The Lunts v. The Air

When the theater's Alfred Lunt & Lynn Fontanne took to the air last week, the result was added proof that radio acting is a specialized art, that great ability on the stage is no guarantee of a payoff before the microphone. For Russian War Relief (WOR-Mutual) and The Cavalcade of America (NBC) respectively the lusty pair played a Russian metalworker & wife, a Bethlehem innkeeper & wife. These roles were not designed to exploit the Lunts' facility with bang and banter. Further, they were not favored by WOR-Mutual's jerky dramatization of the life and death of Russia's hero Nikolai Gastello, who dived into a German gasoline stock pile. The Lunts could not make Gastello's parents even as convincing as the script made his act--which was not too convincing.

But the Lunts had a very good thing in Stephen Vincent Benet's story of the Nativity for Cavalcade and they did better by it. Benet drew a parallel between the birthtime of Christ and World War II. Herod was Gauleiter of Egypt, and the Romans his masters. Middle-aged Alfred Lunt kept the inn of the Nativity and spoke for all adaptable World War II innkeepers :

The country's occupied. We have no

country.

You've heard of that perhaps?

You've seen their soldiers, haven't you?

You know Just what can happen to our sort of

people

Once there's a little trouble? . . . I'm reasonable enough. I know the world. It's a bad world but it must last our

time.

Herod is Herod but my inn's my inn. I do the best I can. I pay my taxes, Here in this conquered and forsaken

land,

And, as for all your fine rebellious souls Who hide out in the hills and stir up

trouble!

Call themselves prophets, too, and

prophesy That something new is coming to the

world,

The Lord knows what!

Well, it's a long time coming.

And, meanwhile, we're the wheat between the stones. . . .

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