater heights of self-knowledge and desire to improve the lot of humanity. In Hell, however, the conventional and dutiful are quite at home. The ephemeral, which they have sought before death...
This paradox confronts the recent arrival, Dona Ana, who, as legend has it, retained her virtue at the expense of her father who was killed by Juan in a duel over the attempted seduction. Don Juan, a veteran in Hell, is seen to have profited by his earthly satiation with the life of the senses, and he is prepared to visit Heaven to achieve self-fulfilment. In analysis, it may be hard to see how this idea could ever be interesting in dramatic form. But the sparkling prose of the philosophic discussions is delightful for its wit, its audacity...
...also a challenge to the actors, who met it only middling well. Robert Fletcher, for the most part, had sufficient vitality for his part as Don Juan. The star, however, was not impressive. In her unwillingness, as Dona Ana, to accept the kind of Hell and Heaven she finds, Claire Luce succeeds only in being unpleasant. Jerry Kilty, as Dona Ana's father, fully appreciated the humor of his part, as Miss Luce did not. The ministerial quality of Donald Stevens, as the devil, made his performance interesting, but he had little variety...
...prosperous, sun-baked Las Cruces (pop. 13,500), an agricultural town 30 miles from the Texas border, Cricket had little trouble finding a variety of primrose paths. The town and surrounding Dona Ana County was dotted with bars and gambling joints. The law was administered by big, smiling Democratic Sheriff A. L. ("Happy") Apodaca, a former prizefighter with a great fondness for women...