The Dark is Light Enough

by Christopher Fry

Christopher Fry, Christopher Fry, Dramatists Play Service, Inc. light 72 1998-01 English United States, Drama, Literature & Fiction, 0822202727 9780822202721 Paperback List 8.00 USD

Genres: Plays

72 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1954

Reviews

[Cecilia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this play. It was smart and witty with likable (and enjoyably unlikable) characters saying smart snappy things to each other while in terrible situations which seem to have not way of producing a winning outcome.

Set during an Hungarian insurgency against Austria in the winter for 1848-49, Fry describes this as a "winter comedy" touching on the issues, of war, nationalism, allegiance, desertion, bravery and cowardice, loyalty, love, requited and otherwise, frivolous and deserving nobility, passivism, and death.

"The argument, philosophy, wit, and eloquence were all in the light of this end we come to. Without it there would have been very little to mention except the weather. Protect me from a body without death. Such indignity would be outcast, like a rock in the sea. But with death, it can hold more than time gives it, or the earth shows it. I can bear to think of this; I can bear to be this, Jakob, so long as it bears me."

[Stuart · Rating 5 out of 5]

This beautiful, lyrical play is one of Fry's best- a meditation on honor, love, bravery and regret. Each of the principal characters is well-drawn and complex, with some well sketched secondary figures providing a sense of the manor house's society, the invading Hungarian army, etc. It's almost like a darker, more dramatic ARMS AND THE MAN but while it might lack Shaw's wit it makes up for in pathos and moments of genuine, joyful humor scattered throughout, increasing the ultimate impact when the heroine, weakened by cold and strain and implied heart failure, makes her last stand, a female Cyrano filled with panache and charisma right to the end.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in 1954, about the Austro-Hungarian Empire, The Light is Dark Enough provides a commentary on the sometimes tenebrous nature of love, loyalty, and convictions for king and country.