A Review of J.B. Priestley's "An Inspector Calls"

“An Inspector Calls,” by J.B. Priestley, directed by Stephen Delay, part of the 2018-1019 repertoire of the Shakespeare Theater in Washington D.C., was an enjoyable theatrical experience. The play was once a war horse that galloped across the world’s stages after its premiere—in The Soviet Union no less—in 1945. Why beat a near-dead horse? I’m not completely sure, but I'm grateful that the director chose to revive it—There is obviously life in the old steed yet.

It is a didactic play, true, but quite an innovative and entertaining one, nevertheless.  We know where Priestley’s sympathies lie as the unrepentant capitalist, Mr. Birling, says the following lines at the beginning of the play: "The way some of these cranks talk and write now, you'd think everybody has to look after everyone else, as if we were all mixed up together like bees in a hive--community and all that nonsense." Priestley, like the best of us in every generation, was undoubtedly one of those "cranks". 

"Love yourself and cheat your neighbor," a travesty of The Golden Rule, is still the unspoken mantra of many, 73 years after the play was written. Thus this idea play has still alas! a very contemporary message.

The mise-en-scene is quite impressive. The stage presents a large Victorian house on shaky foundations. The house reminded me of models on a train-set board lovingly erected by my father every Christmas when I was a kid. Its doll-house-like proportions in this production affords a view only of a dining room table around which the wealthy family gathers to celebrate the engagement of Birling's daughter to a younger version of himself, a promising little Koch, expected to exploit for years to come, expected to play dirty with a pristine conscience in the vacuous spirit of his soon-to-be father-in-law.

In the first scene, after the house opens into two equal wings, we find the family seated around a dining room table. The cramped space symbolizes the cramped spiritual life of the inhabitants.

Then the inspector calls, a police inspector named Goole, no less.  A young woman has poisoned herself with disinfectant, symbolizing the moral filth of the upper class members who are, as we shall see, responsible for her death. The family asks the inspector what the young girl’s death has to do with them?  Apparently plenty.

Each family member discovers during the course of the play that their consciences are as diaphanously clear as a pile of Newcastle coal. They killed her as assuredly as the measles virus killed countless numbers of Indians during the Spanish conquest of South America. The virus in this case is that murderously infectious vector of the upper class, namely, exploitation of the poor. (The patriarch fired her because she wanted an increase in wages; his wife had her fired from her subsequent employment for a frivolous reason; the fiancé abused her sexually; Birling's son impregnates her; the matriarch refuses to help her  because she had become “a fallen woman.”

It is a bit too much; the author wants to demonstrate that most members of the upper class are guilty, a defensible position that comes across dramatically as an ineffective exaggeration. That’s not all: the reason she approaches the matriarch for help is that the latter's impecunious son has been stealing from his father in order to support her. The young girl is just too pure to accept stolen money—Oh, brother!

It reminds me of a wonderful, unintended Zen moment from a Marx Brothers film, A Night at the Opera. The bad guy is beating some poor schlep. Groucho stops him with the following words, “Hey, you big bully, why are you picking on that little bully?”

We’re all bullies; nobody’s innocent. What makes one bully a little one is simply due to a lack of power. That the oppressed young girl, born with mud in her mouth while the others eat off a silver spoon, is the only one in the entire play who is as innocent as a canary in coal mine, strikes us as being gratuitously and undramatically ideological. In real life she would most likely be less concerned with the means rather than with the end, namely, survival. Who could blame her? J.B. Priestley perhaps.Truth is, we are all guilty, but the powerful are a good deal more guilty than the powerless “little bullies”; the former alone have the means to be really mean.

In this age of gross inequality, however, Priestley's assessment of society is more apropos than ever. 

It is difficult to read the newspapers these days without getting depressed. To get myself out of the pit into which the world’s abuses have thrown me, I’ve read some of the books by Steven Pinsker, who claims that the world is getting better, and provides convincing charts to prove it. One need only think of the many programs that combat inequality which Great Britain has promulgated in the years since An Inspector Calls was written. Still… 

The arc of justice may eventually lead to a pot of gold--but does it have to be so long; does it have to pass over such desperate landscapes in order to reach its happy goal?

