“DYNAMO”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 637, 13 April 1929, Page 24

“DYNAMO”

Eugene O’Neill’s Play Gets Good Reception

The death of old religious beliefs and the incapacity of modern science and materialism to satisfy for this lo 5S are the theme of Mr. Eugene O’Neill’s new play, “Dynamo,” produced in New York recently.

Reuben Light has lost the faith of his fathers and is enticed into worshipping the sleek image of an electric dynamo, bringing to the worship the same vehemence that his forefathers gave to their beliefs. He offers to this machine a pure life, and for a time finds satisfaction in this strange god. But as the play proceeds Reuben

learns that his devotion is futile, and when he falls into sin his faith disappears.

Tlie last act, rich with impassioned writing, takes place in the hydroelectric power plant with Reuben giving his life to the humming dynamo. The characters, as in Greek tragedy, are generalised, and Mr. O’Neill uses again the “aside” which he employed so freely in “The Strange Interlude.” Critics describe the play as magnificent in Mr. O’Neill’s latest impersonal manner, one writer saying it is a “drama of overw i qg stature,”