Steinbeck`s Miscalculation In Burning Bright

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東洋大学人間科学総合研究所紀要 第７号（2007） 3-10 3 Steinbeck’s Miscalculation in Burning Bright IWASE Tsuneko ＊ Burning Bright, a play in story form, was published about the same time as when the play opened on Broadway on Oct. 18, 1950. In spite of Steinbeck’s ambition and the utmost attention from New York theater professionals, the play was closed very soon, and categorized as a failure in his works. But it seems incomprehensible to me why Steinbeck introduced this socalled poor piece of writing just shortly after his first play, Of Mice and Men, and his second, The Moon is Down were named among the ten best of their respective years. In the light of Steinbeck’s post-mortem examination of his play-novelette, I would like to prove the deep rooted cause of his failure based on his miscalculation which the other critics of the first and the second generation have not covered. Key words : play-novelette, parable expression, morality play, mixing of novelistic and dramatic, naturalistic and realistic, too much too soon There is much truth in the fact that Steinbeck’s play-novelette of Burning Bright attracted some1, and was serially negated by the others. Focusing on the arguments of detractors among the first generation of Steinbeck critics on Burning Bright in 1950, we find the targets of criticisms of Harrison Smith, and Milton Crane are that the play-novelette is a “puppet” show, and a “soap opera” (348,351) respectively, and Stephen Longstreet even says that “it shows no signs of any talent, it has no form, not one word that sounds real” (352). Generally speaking, critics are all united in their belief in the sense that Burning Bright is a miserable failure both as a play and a novelette. Burning Bright was published about the same time as when the play opened on Broadway on Oct. 18, 1950. Though the tryout in New Haven and Boston gave generally favorable reviews in both places, the play ＊ A professor in the Faculty of Sociology, and member of the Institute of Human Sciences at Toyo University 4 東洋大学人間科学総合研究所紀要 第７号 was closed on Broadway after only thirteen performances, and categorized as a failure in his works. It is said the flaws lay in the script with its peculiar language, overly symbolic figures and cheap tricks displayed in the play (Cox 47). But it seems incomprehensible to me why Steinbeck introduced this so-called poor piece of writing just shortly after his first play, Of Mice and Men, and his second, The Moon is Down were named among the ten best of their respective years. Moreover, Steinbeck was sanguine of success as saying in his earlier letter written on August 30, 1950: “It’s a good play, strong and simple and basic with no smartness. . . ” (Life in Letters 408). It is definite that Steinbeck did not have the slightest doubt about his success, and had strong faith in the play. Reflecting on unfavorable criticisms of the play, Steinbeck tried to locate the cause of his failure and found the answer by putting this and that together: On October 21, 1950, Steinbeck wrote to Eugene Solow and suspected that the “sterility theme may have had something to do with the violence of the criticism” (412). One month after the play closed, Steinbeck recovered his composure and he could see his play with more perspective. He wrote to the Wagners on Nov. 28, 1950.: It is very easy to blame the critics. They were not at fault. It was not a good play. It was a hell of a good piece of writing but it lacked the curious thing no one has ever defined which makes a play quite different from everything else in the world. I don’t know what that quality is but I know it when I hear it on stage. I guess we have to go back to the cliché “magic of the theatre.” This thing read wonderfully but it just did not play. And furthermore I don’t know what would make it play. (414) Admitting his failure, Steinbeck was still puzzled over what quality his play lacked. When Burning Bright, “play in story form,” was published it was a disaster. As I mentioned above, the first generation of Steinbeck reviewers jumped all over it, provoking him to write his famous reply, “Critics, Critics, Burning Bright.” In November. 