Tess in the Theatre; Two Dramatizations of Tess of the D’Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy, One by Lorimer Stoddard ed. by Marguerite Roberts (review)

SHORTER NOTICES 211 preface, and all this likewise explains that sensation of pleasurable pride in this Canadian production. NAOMI JACKSON Tess in the Theatre: Two Dramatizations of Tess of the D'Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy, One by Lorimer Stoddard. Edited, with an Introduction , by MARGUERITE ROBERTS. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 1950. Pp. cviii, 225. $4.00. Dr. Roberts bas performed an interesting, though not in the end rewarding, service in presenting three versions of Tess of the D'Urbervilles prepared for stage production. Two of these are by Hardy himself ; the first was made in 1894-5 and, though Mrs. Patrick Campbell and Forbes-Robertson bad planned to produce it, was never performed . The second, made in 1925, was presented in London with Gwen Ffrang~on Davies in the title role. The third version is by the American playwright Lorimer Stoddard who adapted it for Mrs. Minnie Maddern Fiske in 1897, after she had rejected Hardy's version but had obtained his permission to commission Stoddard. Both Hardy versions follow the novel's plot in straightforward fashion. Stoddard's version begins in medias res with Tess's meeting with Angel Clare at Dairyman Crick's. Her earlier history is recapitulated in the first act, a scheme that earned Stoddard contemporary critical praise for his suppression of the novel's "offensive" incidents. Stoddard injected melodrama by heightening the misfortunes of the Durbeyfield family, by making Joan articulately evil. He also injected comedy by expanding the rustics and by adding minor figures. Dr. Roberts in her introduction presents an exhaustively documented account of contemporary opinion of the three versions and she throws thereby some valuable light on what was demanded of the theatre at the times these (and other versions) were presented. But she does not present a personal and convincing evaluation of the success of the adaptations qua adaptations or of the suitability of the project in the first place. Though an absolutistic judgment on the plays undoubtedly lay outside the scope of her book, her project clearly answers these questions . In spite of Hardy's dramatic intensity, his emphasis on plot and action, these are scarcely the qualities that give the novel its stature. Some of these qualities are just those things that cannot be transferred to the stage-felicitous and telling descriptions of setting, the necessarily long sweep of its time scheme, its indefinable "atmosphere." 212 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY Further, Hardy's dialogue is scarcely the dialogue of the stage if, indeed, it is human speech at all. Nor does the substitution of stage tricks-as in the Stoddard version-make up for what is of necessity lost. Dr. Roberts has, therefore, presented what can be described as little more than curiosa of the stage and has demonstrated, at least negatively, the fascination of a book that led many actresses and writers into a vulgar pitfall. MELWYNBREEN America Faces Russia: Russian-American R elations from Early Times to Our Day. By THOMAS A. BAILEY. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press [Toronto: Thomas Allen]. 1950. Pp. xiv, 375. $4.60. One of the remarkable features of our times is the great ease with which one can become an "expert" on Russia. Usually the journalistic profession supplies the bulk of these experts and one knows what to expect of them. But when a reputahle scholar and trained historian, such as the author of the book under review who is Professor of American Diplomatic History at Stanford University, enters the field, one becomes more critical and less indulgent. Mr. Bailey writes that he is "less concerned with diplomacy than with American public opinion regarding it" (p. 358) . But it is surprising that while recognizing that "the information that we received about Russia was one-sided, warped, or completely false," he admits that he repeats "a good many lurid reports that were palpably untrue, without always going out of my way to emphasize their falsity." This is certainly a startling admission for a recognized historian, which he excuses with the statement: "In a democracy like ours, where public opinion is such a force, the truth is often less important than what the people think is the truth" (p. vi). This...