O'Neill's Scenic Images by Timo Tiusanen (review)

1970 BooK REvIEws 431 professorship in theater history at the University of Stockholm since 1946, and a group devoted to drama and theater research has been active since 1965 at the University of Uppsala. Drama och teater is the initial publication of the Uppsala group. The committee in charge of the project consists of GOsta M. Bergman (the first professor of theater history at Stockholm), Gunnar Brandell, Lennart Breitholtz. Ingvar Holm. Orjan Lindberger, and Stig Torsslow, all of whom are distinguished scholars. In taking this first step in providing Swedish and other Scandinavian scholars an outlet for article-length results of their research, the group is fortunate in having the services of the highly gifted and dedicated young scholar Egil Tornqvist as editor. That the Scandinavians have a rich field for research and writing in Scandinavian drama and theater is obvious. Holberg, Ibsen, and Strindberg are, after all,. only the best known Scandinavian playwrights; there are many, many others; and the theaters of Sweden and the other Scandinavian countries have been, and are, of course, among the best in the world. If the first volume indicates the sort of articles future volumes will contain, Drama och teater will be a must for everyone who wants to be well informed about research in drama and theater both in Scandinavia and elsewhere. The scope is broad: Carl-Olof Gierow discusses dramatic necessity; Torben Krogh the library of the Royal Theater in Copenhagen; Svend Erichsen direction and styles of acting in Paris from Racine to Talma; Roderick Rudler Ibsen's achievement in the theater at Bergen; Carl Reinhold Smedmark the naturalistic production of Strindberg's play Hemsoborna; Sven Delblanc a motif in Strindberg's chamber plays; Tage Hind Evreinov and monodrama; Egil Tornqvist O'Neill's working habits; Thure Stenstrom Albert Camus' Caligula; and Gunilla Bergsten a study of Ingeborg Bachmann's radio play Der Gute Gott von Manhattan. In addition Georg Brandes' 1872 unpublished lecture on Augier and Dumas fils is included, together with Henning Fenger's comments on it. Libraries throughout the world should see to it that they have the series from the beginning. This first volume contains. stimulating, informative, and substantial articles. Dr. Tornqvist and his committee deserve congratulations. WALTER JOHNSON University of Washington O'NEILL'S SCENIC IMA GES, by Tifno Tiusanen. Princeton University Press, Princeton. N. J., 1968. 388 pp. $10.00. "If Finland had not kept paying back her debts to the United States between the two world wars, this book would probably not exist:' Dr. Tiusanen, who is assistant manager of the Finnish National Theatre and a university teacher. visited the United States in 1963-64 on a "Grant from America's Loan to Finland " scholarship. But although he calls his book "the result of that year's research ," it is also the result of his own earlier reading, and his directing of O'Neill's plays in Finland. Its excellence puts American criticism further in debt to the group of Scandinavian producers and scholars who have appreciated O'Neill earlier and more fully than his own compatriots. The first (but least important) virfpe of Dr. Tiusanen's book is its Finnish perspective . It includes photographs and reports on recent productions of O'Neill'. 432 MODERN DRAMA February plays in Scandinavia. Its extensive Bibliography includes many Finnish and Swedish sources not familiar to Americans. Dr. Tiusanen's criticism draws upon both these sources and his own more personal experiences. But of course his Finnish background also contributes to his book's limitations. He obviously lacks first-hand knowledge of O'Neill's American productions. And his style evidences some difficulty with the English language. His title-and his chief contribution to O'Neill criticism-emphasizes "O'Neill's Scenic Images." His actual experience as director has provided him with firsthand experience and insight into what (as he says) is O'Neill's most distinctive virtue: his infallible sense of theater. But his book goes far beyond technical criticism to relate O'Neill's theatrical images to his broader imaginative processes, and to the literary qualities of his plays as well. He describes the imaginative effect of these visual images not only in the actual theater...