1950 Steinbeck speaks of his “attempt at the parable expression of the morality plays” (45), and he remarks that the essential element of the art of a writer lies in “endless expression with his medium” (47) in his reply, by adopting a resilient attitude that turns harsh criticisms around. In the essay Steinbeck himself summed up the reaction of audience and critics to its production and the book saying, “We had favorable notices from two critics, a mixed review from one, and the rest gave the play a series of negatives—from a decisive no through a contemptuous no to an hysterical and emotional no, no, no” (46). In the light of Steinbeck’s post-mortem examination of the play by its author, it would be worthwhile examining the “foreword” of Burning Bright if Steinbeck could have fulfilled all the qualifications he had listed for the play-novelette. Thus, I’d like to prove the deep rooted cause of his failure which the other critics of the first and the second generation have not covered. In the foreword Steinbeck wrote for the book, he explained with great enthusiasm his purposes for writing a play-novelette. He introduced the new form as “a play that is easy to read or a short novel that can be played IWASE : Steinbeck’s Miscalculation in Burning Bright 5 simply by lifting out the dialogue” (9), and he continued that he created the form both to provide a play to be widely read and to augment the author’s intention for actor, director and producer, as well as reader. He found the difficulties of technique in the play: the character’s thoughts must be exposed clearly only in the dialogue; the writer must convince the audience of “the actors’ geographical wandering on the stage,” the action must be “close-built,” and something must happen to the characters. In short, the play should be clear and concise with “no waste, no long discussion, no departure from a main theme, and little exposition,” and its action must be “immediate, dynamic,” and dramatic enthusiasm must occur “entirely through the characters themselves” (12). Four years after the book’s failure, he admitted in a private conversation with Peter Lisca in Feb., 1954 saying that the play was a failure in writing, that “it was too abstract,” that “it preached too much,” and that “the audience was always a step ahead of it” (258). With much interest let’s look at a plot synopsis of Burning Bright. With the sounds of the merry-go-round in the back ground, Act I opens and we see Joe Saul and Ed Friend, a clown on the stage and Ed asks him the cause of his depression. Both are middle aged, around fifty and they are close friends. Joe was circus born and pledged his grandfather to continue the blood line but he cannot bear a child. Mordeen is his second wife and much younger but there is no sign of pregnancy after their three-year marriage. Ed leaves and Mordeen enters the scene. In a tender love scene with her husband, she asks the same question about his nervousness. Victor, Joe’s young and strong partner, comes to the tent. On the stage Victor quarrels with Joe. After Joe leaves in anger, Victor confesses his love for Mordeen. She accuses Victor of not knowing the secret ingredient, that is, affection, in marriage. Victor forces her a kiss. Just then, Ed returns and orders Victor to leave. She tells Ed that she is fertile and she is determined to do anything to give Joe contentment. Ed objects to her plan to conceive a child by another man but agrees to stay with Joe that evening. When Victor returns to the scene, Mordeen apologizes to him and accepts his invitation to date him. Act II opens in a farm kitchen where Joe, a farmer talks with his neighbor, Ed, with the radio music of a circus band in the back ground. Mordeen enters and announces her pregnancy. Joe overjoys at the news and cries. Victor comes in and hears the news. Joe and Ed leave for party supplies to celebrate the occasion. Victor who feels trapped and exploited presses hard upon Mordeen about the child. Though she pities him, she advises him to go away. While Victor is wooing, the season changes from June to December and Joe and Ed return to the scene with a big Christmas tree. Joe is still in jolly spirits and announces that he had decided to give his child a present, a “gift of clean blood.” Act III, Scene I is titled “The Sea.” In