Word: lillian
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...There will be comedies by Lindsay & Grouse (the adapters of Life With Father), John Van Druten, Philip Barry (starring Katharine Hepburn), S. N. Behrman (starring Lunt & Fontanne). But Comedy-Writers Kaufman & Hart, Clare Boothe, Rachel Crothers, Noel Coward have nothing announced; nor have Eugene O'Neill, John Steinbeck, Lillian Hellman, Clifford Odets. Katharine Cornell plans to revive Chekhov's The Three Sisters and Paul Robeson may go to Broadway with Othello (TIME, Aug. 24). Only serious plays definitely set for fall-both deal with the war-are Maxwell Anderson's The Eve of St. Mark, Emlyn Williams...
Since the discontinuation of "There Shall Be No Night," Lillian Hellman's "Watch on the Rhine" is now the only successful war play that the American theatre has produced. It alone out of the many that have been written, has reduced the world conflict into terms that are both comprehensible and acceptable to the average American. Miss Hellman does not represent this struggle as one of economic and social organizations. There is no discussion of idealistic concepts of the world as it should be. Instead the author has presented the more fundamental battle between the two ways of life...
...Watch on the Rhine" is not only a great war play. It is also the finest example of the theatre art that has reached Boston this season. The play itself is beautifully written and is especially remarkable for the deft characterizations of the type that made Lillian Hellman famous in "The Little Foxes." Even more outstanding is the fine acting on the part of the entire cast. There is not a single role which could be called easy, and there is likewise no role that is not played excellently. The three refugee children are portrayed with careful emphasis...
...York drama critics, always eager to establish an issue and then take sides violently for or against it, have had a field-day in comparing the so-called "well-made" play with the so-called "mood" play. Champion of the former group is Lillian Hellman, whose melodramatic hits, including "Watch on the Rhine" which opened here last night, are taut, compact plays, carefully plotted and manipulated. Prime progenitor of the "mood" plays is, of course, William Saroyan...
...critics have worried this bone of contention, which of these schools of playwriting is the better, for several years. It is a stimulating discussion but unlikely to affect, the trend of play-writing. There is a place for both the vers libre and the mechanical playwrights. Lillian Hellman's "Watch on the Rhine" is as moving a play as any by Saroyan, whether or not we are conscious of her careful plot manipulation. Tchekov realized that form or the lack of form is not everything when he has Treplev, in the last act of "The Sea-Gull," say, "I come...