By ROBERT GARLAND

Last night, in the Martin Beck Theatre and under the personal supervision of no less an organization than the Theatre Guild, Eugene O’Neill shook his fist at God and blew kisses in the general direction of Electricity.  Each of the gestures seemed a wee bit childish.

In a lengthy and lugubrious letter to George Jean Nathan, Mr. O’Neill’s father confessor, the author of “Dynamo” – for such is the piece’s name – points out that his latest invention is “a symbolic and factual biography of what is happening in a large section of the American soul,” a sort of dialogic picturization of what is supposed to be going on in the innermost sanctuary of Tom, Dick and Harry. 

What is more, it is the first play of a trilogy in which Provincetown’s pet playwright promises to “dig at the roots of the sickness of today” as he himself feels it, a sickness brought about by the “death of an old God and the failure of science and materialism to give any satisfying new one for the surviving primitive religious instinct to find a meaning for life in” – if you know what Mr. O’Neill means.

We moderns, it seems, are groping, groping for something with which to “comfort our fears of death.”  In an effort to relieve our alleged anxiety, Mr. O’Neill is in process of bringing forth the trilogy of which I have written.  It is a trilogy which will eventually include last night’s “Dynamo,” tomorrow’s “Without Ending of Days” and next week’s “It Cannot be Mad.”  After “It Cannot be Mad” everything will be dandy.

When the curtain rises at the Martin Beck Theatre you see the open faced houses of the Lights and the Fifes.  The Lights, quaint creatures, believe in the manly God of their fathers.  The Fifes, supposedly atheistic, believe in a female god known as Electricity.  

Talk, rather than complications, ensues.  Mr. Light, a clergyman, hymns the praises of his own particular deity.  Mr. Fife, an electrician, hymns the praises of his own particular deity.  Mr. Light’s God is a god above all other gods.  Mr. Fife’s god is a god above all other gods.  Mr. Light’s family agrees with Mr. Light.  Mr. Fife’s family agrees with Mr. Fife.  And so it goes.

So it goes for two acts out of three.  Nothing crops up that the intelligent schoolboy of eighteen, nineteen or twenty has not figured out for himself.  Nothing crops up that is either interesting or new.  Nothing crops up that your nephew at Exeter would not settle by asking “What difference does it make whether you speak of God as God, Electricity, The First Cause, Big Boy or Dynamo?”

And as it goes, Mr. Light’s wayward son loves Mr. Fife’s wayward daughter.  But, before he gets himself beautifully burned on Lee Simonson’s artificial dynamo, Mr. Light’s wayward son prays “Our father which are in power houses.”  And before she gets herself beautifully shot on Lee Simonson’s artificial platform, Mr. Fife’s wayward daughter has a pretty tough time.

Perhaps you get the impression that Mr. O’Neill’s “Dynamo” irks me.  It does.  It seems so self-consciously profound, so Provincetownian, so phony, so remarkably like the Oh-the Pity-Of-It sketch in “This Year of Grace” at the Selwyn.

But for the production which the Theatre Guild has give it I have nothing short of praise.  Mr. Simonson’s settings are both imaginative and helpful.  Even a great American playwright should be thankful for them.  And Philip Moeller’s direction is skillful.  So skillful is it, so fortissimo with good spots, so piano with the poor, that Mr. Moeller’s mind would be interesting to read.

And the acting is canny and worth while.  As Mr. Light’s wayward son, Glenn Anders could scarcely be improved upon.  Any member of the actors’ union who can fall down on his knees and worship a paint-and-canvas hydro-electric plan and keep his face straight is not to be belittled.  In years and years of theatergoing the stage has known no finer fool.

As the God-fearing parson’s bride, Helen Wesley is herself again.  As Ramsay Fife, whose goddess is Electricity, Dudley Digges is well rounded and secure.  As Mr. Fife’s wayward daughter, Claudette Colbert depends no longer on her legs.  As Mr. Fife’s missus, Catherine Calhoun Doucet sings “I’d love To Be a Dynamo” without smiling . . . To my mind, “Dynamo is merely Tom Paine’s “Age of Reason” in not too modern dress.  Only the late lamented Mr. Pain had a sense of humor.