the tiny cabin of an old freighter we see a little Christmas tree on the mantle. Victor, in a blue mate’s uniform talks with Mordeen. The time is close for her to deliver a child. He pleads with her to leave with him. When she refuses, he threatens to tell Joe everything, and he forces her to choose the alternative. She goes for a knife hanging on the cabin wall, and conceals it in her coat. Ed who overhears the dialogues takes Victor on deck. Ed is in his captain’s uniform. Then, Mordeen hears what she expect- 6 東洋大学人間科学総合研究所紀要 第７号 ed, that is, “the crunching blow, the expelled moaning cry and in a moment the little splash.” Mordeen’s labor pains begin. Joe appears, enraged, and reports that the doctor told him he has a bad heart. Ed tells him that he is lying and must now face the truth. He must admit his sterility and cast away his ego to accept Mordeen’s great love. And he hopes Joe has the courage, goodness, and generosity to receive her gift. Mordeen collapses in labor and Joe shouts for Victor’s help. Scene II: “The Child” is the last scene of the play. In a hospital room, Mordeen lies in bed with a bundled baby. Joe tells her that he now knows that his particular seed has no importance over other seeds, that “it is the species that must go staggering on.” A child is a miracle, born with intelligence and beauty and there is something shining in him. He also knows that “every man is father to all children and every child must have all men as father.” He tears the surgical mask from his shining face and cries in triumph: “Mordeen, I love my son.” Martha Heasley Cox, one of the second generation of Steinbeck critics, develops critical explication on Burning Bright in her essay as follows: Steinbeck provides set designs, lighting, sound plots, and costuming closely patterned after descriptions in the play. In order to emphasize the universality of the people and the experience, “Steinbeck carefully integrates the action by confining the cast to the same four characters” (53). When the place and time change on the stage, he also provides the same kind of background music and Christmas tree to remind his readers of the continuity of the scene. Steinbeck apparently supposed that such devices would suggest the theme of the morality play of “a lifeless, faceless Everyone.” He had Joe Saul say in the Act I, “I know it is a thing that can happen to anyone, in any place or time––––a farmer or a sailor, of a lifeless, faceless Everyone!” (30) Warren French points out in his John Steinbeck that “the words ‘lifeless’ and ‘ faceless’ are singularly unfortunate choices in the context” (139), and continues that Burning Bright has “unimpressive and confusing gimmicks” for the theatergoers. He also remarks in his John Steinbeck’s Fiction Revisited that Burning Bright resorted to “pure allegory, with stick figures preaching a ‘Brotherhood of Man’ doctrine, and his universalized message is led by his “flawed experiments” (35). Followed by French, Mimi Reisel Gladstein suggests the reproductive function of Mordeen. Motherhood is endowed by Steinbeck with a holiness that shuts out temporal moral or ethical considerations. Moreover, “Steinbeck’s characterization often suffers because of this reverence for motherhood” (25), and Mordeen is sentimentally depicted. John M. Ditsky who has been deceased recently also notes Steinbeck stating that his creation of the Great Mother exploits sacrificed youth so that mankind may progress (83). Here we notice that Steinbeck used the dramatic irony in the play. The reader and other characters know what Joe hasn’t noticed at first; that is, the identity of the child’s biological father. Steinbeck’s use of irony, however, produces another absurd irony in the final scene and it violates the theme: Despite Joe’s enlightenment that the child “must have all men as father” (158), Victor was eliminated from the stage casually too much. We cannot take Joe’s enlightenment at face value. IWASE : Steinbeck’s Miscalculation in Burning Bright 7 Assuming that Steinbeck’s success in The Pearl encouraged him to attempt the second success three years later, I can convince myself of both his strong faith in Burning Bright and his confident technique in the parable play-novelette. Parable stories usually teach moral