Under the Spell
CAME fresh to the NZBS ve:.ion of Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones (2YA, March 4), having neither read the play nor seen it staged, and the impact was terrific. And what a play for laying the bogy about radio’s limitations! That scene where the hunted ex-Emperor blunders around in the night jungle haunted by visions from his own and his racial past and dogged by drums as inescapable as his own panicked heartbeats was the very stuff of excitementit is difficult to see how the stage could have contrived the distinction between illusion and actuality without distracting us even momentarily from suspense . in admiration for its contrivance. In the radio version, from the time the voodoo first begins to take, we too, in our identification with the hero, are under the spell. It is only with the death of Brutus Jones that we are able to shake ourselves (continued on next page)
free-in time to appreciate, via Smithers, the beautiful irony of the whole conception.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19550318.2.21.3
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 816, 18 March 1955, Page 10
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168Under the Spell New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 816, 18 March 1955, Page 10
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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