Philip Barry: A Dramatists Search

PHILIP BARRY: A DRAMATIST'S SEARCH AFTER SEEING A NUMBER OF Philip Barry's successes and failures on Broadway, drama critic Frank Nugent dubbed him a "lightning bug" -"now he lights up, now he doesn't." In terms of Broadway where Barry's plays achieved erratic success from 1923 through 1949, the metaphor was apt and clever. In terms of Barry's desires, the "lightning bug" was a "black comedy": his brilliant successes were slight tricks, while his revealed soul-searching failed on stage. Reared a Catholic, Barry had always accepted ideas which as a mature individual he felt compelled to test and discover for himself. As a dramatist, therefore, Barry was motivated throughout his career by a single idea -man's need for freedom-which he found basic in man's constant attempt to understand himself, to discover truth, to find something in which to believe. Quite simply, Barry wrote about people who were consciously or subconsciously trying to discover something. As the characters in his plays live and learn, they make certain discoveries which may be distinguished either as dramatic and technical, that is, necessary to the conclusion of the play, or philosophical. The more common discoveries are simply necessary to the plot and good Aristotelian dramaturgy . In Philadelphia Story~ for example, Tracy Lord learns something about herself and, as a consequence, expediently directs the denouement of the play. The same is true for Mary in Paris Bound~ John in the play by that title, and the major figures in Joyous Season. Yet the characters may also make a philosophical discovery. This kind of discovery is significant in Barry's personal search for something in which to believe but is satisfying, either in terms of his play characters or of Barry's search, only in his final play, The Second Threshold. It is this second type of discovery which constantly haunted Barry. In most of his plays, for example, the dominant characters have a driving interest which they describe as a concern for living or knowing life. Johnny Case in Holiday illustrates this very clearly: "I want to live every which way, among all kinds-and know them-and understand them-and love them-that's what I wantl" For Barry, wanting to live was the first step in man's search for meaning in life. Obviously, however, man must have the opportunity to find out about himself. And individual freedom was the means by which he might live and discover something, perhaps even the truth, although most Barry characters only suggest this end and simply want something which they cannot really define. In these plays the characters do one of two things: either they discover that they are frail human beings requiring personal freedom and, consequently, change to become 93 94 MODERN DRAMA May more tolerant of the world; or events in the plays force them to make decisions which they generally describe, but never specifically, as "seeking freedom" or "knowing life." The more specific Barry tried to be in explaining this "freedom," the more obtuse his plays became, sometimes reaching a point where they were essentially discussions of his own inner doubts and dissatisfactions. Although in his light comedies he could solve a dramatic situation by having a character make a discovery which seemed to set him psychologically and personally free, in his more thoughtful plays he had great difficulty explaining what freedom was and what it could allow man to discover. Even a cursory reading of a Barry play reveals this theme of individual freedom-the first step in man's search for meaning in life. The Youngest (1922), although a weak play with unreal characters, stilted language, and a very dated attitude, has a theme of independence . Foreshadowing Barry's next two plays, it warns that man must not try to control other people-an idea expressed in In a Garden (I926)-and demands, as Barry did in You and I (1923), that man must be allowed to find himself. In the climax of The Youngest Richard finally does become free and even asserts his new-found freedom to ask Mary to marry him. You and I seems to present a life in which...