and lesson. They contain stock characters and stereotype protagonists and antagonists. These characters stand for the writer’s ideas and human qualities and they are far from individuality. In The Pearl all of these parable elements enhanced the story of the biggest pearl in the world to the symbolic allegory and fitted in the right place in the story. In addition to these peculiarities in the parable, there are certain kinds of subject matters which are more effective or rather the most effective in the form of allegory and parable. The story should be far too reasonable to be true even if it is based on facts. The Pearl employed the very subject and it expanded Steinbeck’s ideas and values freely. When Steinbeck wrote The Pearl, he had long been absorbed with cinematic techniques by writing the script of The Forgotten Village (Cox 20). He must have had full knowledge of the camera techniques of long, medium and close-up shots. From this point of view from the camera, Steinbeck minutely described nature in the story: They were the beach, the bottom of the sea, plants and insects in the forests and the pond. This photographic quality and attention to detail by the close-up technique were sustained throughout the story and successful. The detailed realism was in good contrast to the symbolic and detached characters in the parable. It is the contrast that helps enhance the essence of the allegory. It is not surprising, then, that many of the same techniques seemed to be applied for the next parable play three years later. Here lie Steinbeck’s original miscalculation and deep-rooted cause of his failure in Burning Bright. In the first place, Steinbeck’s photographic attention to detail was limited first to Mordeen’s dialogue on sex and love, and the second was to the description of Mordeen’s womb. In Act II, Mordeen sits holding her hands in her lap, one palm in another like a nest. She tells Joe that she is pregnant. Then “she smiled inwardly. . . her face was withdrawn in mystery” (85). We doubt if any actress could possibly transfer this state of mind to the stage. How could the following description of her womb be acted out on the stage? The secrets of her body were in her eyes––––the zygote new thing in the world, a new world, but formed of remembered materials: the blastoderm, the wildly splitting cells, and folds and nodes, the semblance of a thing, projections to be arms and legs and vague rays of ganglia, gill slits on the forming head, projections to be fingers and two capacities from which to see one day, and then, a little man, whole formed, no bigger than the stub of a pencil and bathed in warm liquor, drawing food from the mother bank and growing. This frantic beingness lay under her loving hands embraced in a slow ecstasy in her lap. (85-86) Thus Steinbeck’s intended photographic effect was lost in abstract matters and was out of place on the stage. The stage and movie seem to belong to the same category of visual and auditory senses, but they are completely 8 東洋大学人間科学総合研究所紀要 第７号 different media. In the play everything should be exposed only through the dialogues, as Steinbeck had stated in his foreword. If Steinbeck had wished to use the cinematic techniques for the details of realism in Burning Bright, he should have done so in the dialogues. When these cinematic techniques failed in the play, symbolic and detached characters lost good contrast to realism and could not help but fade away from the minds of audiences. Without the contrast, characters might have been overly symbolized. As I mentioned above, the subject matter which Steinbeck chose for the play-novelette was not one which was the most effective in the form of a parable. It is a parable that the writer inspires his theme in an unbelievable story. Against its rule, Burning Bright dealt with seemingly very realistic conflicts of the steriled man as the subject matter. What is still worse, his wrong choice originated further contradictory complications in the parable expressions in the play: Against the expectations of audiences who were going to take the subject matter seriously, the play discouraged them to do so. In other words, the more seriously audiences took the conflicts of the protagonist, the less they were impressed by his