inh

Johnny Belinda—

top level folk opera

A lovely relative of the Char-
lottetown Festival’s charming
musical, Anne of Green Gables,
is warming the hearts of Toron-
to audiences.

Breaking its tour with a stop-
Over at the Royal Alexandra
Theatre is Johnny Belinda,
based on the Elmer Harris play,
with book and lyrics by Mavor
Moore, music by John Fenwick,
direction and choreography by
Alan Lund, sets by Murray
Laufer, costumes by Frances
Dafoe and lighting by Ronald
Montgomery.

This musical about a Prince
Edward Island fishing and farm-
ing village in 1894-95 could be
described as a folk opera. Sim-
plicity, directness and popular
appeal are its attributes. It is
unslick yet artistically top level.
It has the quality of the best
musicals —it is spontaneous,
easy and exuberant, yet it can
be subtle and very tender. It is
a marvelously disciplined esthe-
tic expression.

It is the story of the deaf-
mute daughter of a widower
miller. Their life is one of harsh
poverty. A young doctor, newly
arrived, tries to draw the drudge

out of her isolation; he teaches
her the sign language, he helps
her father, and he falls in love
with her. Then the village heel
assaults her; she has a baby
which the rapist, with legal ap-
proval, tries to seize. She shoots
the man, there is a trial, justice
triumphs, she is freed and leaves
the village with the doctor and
her child. (The final scenes, I
feel, have been telescoped.)

It is a simple folk story, but
in the telling we are shown
something of the dark side of
the village—the respectable
hypocrisy, the exploitation, the
petty cruelty, the smug virtue. .

Johnny Belinda has a cast of
26, with bit parts played by
well-known actors like Douglas
Chamberlain, Elizabeth Maw-
son, Jack Duffy, George Mur-
ray, Marylyn Stuart, Maud
Whitmore and Peter Mews.

The accomplished singing-
dancing actors in the lead roles
come through clear and strong
—Dean Regan as the brash vil-
lage seducer, Bill Cole as the
selfless doctor, Don McManus
as the rough-hewn father, Anne
Linden as the seducer’s decent
girl friend, Mary Savidge as the
busybody, Betty Phillips as the

miller’s up-tight sister, and Den-
nis Thatcher as the genially
sloshed butcher,

In the central role of Belinda,
Diane Nyland builds her char-
acter from the mute and clumsy
slavey to an awakening sensitiv-
ity, to lyrical grace, to beauti-
ful courage. Hers is a Challeng

ing role splendidly achieved.

The song and dance numbers
are spirited and meaningful, or-
ganic parts of the book, and are
based on Maritimes folk melo-
dies. Outstanding scenes are
the barn dances (with the slow-
motion fade-out and _ fade-in
sequences), the awesome rape
ballet, the clever on-stage im-
provisation of a cart, the fa-
ther’s protest song (My Luck),
the shivaree for the newlyweds,
and the satirical Psalm 127.

The show has its scoundrels,
its hypocrites, its fools—but it
has no sick-sick gimmickry. It
has a trace of bawdiness, but no
pornography. What a relief!
Stage works like Johnny Belin-
da assure us that we are not so
jaded that we cannot respond to
human warmth, to romance, to
nostalgia, even to sentimental-
ity. Martin Stone.

Pornography:
door to future?

By PHILLIP BONOSKY

Is pornography revolutionary?

A ridiculous question, surely
—or at least until quite recently.
The criticism of religion is the
beginning of all criticism, Lenin
said somewhere. For that, a sec-
tion of today’s “revolutionists”
Substitute: the criticism of
(bourgeois) sexual morality is
the beginning of all criticism.

There is no denying that for
Some perhaps the reaction
against bourgeois hypocrisy in
love and marriage is the first
door which leads—or could lead
—to the wider plains of revolu-
tionary understanding of all
phases of bourgeois life. No
doubt such a door can lead in
such a direction.

But it’s not the main door. Nor
is it the door through which
working class youth or black

don't miss .. .

