Word: poetics
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...realism. He employs a lawyer, Alfieri, in a double role: as a temperately counseling participant in the action; and as an outside narrator or commentator (like the Greek chorus), set off effectively at Wellesley by a solo flute line in the background. Miller's attempt to insert passages of poetic speech into Alfieri's role does not quite come off, though; and he would do well to dispense with the gimmick of framing the play between "Good evening. Welcome to the theater," and "This is the end of the story. Good night...
Like many of his other plays, this one is a comedy-fantasy with serious underpinning; it is a sort of religio-moral allegory in which people "practice charity the poetic way" by doing "welfare work for the soul" through illusion, collusion and delusion. The idea yields an intriguing story, but Casona tends to create character stereotypes instead of individuals (even introducing irrelevant personages for their gimmick potential in act one). Although Casona may at times hammer his points too strongly, he has sprinkled the play with witty epigrams, e.g.: "But, Grandmother, architects don't build old houses-time does...
...scimitars, King Saud of Saudi Arabia entertained 400 dinner guests at once, headed by little Imam Ahmed of Yemen, "who waggles his big, richly turbaned head like a teetotum in a sort of passion of politeness." While the guests drank orange pop, "a court bard, descended straight from the poetic line that sang before Agamemnon at Mycenae . . . recites a long poem in praise of the King and Imam into a deafening loudspeaker system." The King's interpreter, "last seen in Washington in a fairly sensational convertible," now "kneels on the floor by his master's chair, translating...
Chinese painting, chian said, has a long tradition, dating back to 3000 B.C., and it has been a painting of "taste." The Chinese painter, he added, has been concerned with seeking the "poetic truths of both man and nature," and this, he said, should be continued by the Chinese painter today...
Unnerved by the river people's fatalistic fortitude and inexplicable joys, the American takes to his bunk with a psychosomatic sort of fever. There, Su-ling, almond-eyed wife of the junk owner, feeds him broths plus the harsh poetic lore of the "Ten-Thousand Mile River." Once well, the engineer excitedly spills hints of his company's plan to harness the river, tame its power, eliminate the backbreaking tasks of the trackers. Su-ling is horrified at the American's impiety in even thinking of tampering with the sacred Great River, and begs him to breathe...