suffering and enlightenment because of shortcomings in the descriptions of feelings. The play lacked genuine emotions which would be the byproducts of the serious realistic conflicts among Joe, Mordeen, and Victor. All was half done in the expressions of genuine emotions such as love, grief, hatred, and jealousy among the three. The worst yet, all of these flaws were due to the parable quality of the story which was Steinbeck’s utmost and principal intention of the play. Therefore, there was no alternative for Steinbeck, even though he had been aware of its contradictory nature of the characterization. Hence, Burning Bright has become neither a parable in nature, nor a modern realistic play in expressions. To me who cannot abide its mixing of novelistic and dramatic, naturalistic and realistic, it is in just this sense that his essential element of the acclaimed art of a writer in “endless experiment with his medium” has failed (“Critics, Critics, Burning Bright” 47). In conclusion, his miscalculated attempt to conform the four contradictory elements to one story has invited his failure because of the peculiarity of each element itself. Steinbeck wanted too much for Burning Bright : it was for both stage and novel with parable expressions and tints of realism. As he stated in The Pearl, “it is not good to want a thing too much. It sometimes drives the luck away. You must want it just enough” (25). Steinbeck’s failure is, after all, due to both his greed and inability to make the most of each element satisfactorily. He wanted too much too soon. Notes 1. See some protector’s criticism: Joseph Henry Jackson points out that the author’s “experiment in the play-novelette is not only successful in print, but a very interesting move in the direction of something fresh in fiction. “A Bookman’s Notebook.” San Francisco Chronicle. 27 October 1950: 16. Rpt. in John Steinbeck: The Contemporary Reviews. Ed. Joseph M., McElrath Jr., Jesse S. Crisler, and Susan Shillinglaw. New York: Cambridge UP, 1996. 348-50. IWASE : Steinbeck’s Miscalculation in Burning Bright 9 Works Cited Cox, Martha Heasley. “Steinbeck’s Burning Bright (1950).” A Study Guide to Steinbeck II. Ed. Tetsumaro Hayashi. N.J. : Scarecrow P, 1979. 46-62. Crane, Milton. “Steinbeck’s 'Play-Novelette’ Is Soap Opera.” Chicago Sunday Tribune Magazine of Books. 29 October 1950: 8. McElrath Jr., Crisler and Shillinglaw 351-52. Ditsky, John M. “Steinbeck’s Burning Bright: Homage to Astarte.” Steinbeck Quarterly. 7. 1 (Winter 1974): 79-88. French, Warren. John Steinbeck. 2nd ed. rev. Boston: Twayne, 1975. –––––. John Steinbeck’s Fiction Revisited. New York: Twayne, 1994. Gladstein, Mimi Reisel. “Female Characters in Steinbeck: Minor Characters of Major Importance?” Steinbeck Monograph Series. 9-12. (1979-86): 17-25. Lisca, Peter. The Wide World of John Steinbeck. new ed. New York: Gordian P, 1981. Longstreet, Stephen. “Steinbeck Goes Arty in Play-Novelette.” Los Angeles News. 11 November 1950: 10,12. Mc Elrath Jr., Crisler and Shillinglaw 352. McElrath, Joseph R., Jr., Jesse S. Crisler and Susan Shillinglaw, eds. Rpt. in John Steinbeck : The Contemporary Reviews. New York: Cambridge UP, 1996. Smith, Harrison. “A New Form of Literature.” Washington Post. 22 October 1950: 5B. McElrath Jr., Crisler and Shillinglaw 347-48. Steinbeck, John. “Critics, Critics, Burning Bright.” Saturday Review. 11 November 1950. Rpt. in Steinbeck and His Critics. Ed. E.W. Tedlock Jr. and C.V. Wicker. Albuquerque: U of New Mexico P, 1957. 43-47. –––––. “Foreword.” Burning Bright. New York: Viking, 1950. 9-13. –––––. The Pearl. New York: Penguin, 1994. –––––. Steinbeck: A Life in Letters. Ed. Elane Steinbeck and R. Wallsten. Middlesex: Penguin, 1976. The Bulletin of the Institute of Human Sciences, Toyo University, No. 7 10 スタインベックの『爛々と燃える』に於ける戦略違い 岩瀬 恒子＊ 小説形態と劇を兼ね持つ『爛々と燃える』は演劇が 1950 年 10 月 18 日に初演された 時期に合わせて作品が発表されたが、演劇の上演はニューヨークの劇作家及び批評家 から絶大な注目を浴びていたにもかかわらず失敗作として 13 回上演で打ち切りと なった。スタインベックがこの演劇作品直前に名声を博した『はつかねずみと人間』 『月は沈みぬ』『真珠』を考慮してみると、スタインベックがなぜこのいわゆる駄作を 発表するに至ったかは理解しがたい。彼の『爛々と燃える』に対する自己反省である 言い分に照らし合わせてみて、この拙論文はスタインベックに対するアメリカの新聞 メディアによる初期の批評家達と第 2 世代にあたる批評家達が突き止められなかった 彼の深遠な所に根ざされた計算づくの上での失敗の原因を探索し、証さしたものであ る。 キーワード：劇小説、寓話的表現法、道徳劇、小説的であり戯曲的、自然主義的であ り現実的な要素の混合、4 要素を盛り込みすぎのあせりすぎ ＊人間科学総合研究所研究員・東洋大学社会学部