&

communist
viewpoint

July-August

MAOISM
—A CRITIQUE
by A. Rumyantsev

On sale at your local bookstore or
newsstand .. . 75¢

__ PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 13, 1969—Page ate

youth fighting for liberation
seek, nor find, their way. to the
revolutionary life, . Historically,
the attack on bourgeois (non-
political) morality has been
launched by the sons and
daughters of the middle-class,
the sons and daughters already
in dissent, “lost,” “silent,” . or
-whatever at any moment they
were ‘dubbed. It took an anti-
philistine, bohemian form usual-
ly, and reflected a genuine dis-
gust with the property relations
of bourgeois life disguised as
“love” or “marriage.” But the
disdain alone was a long way
from a genuine revolutionary at-
titude, and, in fact, was shared
in Europe by members of the
aristocracy.

There is a never-to-be-forgot-
ten passage in Andrew Mellon’s
wife’s autobiography in which
she confessed it came upon her
one day that in the big finan-
cier’s scheme of things she play-
ed the same practical role as the
“bohunks” Mellon worked to
death in his mines and mills.

They had to produce wealth
for him; she had to produce an,
heir to inherit his fortune. And
that was all.

But this understanding that in
a bourgeois world a woman is
merely the agent through which
the fortune of the man could be
handed on to later generations,
and had nothing to do with love,
did not lead to making a revolu-
tionary of her son, Paul Mellon.
Instead he became an esthetic
dilettante. He bought up bales of
Picassos and Matisses and hid
them away in private homes, or
“gave them” to the public in a
gesture of philanthrophy which

honored his name but said no-
thing of the tens of thousands of
“bohunks” (of which my father
was one) who sweated out their
lives making that philanthropy
possible.

The boys of my generation

went to whore houses, or got,
their brothers’ sisters “into
trouble’; and for them such
“sex” was part of the oppression
of their lives. But oppression fell
on them not, first, because they
had “sexual problems.” Those
“problems” were intimately
wound up with their status as
oppressed. workers. And it never
occurred to anybody to raise the
banner of “sexual freedom” as
the main road to total freedom.
The banner, in historic fact
which they did raise, was: Join
the CIO! The road to the most
elementary freedoms for them
lay through freeing themselves
—their whole class—from the

absolute domination of the Mel- |

lons, Fricks, Carnegies, Morgans,
et al.

No matter how “sexually liber-
ated” they were they still sat
around doing nothing (in the
depression) or got up early,
worked themselves hard in the
mills, and when they came home
—after a day in the mill—they
had to be very, very young to
have much sexual drive left
over to disport fully in those al-
together pleasant fields of ven-
ery. In any case, a wife with two
or three kids—squawling, yelling
kids—abruptly loses both the
appeal for love-dalliance and
the energy. ~

Pornography, in the life of the
oppressed—of the male youth,
for instance—played a crude,

“Communist plots” galore,
numerous as fleas on a dog’s
back and a thousand times
less real:

A regular ‘PT’ correspon-
dent writes me this week
from Victoria that he just
heard the local radio station
CKDA featuring some “ex-
pert” on African affairs. Ap-
parently the “plot” there has
to do with skirts—mini skirts.

It would seem a group of
ladies have launched a move-
ment to wear only long skirts,
something along the style of
the Victorian era, in an heroic
effort to combat the popular
mini. It would also appear that
these excessively virtuous
ladies, obviously of a very
reactionary vintage, have
nothing against the mini —
. other than the styling, which
was “introduced by the com-
-munists” to destroy our chris-
tian-cum-capitalist standards
of morality!

Concluding his comments
“on this African “expert’s”
‘views on the mini and its
“communist” origin, our cor-
respondent says, “It seems to
me this just shows how far
this “communist plot” stuff
can be stretched.

Well, just how “far” is far?
In today’s morning Blah (Van-
couver) are eleven column
inches scalped from the New
York Times featuring no end
of debate in faraway Colombo,
Ceylon on the miniskirt.

