The Public Arts: Broadcast

Erik Barnouw has written a clear, sympathetically critical book on Mass Communication: Its History and Its Practice in the United States (Rinehart, $3.95). I have edited a pre-publication sampler of the book called "Our Supermarket Culture: Erik Barnouw's Theory of Mass Communication" for the special Radio-TV issue of Scholastic Teacher (October 4, 1956). In the same issue you will be interested in Robert Saudek's discussion of "Omnibus' " plans for the new season.

This important cultural program now originates from ABC-TV, Sundays, 9:00-10:30 p.m. The producers have engaged Leonard Bernstein, Agnes DeMille, Bert Lahr, and Christopher Plummer each to do three programs in his own specialty. The big news this month, of course, is Maurice Evans' production of George Bernard Shaw's "Man and Superman" on Hallmark Hall of Fame, NBC-TV, Sunday, November 25, 9:00-10:30 p.m. Henry B. Maloney of Cooley High, Detroit, has written a "Teleguide" for the play, appearing in the issue of Scholastic Teacher cited above; Maloney also has a longer piece on the play in November Clearing House.

With these guides as background, you should be able to organize a "Shaw Festival" around this telecast that will bring home dramatically to your students Shaw's place in the development of English letters. There is a great deal of material in magazines because of the centennial flurry of Shaw on Broad- way this season: Siobhan McKenna's St. Joan (Penguin, 500); the fabulous success of "My Fair Lady" (Columbia LP, OL 5090) based on Pygmalion (Penguin, 500--ask for the new edition with comments on the musical); and Maurice Evans' production of The Apple Cart. Man and Superman is also available in Penguin paperback; and, of course, Paul Gregory's First Drama Quartette (Charles Boyer, Charles Laughton, Cedric Hardwicke, and Agnes Moorehead) have recorded the "Don Juan in Hell" section of Man and Superman (Columbia LP, 2-12" SL-166).

Since this section will undoubtedly be severely cut from the TV version, it might be a good idea to follow your assignment of outside viewing of the TV play with classroom listening to "Don Juan in Hell." For the intellectually curious, there is the special GBS issue of the Saturday Review. It will be a long time before we will have such opportunities to teach Shaw; the fact that this is the Shaw Centennial year should justify breaking through strict curriculum 506 THE ENGLISH JOURNAL provisions to give a few weeks' attention to Shaw.