Word: druten
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Some of the most literate practitioners of the English language have written about yoga. Several of them have even sweetened their message with some of their best sex-novel tricks. But despite the literary followers of Indian philosophy -Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood, John (Voice of the Turtle) Van Druten and Gerald Heard-yoga is still as mystifying as Sanskrit to the average American...
...Mermaids Singing (by John van Druten; produced by Alfred de Liagre Jr.) puts a pleasant little bauble in a very large box and fills in all the open spaces with tissue paper. The result, as always with an overwrapped gift, is disappointing...
Their rather thin love makes a rather thin love story. The girl (well-played by attractive Beatrice Pearson) is understandable and fairly real; but the man (well enough played by Walter Abel) is not convincing. Nor has Playwright van Druten sufficiently concentrated on The Mermaids Singing as a romantic duet. He has thrown in a mixed choir of nonfunctional minor characters who spoil the play's tone and slacken its tempo...
...sanctioning promiscuity among married people in his newest play, John van Druten universalizes the idea presented in his "The Voice of the Turtle," which sanctioned it among the unmarried. Now everybody can have affairs...
...parallel between the two plays goes deeper, however. In "The Voice of the Turtle" van Druten raised the moral level of his ideas by having his promiscuous young couple fall in love in the end. In "The Mermaids Singing" he takes the objectionable crackle out of his created situation by dramatizing an affair which doesn't come off. "The Voice of the Turtle" was carefully cast, brilliantly written, and subtly directed. So is "The Mermaids Singing," but, as a play, the former remains much the superior...