The Eaglet

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 434, 17 October 1947, Page 10

The Eaglet

EVERAL of last week’s Wellington programmes (for exarnple, Rostand’s L’Aiglon, last of our World Theatre tations for the present) have been as

relentless searchlights, revealing and partially illuminating some hideous cane

in my polished educational facade. For though I am on hongi-ing terms with Cyrano, I had never heard of L’Aiglon and barely of Napoleon II, from whom Rostand created him. Unballasted then by weighty knowledge I was perhaps ready to be swept off my feet by the romance

and dramatic pathos of Rostand’s little Duke, Napoleonic eaglet in the Habsburg cage. But swept off my feet I was, and helplessly and excitingly borne along on a mighty spate of words. Sometimes 1 must admit I was subject "to a confusion natural to one in my predicament, for’ when you are being swept along on a powerful flood of romantic verse no one is going to interfere with your exhilaration by slowing you down ~ to listen to stage directions or plot synopses. Your. banks must remain uncharted till you have time for a more leisurely voyage. At nine o'clock, when I found myself stranded on the shore of realism, I had time to recollect Professor Shelley’s remark that L’Aiglon was the same type as many a radio serial, and to feel a certain embarrassment at my recent immersion in the deep waters of Romance. However, I comforted myself by _ reflecting that. there are several precedents for being carried away by a young eagle and none at all (unless you count Napoleon himself) for being swept off your feet by Josephine, Empress of France.