It would appear that while
Ceylonese femininity is not
averse to exposing large por-
tions of the anatomy from the
midriff up, a goodly portion
of the gals are averse to a
total swapping of the saris for
the mini. A trotskyite member
of Colombo’s City Council is
now loudly demanding a full-
dress, official city council de-
bate on “the dangers of the
mini,” doubtless with the aim
of further exposing this dast-
ardly “communist plot.”

Happily, unlike Vancouver’s
Mayor Tom Terrific who in-
variably gets stricken with
foot-in-mouth troubles every-
time a hot issue blows up, Co-
lombo’s Mayor Jahir Abdul
Cader has ruled that mini
skirts “was not a problem that
was any of the Council’s busi-
ness!”

Perhaps, however, the blue
ribbon for seeing “communist
plots” in most everything
new, young, progressive — all
that presents any challenge to

Z - |
the old order of ye le
should go to our owne the
quivering Dief. With 7! nt
disease is undoubtedly i |
of political heredity, ee |
valent in ultra-right com
tive ranks than anyW:
under the sun. :

In the recent debat
amendments to the ©”
Code, that section giving |
tion to homosexuality all
ed John mightily. In it. fort |
no end of “‘subversivé — ying |)
at work aimed at dest’ ad |
our “moral” way of life ab
when John talks about riabl
versive” forces he inva” |
means “communism.

es

of |
itd! |

What John overlooks, we
ever, in his numerous as
of the “indignant” post vet
which he manages, t0 4.44. |i
like a bowl of jello ing I}
storm, is that such 4 1
ments, here, in Britain? st’ |?
where, are the natul? 9) })
quence of bourgeois ou |
ity” and not that of COP ae |)
nists or communis™: he |
“morality” of the cle on”
speaks for when he “tt i
with his latest “comm
plot”! |

As everyone knows. | dir
days, meat prices are ! pee? |!
nately high and havé
that way for a long tim®
all indications ee ant my |

er made up of grou fl
Sciai Saa7duee and a little me
will continue in orbit.

the real ‘“‘cause” of sam
the Beef Trust, gawd he lace
no! A segment of the por ;
not too large but highly Vs
egged along by a sewe! ye"
and a misleading “pene diss |
lations” job by the mea) 4

tributors, and doubtless nist
ing on the Dief “comm
plot” hallucinations, 35 jy
blaming the current
ters’ strike in Vancouvel "||
environs as the real cau 1
the high price of meat.

F {0

“Things are not likely.

improve,” shouts a local fn

dit, “until those g.. - yu |

munists are locked up %
out of the country.”

sralist
Frankly, modern capi
society, no matter W a]
would be in one hell ?
quandary were there no © fot
munists around to blam? ys
the stupidities of a social a
tem which literally wallow? ;,
stupidity. Sometimes ie
moved to ask that a8® of
question — “How long

Lord? How long?” _ t

utilitarian role, and nobody con-
fused it with the lost dimension
of freedom. Foul language was
never likewise confused with li-
terary eloquence. The lines were
sharply drawn, and a working
class mother and father always
flinched with dismay to hear
their kids use foul language. For
they recognized in that not the

enrichment of life but its impov--

erishment.

To this day, I get no joy out of
hearing street urchins cursing in
a dull, colorless way, every
third word a dirty word. If they
are Puerto Rican they learn Eng-
lish this sad way, and this sort
of “education” is part of their

- cousin of Don~ Quixote,

oppression—though, to a middle- .

io
class family, hearing hee y ve
cuss may be a sign tha :
vitamins, trips to the antl
and progressive school t 4
are finally paying divides is
The cry that pornograP ty
“liberating” or “revolution aie
is a cry of the abused MM oy
class, and should not bé las |
fused, ever, with working
psychology. the
This does not mean that “j.
“cure” for sexual anarchy it
Puritanism (which kills the 5?ine
and the flesh). The “cure se
total liberation of mankin not
just one organ. Don Juan ©”,
be our leader. He’s the ©

i

fights wind-mills in his ov