CHRISTOPHER FRYの意味

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For the last fifty and odd years we have seen many theatrical experiments. Gordon Craig was one of the most outstanding leader in the history of the modern theatrical movement. Reading through his essays, especially the two dialogues between a stage-director and a playgoer, we can easily understand that his theory of drama leads to creation of visual drama. Improvements in setting, discovery of new methods of lighting, and other theatrical progresses have made drama more and more visual art. Modern poetic drama appears a reaction to the general tendency which has commanded the Western theatre. In other words, modern dramatic poets try to create a drama to listen to, much more than to see. The most important figure in the contemporary English dramatic poets is T. S. Eliot. His earlier theory of poetic drama which was fully developed in A Dialogue on Dramatic Poetry was so provocative and influential that no contemporary poet can write a verse play without paying attention to it. Almost all the younger dramatic poets are under the influence of Eliot. Christopher Fry, the most reputed younger poet, is not an exception to it. His earliest work, The Boy with a Cart, is strongly affected by Eliot's theory and practice. It is a religious tableau comparable to Eliot's The Rock. There we can easily point out the lines which denote the traits of influence of this great pioneer. But they are of totally different temperament. Though Fry's verse is richer and more fluent than Eliot's we cannot find here such an effort to discover a new rhythm for a poetic drama that we can see in the latter. It seems that Fry does not concern with the religious problems which make The Kock worth reading. Fry pursues the conflicts of men who have fallen into human dilemmas. Eliot treats the problems of faith under the fictitious disguise of every-day-life play. In his most serious drama, The Firstborn, Fry concerns not with the faith of Moses but with his agony between a.racial responsibility and a love as a man. Another serious drama of his, The Sleep of Prisoners, with all its Biblical allusions, a dvocates human love. The theme of Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral is the discovery of the meaning of martyrdom, not the problem of physical life and death. In The Cocktail Party Eliot seems to question how to live, but his naming it "a comedy" leads us to conclude that we should regard this husband-and-wife tragedy as a comedy of Celia who devoted her life to God, that is, a fulfilment of her "life," in this case a physical death. Fry treats the problem of man to man, Eliot man to God. The effusive verse with a tint of Elizabethan glamour characterizes Fry's plays. Those who appreciate The Lady's not for Burning or Venus Observed will remind of Shakespeare in his early days. Generally speaking, these two poets form a striking contrast. It seems they have nothing in common with each other. But there is one point, and an important one, where they meet. They seek after the domain of poetic drama which the life of these precarious ages urges them to find.
財団法人日本英文学会の論文
1954-01-30

著者

小津次郎
東京大学

CHRISTOPHER FRYの意味

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