Volume 3, Number 8 · December 3, 1964
In Praise of Robert Lowell
By W.D. Snodgrass
The Old Glory
by Robert Lowell, directed by Jonathan Miller
American Place Theater
Obviously, we cannot ask that reviewers from the Manhattan dailies know a great play from a bad one. Few people ever have managed that. How expect it of a man, largely untrained, who must rush to his office after a single performance and deliver sentence without time to think or question his feelings? It is probably too much, also, to ask that reviewers recognize great dramatic direction. That demands a conceptual and emotional grasp over a total work of art. How expect that from a man who has given his life to the socalled communication media—that is, to the control and prevention of anything exceptional (including excellence) in thought or feeling? I had hoped that we could demand the ability to discriminate great acting. Yet even a country boy like myself should have known they would either ignore it, or would praise it together with inferior work, so keeping the world safe for mediocrity.
Review, 2473 words
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