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CHEWING THE EXISTENTIAL CUD:

THE TRANSFORMATION OF TRAGEDY IN

*THE DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS.*

David Johansson..page5

Her husband Morris is the impotent eunuch -- an archetype deftly placed. At first blush an amateur actor might see his lack of virility as making for a lackluster part -- when nothing could be further off. Inge makes Morris a dentist who can't bear drilling his patients' teeth for fear of hurting them. Now, English teachers are notorious for seeing phallic symbols, but here we've got a dentist who can't use a drill.

And we pity him -- he's gentle and cursed by his own thoughtfulness. So back to the actor -- the part is wonderful because it is an archetype -- the stately suffering of the gentle and brave (but sexless) figure of the eunuch. The Saint. The Celibate. Unfortunately, he's married. His wife Lottie is shrill, but who can blame her? Saints drive normal people crazy. Witness the fact they never stick around long -- They're always getting shot with arrows or getting their heads chopped off. So there's Morris – slow and bovine as some wise and scared cow, self absorbed and remote -- quietly chewing his existential cud. Penned up with him, who wouldn't go stir crazy?

With drama like this, then, we return to the question, why is Inge excluded from what we might call college literary history while Miller and Williams are included? It may have to do with tragedy, because where is the great happy play? Even Shakespeare is remembered more for tragedy than comedy, and the same holds true for Greeks. Perhaps it is the force of Inge's happy ending not only in Dark but also Bus Stop and even in Sheba and Picnic which are held by editors and critics, if not audiences, as being somehow "lower" than the family apocalypses of Salesman and Menagerie -- and maybe it is this optimism that dooms Inge to exclusion from the college literature anthologies.

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