Arts and Manners

Mr. Sean O’Casey’s several claims to originality include the fact that, among contemporary playwrights, he is the only one who admits membership in the Communist Party. He loves it. He also loves the English language (which on occasions requites his feelings) , life in general, the downtrodden and poor, the clichés of symbolism, and the Irish at their most obvious. Sharing some of these loves with Mr. O’Casey, and others not, I approach a new O’Casey play with trepidation. It’s like going out with a mentally disturbed person: one never knows at what inopportune moment the wretch will insist that he is the Emperor of China.

Mr. O’Casey’s latest play, Red Roses For Me, has received the most handsome production a Communist play has been treated to on Broadway in years, and for whole minutes I didn’t mind being in the theater at all. The actors, to be sure, wear the Irish brogue the way teenagers wear falsies—proudly and self-consciously, that is, and not for a minute at ease. But one understands most of them, most of the time—which is not an unmitigated blessing.

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William S. Schlamm

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Communism

Mr. Sean O’Casey’s several claims to originality include the fact that, among contemporary playwrights, he is the only one who admits membership in the Communist Party. He loves it. He also loves the English language (which on occasions requites his feelings) , life in general, the downtrodden and poor, the clichés of symbolism, and the Irish at their most obvious. Sharing some of these loves with Mr. O’Casey, and others not, I approach a new O’Casey play with trepidation. It’s like going out with a mentally disturbed person: one never knows at what inopportune moment the wretch will insist that he is the Emperor of China.

Mr. O’Casey’s latest play, Red Roses For Me, has received the most handsome production a Communist play has been treated to on Broadway in years, and for whole minutes I didn’t mind being in the theater at all. The actors, to be sure, wear the Irish brogue the way teenagers wear falsies—proudly and self-consciously, that is, and not for a minute at ease. But one understands most of them, most of the time—which is not an unmitigated blessing.