Straight Furrow
run sub-title, 'A history of psychoanalysis and the American Drama,' increases fears aroused by the title; and the preface, revealing that the material was 'first gathered and presented as a doctoral dissertation at the University of Southern California,' confirms them. But Freud on Broadway is not nearly as awful as it sounds. There is a lot to be said for painstaking reassessments, Marxist or Freudian; in ploughing their straight furrow, authors often turn up hidden treasure lying in the subsoil. As a study of the theatre, however, Freud on Broadway suffers because Dr. Sievers remains unaware, or reluctant to admit, that playwrights may be affected by influences that have little to do with their own complexes. It is ridiculous, for example, to discuss I am a Camera in terms of John van Druten, never even mention- ing Christopher Isherwood. Dr. Sievers, too, suffers from a certain humourlessness. The preposterous psychiatrist in The Cocktail Party is actually taken seriously: Dr. Sievers complains that `no reputable psychoanalyst would intrigue so mysteriously to get reluctant patients into his office,' and that 'he bears no resemblance to anything known and sanctioned by psychoanalytic societies.' A more serious weakness lies in the author's failure to grapple with the implications of the word 'Freudian.' It can be used loosely (say, in connection with Sophocles' plays) or narrowly, to denote .corks whose authors have been influenced directly and consciously by Freud. Between these extremes there are the play- wrights who think they understand Freud and don't, or who are prepared to swear there is nothing remotely Freudian in their make-up when there is. Dr. Sievers is aware of the existence of this jungle, but he is a poor guide through it : the word Freudian is used so casually as to become almost meaningless.
Nevertheless his survey is interesting, and often shrewd. How much more enterprising American-playwrights have been than English in exploring and colonising this treacherous new world! The names tumble over one another : Ardrey, Dreiser, Hart, Miller, Odets, O'Neill, Saroyan, Sherwood, Wilder, Williams and other writers who have experimented in the new medium, with varying success. Is it because English playwrights have been reluctant to do so (or English audiences reluctant to watch) that the English theatre has been, by contrast, so somnolent?
BRIAN INGLIS
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