The Family Reunion

New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 554, 3 February 1950, Page 10

The Family Reunion

S. ELIOT’S The Family Reunion, '" * from 1YA, was an outstanding radio event, which held my close attention even over the incongruous interlude of . the sacrosanct news and bowling results. John Gielgud as Harry, Lord Monchensey, acted with a taut sincerity which made the interior drama of grace and

original sin eX tremely compelling, but Barbara Couper as Agatha was the centre of the play. With a touch of Edith Evans in her voice, she brought to her part a passion and depth which took us with Harry out of the "old house in which all degradation is unredeemable" into" that world "on the other. side of +despair." These performances and that

of Gladys Young as Amy gave the production a finish and authority unique in ty experience of radio plays. One achievement of Eliot in The Family Reunion is his successful setting of. a theological dtarna in the most improbable of places-an English country house,, and the plausible working-out through the guilt-ridden Harry of the theme of the expurgation of sin. and the coming of the knowledge that good and évil are real words, not existing in "that awful privacy of the insane mind." AnOther is that he transmutes the stock phrases and occasions of a family gathering into the latguage and matter of superb poetry. I know of no ‘other médern play in which poetry has been so infused into such a prosy existence, or in which, without a techni¢al. vocabulary, religious thought operates in the tegion deeper’ than conscience. Nor do either force their ‘parts. Eliot’s beaytiful, precise language sounded inevitable in the mouths of the players. How admirably radio suits this play! The mind, undistracted by scenes and costumes, unémbartrassed by the lack of action, can follow nearly every detail of the symbolism and of Hatry’s spirit." ual growth, and relish fully the great scene between Amy and Agata. The. Eumenides provide another teason for the satisfying mature of the radio version. We are normally forced to take them on a larger faith than anything #1 the play implies. We do not, question the reality of Harry’s state of mind, but we feel unreality in the specific symbolyof his guilt,/ On the radio, where we do not see them, we accept them, despite the curious sound, like the creaking ofa foller-blind, which heralds their coming. become a’ ‘natural part ofa play Which sums up ‘and illuminates the neuroses of an age that is at once comfortable and precarious, "withered and young." "

J.C.

R.