The Cocktail Party

One of the most fashionable reactions to The Cocktail Party is to be bored, to affect puzzlement, and to assert that other people like it because it is fashionable to like T. S. Eliot. Actually there is no reason for this manifestation of reverse snobbery, for a nodding acquaintance with the views of Mr. Eliot and a quick perusal of the published form of the play (Lamont stocks several copies) suffice to prepare one for a most stimulating and interesting evening of theatre.

The Cocktail Party is most assuredly good theatre--I maintain this in spite of the two girls sitting behind me who kept muttering that there was "not enough action." What Mr. Eliot has done is to transcribe his metaphysics, his ethics, and his grievances against modern society into an incident in sophisticated, modern life, with hardly a mention of God, salvation, after-life, and the rest. And he has done this in verse--but in verse so smooth, so free, and so outwardly simple that it seldom impinges upon the dramatic continuity of the play. These are both splendid theatrical achievements.

At the beginning of the play, we are introduced to the somehow inadequate situations of the actual characters (as distinguished from the symbol characters, to be discussed later.) These four characters are arranged in an unhappy quadrangle of a married couple and its respective lovers, and their difficulties are exposed, first on the narrative level, then on the psychological level, and finally in the light of the level of the spiritual in adequacy which Mr. Eliot finds in modern society. It is here that the religious symbolism starts to pile on thickly, and, to those who don't know previously what Mr. Eliot is driving at, the speeches degenerate into a sort of rasping buzz that emanates from the stage. Actually, of course, this rasping buzz is Mr. Eliot, grinding his Anglo-Catholic axe and cleverly turning the institutions of modern society into arguments against themselves.

As for the symbolism, you pays your money and you takes your choice. However, there are three primary symbolic characters--the psychiatrist, the gossipy old woman, and the worldly, semi-comic friend of the family, who "has connections everywhere"--and the number three is not unimportant in Christian theology. This may or may not mean something. In addition, Mr. Eliot has stated that he incorporated an unrecognized Greek myth into the drama, and for all I could tell he may have included two unrecognized Greek myths. But even if you only get a broad idea of the basic symbolism, you can have fun picking out the ancillary symbolism that is scattered throughout the play.

A word must be said about the present Boston production. The individual parts seem particularly easy to act, because of the moderate, genteel simplicity of the verse writing. Dennis King, as the psychiatrist, and Estelle Winwood, as the old gossip, gave especially distinguished performances. The only actor who was patently inadequate was Harry Ellerbe, who did not bring enough solidity and urbanity to his portrayal of the distraught husband.

The Cocktail Party is definitely worth seeing. Whether you agree with Mr. Eliot that a partial return to the medieval way of life is our only solution, or whether you prefer to accept modern life, with all its insecurity and confusion, as a definite improvement on the good old days, the play is an interesting one, especially if you bone up a little on Eliot before curtain time.