The Dark Journey: John Whiting as Dramatist by Eric Salmon, and: Peter Shaffer by Dennis A. Klein (review)

Book Reviews central placing and the rich selection of stage· photographs distributed throughout the book. remains curiously peripheral. Willett repeatedly implies that Piscator should be looked on as a playwright who composed with stage·machinery rather than words. And while that is certainly a valid estimate of him as a creative artist, the overall fOITIlat of this book does not take sufficient account of the basic difference between stage and page, however well aware of it Willett's individual comments show him to be. In effect. Piscator has been approached as jf he were indeed a conventional dramatist. in which case the sort of historical and biographical details provided here, and the brief two-page descriptions of productions. would provide indispensable material for interpreting the themes of his work - and as plays, this work would be independently available to the reader. But when the work is in the fonn of productions, they have a different kind ofstatus and do not contain themes in a comparable way. so that the same formula lacks a centre. Some other directors provide a substitute in the shape of a coherent body of theories. But, as Willett points out, Piscator is not "a Thinker in the Theatre." and in order to find the right critical perspective, it therefore becomes all the more crucial to develop an appropriate conceptual frame. CHRISTOPHER INNES. YORK UNIVERSITY ERIC SALMON. The Dark Journey: John Whiting as Dramatist. London: Barrie & Jenkins '979· Pp. 326. DENNIS A. KLEIN. Peter Shaffer. Boston: Twayne 1979. Pp. 163. These two recent studies pair neatly: John Whiting. the failure of the fifties. and Peter Shaffer, the success of the seventies. While both studies attempt to be definitive overviews, Salmon's is long and scholarly, and Klein 's short and elementary. Eric Salmon in The Dark Journey (the tide is a quotation from A Penny for a Song) claims that Whiting" is unanimously acknowledged. by all serious critics of twentiethcentury drama in English, to be a major figure and a major force" (p. 13) - though he does not in fact examine in what ways Whiting's work has been a "force." Salmon names Saint's Day as one of the best eight twentieth-century plays in English (and is daring enough to list his other seven: Playboy ofthe Westem World, Man and Superman, Major Barbara, Heartbreak House, Juno and the Paycock, The Iceman Cometh and Serjeant Musgrave's Dance [po149]). Whiting's stature, in fact, is still debatable. A Times Lilerary Supplement reviewer wrote: "Whiting deserved his ill luck. Much of his work is deliberately and wilfully obscure" ("Dramas of Introversion,.. 6 November 1969), and Harold Hobson concluded: "When we failed [0 see any real promise in Whiting's early work, it was not because we were blind, but because there was no promise there" ("Requiem for Whiting," Sunday Times. 3 November 1974). After digesting Salmon's weighty defence, I still find Whiting noteworthy only for an unusual and delightful comedy, A Penny for a Song (1951), and the ambitious, flawed Saint's Day (1951) and Marching Song (1954); despitethe publicityarising from the flashy film ofThe Devils, nothing else matters much. Whiting draws attention, I think, because the unresolved problems of plays like Saint's Day have a half-irritating fascination and provide much material for students to discuss, e.g., what connotations has the tille Saint's Day, what does Charles's painting mean. Book Reviews 505 should Stella's name suggest Jonathan Swift's Stella, what do trumpets and turtles symbolize, and so on. The Dark Journey begins with a rather scrappy and discursive biography. As Salmon speculates about whether Whiting's shift from play-writing to film-scripts in the midfifties was enforced or chosen (p. 199). it is unfortunate that he did not locate Whiting's own explanation in an inlerview (W.J. Weatherby. "As Personal as Poetry." The Guardian, 17 March 1960, p. 10). The bulk of this book is a study of Whiting's seven full-length plays, and of his various essays on drama. Salmon has thought long and deeply about these. and his analyses arc usually informing and perceptive. Other sections show two rather different kinds of writing. Salmon...