DRAMA

From July 30, 1952, until November 23rd of the same year, Love in Our Time, an outspoken and courageous drama, played to a capacity audience in a small theatre in Greenwich Village. Written by Anita Grannis and produced with practically no funds, the play was probably seen by about 10,000 people during its very successful run.

There is no question but that the contemporary drama is more povertystricken in dealing with homosexuality than are other forms of literary expression. The presentation of this subject upon a stage poses problems that appear only in a lesser form in the novel. Furthermore, the activity of the censor in deciding what may be seen is greater than his efforts to rule on what may be read, thus discouraging the writer or producer from tackling this highly tabooed subject. While it is not my purpose to go into a complete review of the dramas on this theme and the fate they have met, suffice it to say that their number is rather few, that several have been suppressed (as The Captive) and that the theme, when it has been discussed, has frequently been presented with unashamed antagonism (as in Trio and The Green Bay Tree).

Love in Our Time was therefore something of an unprecedented event, unanticipated even by the sophisticated audiences of Greenwich Village. For Miss Grannis approaches her theme with sympathy unbounded, with considerable understanding, and despite the tragedy in which she enmeshes her characters, she points the way to what might have been a solution to their problems. She sees the homosexuals as the products of an all too obviously faulty family situation; sees their problems as akin to those of other minority groups; and hints that their way of life might be worked out if they did not encounter the antagonism of society in general and their immediate social grouping (particularly the family) in the specific context of their activities. All of which made an exciting and remarkable evening in the theatre, and if the play fell short at times, as it did, of subtlety, finesse, and believable character situations, it was because Miss Grannis seemed frightened lest even one person in the audience might miss even one small section of her message.

The story of the play is rather simple. The drama opens with a boy-andgirl situation. Don Chisholm has just returned from Paris, and is about to marry Mimi Farren, a girl whom he has known for a number of years. It develops that he has been the roommate of Mimi's brother, Talley, who hears of the impending marriage and makes a hurried trip home to demand that it be cancelled. Unable to convince Don that his plans must change, Talley decides to confess to his

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