In the Light of Day

The Irish playwright is frequently the archaeologist of the family of man. When he brings parents and children on stage, fossilized feelings, ancient troubles between man and wife, oedipal conflicts, all are brought to light without mercy.

In the tradition of O'Casey and O'Neill, Playwright Frank Gilroy explored his own origins in the bleak, painfully honest drama, The Subject Was Roses. This highly successful film version shows why it was both a popular and a critical success on Broadway and why it went on to win the 1965 Pulitzer Prize. Though Gilroy's craftsmanship is maladroit, he has a musician's ear for the lilt and scrape of Irish-American dialogue, and an unblinking eye that sees his characters whole, in the light of common day.

In that modest illumination, John Cleary (Jack Albertson) and his wife Nettie (Patricia Neal) welcome home their son Timmy (Martin Sheen) from World War II. Ostensibly the occasion is a celebration. But beneath the boozy jubilation rages another war--one between a mother and father for the possession of their boy.

In the teetering skirmish, each side uses its leverage to unbalance Timmy. His mother is wounded by his sudden indifference to her demands. His father, who no longer enters his wife's bed, becomes a figure of sputtering frustration, visiting "hotel-lobby whores" and cursing what he loves. His incessant fulminations undo him; he wastes his thunder on minor disappointments, and he is empty when he gets the truly bad news that Timmy has abandoned the church.

Author Gilroy clearly identifies with Timmy, but he does not endow him with heroism, nor does he stain the parents with villainy. Nettie can tryannize one moment and pathetically beg $5 house money in the next. John cuffs his son as if he were a schoolboy, but in the end he helps him make the only correct decision--to leave the vortex of rivalry before he gets swept up in its forces and destroyed.

The performances by Albertson and Sheen are transferred from Broadway with every nuance intact. As the mother, Patricia Neal makes her first appearance in films since her paralytic stroke in 1965. It would be worth waiting a decade for. She retains her vast resources of energy and intelligence. Yet she has altered in appearance and style. Her face is still lovely, but it has assumed a melancholy dignity, no longer fresh, but not quite old, like a fine linen tablecloth preserved for special occasions. Her acting is neither shrewd underplaying nor is it larger than life; it is exactly life-sized. She no longer indicates suffering, she defines it.

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