Broadway Theatre

Broadway prices have risen so high that it's lavish praise to say a show is worth the price of the ticket. Most of the present crop are not; several are. And there is one so good that even bringing a date along is not extravagant.

A good deal has been made of the fact that Shelagh Delaney was only nineteen when she wrote A Taste of Honey; but this play is so fundamentally the expression of a young person that the departing audience does not gawk, "Gosh, and she's only nineteen," but soberly acknowledges her age for the challenge that it is. For Miss Delaney is indicting the older generation for having presented her (and us) with such a twisted world.

There is a difference between bitterness and cynicism. Cynicism restricts itself to the rejection of certain values; its laughter is limited by the negative function of this rejection. The art of Shelagh Delaney, however, is bitter in that it confronts the present grimness of life while bearing the promise of a distant rejoicing. A Taste of Honey goes on to consider the world to which our generation must give birth.

The story concerns a whiskey-soaked, carousing mother and the young daughter, Jo, whom she has been dragging around from flophouse to flophouse. The mother decides to have another fling at marriage and leaves the girl (whom in a more profound sense she had deserted long ago). Left alone, Jo seeks love like a child, and finds it with a Negro sailor who soon must leave. Alone again, Jo is attended by a young homosexual who is almost capable of loving her in a limited sense, but again in a futile one. The mother returns to find her daughter in the ninth month, kicks the young friend out, and then flies off herself. Alone once more, Jo is stricken by labor pains. When she survives the first wave and manages a funny little smile, almost a smile of awakening, she is forging a beautiful and strong expression of her hope.

Miss Delaney's play is a philosophical accomplishment, for she wrings a bit of optimism out of sooty reality; but it is even more significant as theater. Aided by brilliant performances from Angela Lansbury as the mother, and Joan Plowright as Jo, the author manages to present the person she is condemning sympathetically (and thus, fairly). She sets forth the accusation against her with restraint and humor rather than fury, while the informal use of jazz reinforces the author's directive that "the time is today."

Miss Lansbury is the actress in closest contact with the audience. She jokes with them, confides in them, and shrugs to them. They understand her; they are akin to her. Meanwhile, Miss Plowright states Jo's accusations with impish humor; the audience laughs as they listen to her. Jo literally takes her mother to task for "ruining her life;" but her statement of sorrow, of being orphaned is made in such a childlike, inoffensive manner that its impact is not felt until the conclusion. Here the depths of Jo's anguish and the great meaning of her being alone and pregnant is driven home. Only at the end do lines humorously snapped off, such as "Your generation has some very peculiar ideas, that's all I can say," reverberate to their final, serious echo.

There are other plays worth seeing in New York. Brendan Behan's The Hostage is every bit as funny as Miss Delaney's play, and also takes a look at such human insanities as patriotism, the brink, and men who take themselves too seriously. High hopes are held for Brecht's Jungle of the Cities, which is opening now. Unfortunately, this is far from the poet's finest work, though New York seems ready for good Brecht. The Wall, by Millard Lampell, is a good reminder of the Nazi atrocities, but it is too reminiscent of Diary of Anne Frank in style and tone. Moreover, the hero is finally convinced of the necessity of resistance by a spirit of mystical heroism, rather than by the wall at his back. It seems as if Lampell wanted to have his historical cake and eat his emotional one, too.

If a visit to Broadway is possible over the vacation, A Taste of Honey should not be passed up. It may be some time before a more simple and eloquent statement on the world that their generation has left ours, is set forth.