OLD CULT REVIVED

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 834, 30 November 1929, Page 28

OLD CULT REVIVED

ACTUAL CRIMES ACTED ON STAGE “POETICAL REPORTING” There is a curious revival in Germany of the old broadsheet end ballad methods of describing some crime or cause celebre in language intended to move the hearts of the proud and bring tears to the eyes of the hard and unthinking—in short, to popularise the unfortunate hero or heroine of cruelty and injustice, writes the Berlin correspondent of the London “Observer.” The only difference is that the words are spoken from the stage by actors and actresses impersonating the unhappy figures of some tragedy of real life very thinly disguised by other names. In England a libel action would prohabiy arise out of any such attempt In Germany the effort is dignified by the name ot "poetical reporting.” in spite of the fact that dramatic critics in this country long ago refused to describe the plot of a play in their critiques, on the ground that they were interpreters of an art. not reporters of an event. An example of this “poetical reporting” has been produced in the Lessing Theatre, whose very high literary reputation prevents any charge of mere sensation-monger-ins. The famous Jacobowski case is only just concealed by the title of “Josef” given to her drama by the woman playwright. Eleonore Kalkowska. A Murder Charge All Germany was moved a year ago by the history of a Russian labourer, one Jacobowski. who was executed iu Germany on a charge of murdering his child in a moorland village so cut off from civilisation that the most elementary tents of morality appeared as one big confusion of ideas in the heads of those who swore his life, away.

The great blot upon the local court of justice was that the victim was refused an interpreter, and only half understood what was being asked of him. In the second part of th* drama this scene in the court of justice is given in full, and the play ends with a matter-of-fact discussion of the case between two warders. Elsonore Kalkowska has had to employ very little imagination in view of the rich possibilities of the situations she reconstructed, but her deep and warm sympathies have made a tine play, with no sentimental bias to mar its grimness. But she has created a precedent which others are eager to follow. Not one but several Sacco and Vanretti dramas have been written in Germany. One of these, in addition to an American play on the same theme, will be produced this autumn. There are, so it is said, dramatic versions of every famous case within the memory of this generation in preparation. This is an interesting sequel to the cult of imaginative biography which has made so 3j.ro ng an appeal to German writers of today. - . J