This week on “The Lost Chord,” I indulge my inner English major with a program inspired by two plays that explore the relationship of power and corruption – Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” and Eugene O’Neill’s “The Emperor Jones.”
The impulse grew out of my recollection of the rarely-heard ballet by Heitor Villa-Lobos, which originally aired on television in 1957. However, since the score was never published, it was believed lost for decades until rediscovered by the conductor Jan Wagner (who is Venezuelan, despite his Teutonic name). Wagner will conduct the Odense Symphony Orchestra, a Nordic band, in a surprisingly idiomatic performance.
Also on the program will be a half-remembered relic of American musical history, an aria from Louis Gruenberg’s opera, “The Emperor Jones,” sung by baritone Lawrence Tibbett, recorded in 1933. (By the purest coincidence, tomorrow also happens to be Gruenberg’s birthday.)
“The Emperor Jones,” written in 1920, could be a potentially sensitive subject in a more politically correct era. No doubt about it, O’Neill’s tragedy is a product of its time, with plenty of minstrel show dialect, and the uncomfortable use of the N-word.
Already in 1924, Sidney Gilpin, the actor who created Brutus Jones, hedged at playing the character in its first revival, unless O’Neill first changed what he perceived as some of the more offensive passages. O’Neill stood his ground, and Gilpin’s replacement, Paul Robeson, went on to international stardom.
It’s easy to write-off “The Emperor Jones” as an embarrassing relic. Yet there have been some high-profile stagings over the past few years which demonstrate that the play still has much to tell us.
Jones is a former railroad porter and convict, who kills a guard in his escape from prison, and through bluff and bravado establishes himself as emperor of a Caribbean island. He maintains his power through cruelty and exploitation. However, he overplays his hand, and the situation quickly erodes. As his subjects rise up against him, Jones retreats into the jungle and descends into primal fear, haunted by images of his victims.
The play not only parallels some of the themes of “Macbeth,” it also demonstrates the fragility of human reason; how easily under the influence of adrenaline, brought on by raw terror, man is undone by the animal impulses of fight or flight; the psychological impact of guilt; and an insight into tyranny which was remarkably prescient given that fascism would soon overtake Europe.
I don’t know why it never occurred to me before to juxtapose the two plays, but a quick Google search reveals that I am not the first, so there goes my dream of an honorary doctorate.
Also on the show will be selections from rarely-heard incidental music written for two productions of “Macbeth,” by William Walton (for John Gielgud) and Sir Arthur Sullivan (for Henry Irving), respectively.
Power corrupts, on “Power Plays,” this Sunday night at 10 ET, with a repeat Friday morning at 3. Remember, you can also catch it later as a webcast, at http://www.wwfm.org.
PHOTOS: Gielgud as Macbeth (left) and Tibbett as Brutus Jones
