Plays

Press, Volume C, Issue 29524, 27 May 1961, Page 3

Plays

Four Plays- By William Inge. Heinemann. 305 pp. The Wesker Trilogy. By Arnold Wesker. Cape. 225 pp.

Here are two volumes of plays by writers of international reputation. Mr Inge’s work is more widely known; for all the plays in his book have been made into films. Small-town life in the Middle West of the United States is his specialty, and it is tempting to class him with other regional writers such, for instance, as Tennessee Williams. But Mr Inge has a quiet originality of his own, and this can be seen at its best in his final play. “The Dark at the Top of the Stairs.” No-one has ever looked at family life from this particular point of view before: but it is convincing; indeed, the playwright's dry sense of humour seems to guarantee its truth. “Come Back, Little Sheba,” however, still remains Mr Inge’s greatest dramatic effort; even to read it is a moving experience.

Mr Wesker is entirely original, and it is not possible to compare him with anyone else. His theme is the collapse of working-class values. In “Roots.” for instance, the Norfolk farmlabourer and his family are adrift. In an atmosphere of talkies, television and “pop” songs, what do they know of the traditional wisdom of the countryside? One of the final speeches of the play puts it very well. “Oh, yes, we turn on a radio or a TV set maybe, or we go to the pictures—if them's love stories or gangsters—but isn’t that the easiest way out? Anything so long as we don’t have to make an effort. Well, am I right? You know I'm right. Education ent only books and music—it's asking questions all the time. There are millions of us, all over the country, and no-one, not one of us, is asking questions, we're all taking the easiest way out. Everyone I ever worked with took the easiest way out. We don’t fight for anything, we’re so mentally lazy we might as well be dead. ... So you know who comes along? The slop singers and the pop writers and the film makers and women’s magazines and the Sunday papers and the picture strip love stories—that’s who come along and you don’t have to make no effort for them, it come easy. ’We know where the money lie,’ they say, 'hell we do! The workers’ve got it so let’s give them what they want. The whole stinkin’ commercial world insults us and we don’t care a damn.” Mr Wesker embodies his own sense of values in Sarah Kahn from the East End of London, who appears in two of the plays. Her politics may not suit her family; but like Beatie in “Roots,” one of whose speeches has just been quoted, she believes in speaking her mind.