Word: jamesian
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...sophisticated for miracles, he must find his way to grace through such hoary maxims as "Love one another." To give that wan truism the flush of a bold truth, Novelist Buechner's drawing-room tragedy would have to glow with forthright eloquence; it shimmers with frosty, neo-Jamesian elegance instead...
Playwright Tennessee Williams' first novel shows no trace of the warmth and grotesque humor that made The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire into first-class stage hits. It is written in the gutless, languid, pseudo-Jamesian manner which has become the trademark of such young novelists as Truman Capote and Frederick Buechner. In fact, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone would seem to make Tennessee Williams a member in good, if junior, standing of the new school of decadence...
Adapter Archibald has not tried to force the lock of Henry James's intentions; he nowhere cheats or even cheapens. Moreover, his play captures a certain Jamesian elegance as well as eeriness. With the help of Jo Mielziner's fine period set, Alex North's effective music and Peter Glenville's perceptive staging, The Innocents inhabits a different world from the usual, or even the unusual, thriller...