A metaphor taken from physics consoles. According to a theory, there was  an equal amount of matter and antimatter at the time of creation. Each category annihilated the other. A small amount of matter, which comprises our entire cosmos today, remained, since it took more time to turn into matter and thus escaped destruction.This might be a good metaphor for human history. In each generation, evil and good are present in almost equal amounts; however, in each generation, after much suffering and destruction, a small amount of good prevails.

Thus, in every generation “matter” inspectors visit and, with a message of “Love your neighbor” examine our consciences and inspire us to do better. Yet every generation receives visits, in almost equal measure, from antimatter inspectors whose message is “Gold loves you just the way you are.” According to Pinsker and his convincing charts, the good inspectors predominate, if ever so slightly.

In this view, genesis occurs with every generation anew. This is why the family members, after discovering that the inspector was a phantom, revert to their greedy ways. The only ones who have “learned their lesson”, the bride and her brother, are the surviving elements of “matter," the unannihilated remnant of good which will make the next generation better. Hope for the future? Perhaps.

Then comes Priestley’s theatrical surprise. There is an inspector after all, and he will call on the family shortly. Everyone, a new generation of the same characters,  will have to confront their antimatter again—a profound message presented with a theatrical tour de force.

The acting and directing were superb. Kudus to Shakespeare Theater for reviving this interesting play!

R.I.P. Vimala Arjun (1930-2018)

Today, December 10, 2018, we got a call at 4:14 a.m. We knew what it was about. My sister-in-law, Vimala Arjun, passed away in Chennai, India.We had talked with her daughter, Vidya, on the evening of December 9^th. Vimala’s skin had become mottled. I asked if her extremities were cold; they were. She was having excess mucus in her throat and had difficulty breathing. These are all signs of impending death. We advised against tube feeding; Just keep her comfortable, we said; no need to try to feed her if she is unable to eat; just keep her lips moist, etc.

It was not an easy death. She had been struggling against the inevitable for months. Vimala’s mind was sharp until the very end. For instance, she knew when my birthday was (Oct. 9^th) and had her daughter call me this year so she could wish me a happy birthday. This was yet another example of her phenomenal memory, since I am an in-law, one of many relatives in a large family and a large circle of friends and acquaintances. Even toward the end, when her speech became slurred, her mentation had not lost its vigor.

Her body had not been as lucky. She was crippled by scoliosis and severe kyphosis. Her back was so bent that she could hardly walk; she was confined to her flat for the last few years of her life. We called her frequently; she never complained, and always gave us news about close and distant relatives, and news about the successes of past students as well. (Vimala had been a professor of English literature and department head at Ethiraj College in Chennai for many years).

My first memory of Vimala occurred before I had met her. My wife Nirmala and I, both pediatric residents in New York City, were in a relationship, which led to marriage after a two year courtship, in 1974. I remember thinking at the time that Nirmala had a sister who was so old—42! I can’t image what twenty-somethings must think of me now that I’ve become over thirty years older than Vimala was then! O yes I can.

After our residency, we traveled to India as a newly married couple. It was my first of many visits; Nirmala hadn’t been home for about five years. At that time, Vimala’s husband, Krishnarjun, was working for the Reserve Bank of India; they lived in a flat in a compound of flats for bank employees in Kilpauk, Madras—the city hadn’t been renamed Chennai yet. When we entered the flat, we had become, as it were, gods. Vimala had us sit at the center of the living room; she placed a mala, a garland of bright orange flowers around each of our necks. Two large valukkus, ceremonial lamps, had been lit. The bowls of the lamps, filled with oil, had places for several cotton wicks. While we sat on the floor, bathed in a warm glow from the valukku fire, our ears were full filled with carnatic, that is, classical South Indian religious music. It was an unforgettable experience.

Vimala, by the way, had musical talent. She was studying singing before her father’s unexpected death, in 1950, changed everything. I heard her sing a few times; she had a very sweet voice and always sang on key. I fondly recall discussing carnatic music on several occasions with her.

2. From Roshen To Vidya

The next day we had another unforgettable experience, a far less pleasant one. Vimala’s daughter, Roshen, (like Madras, she had not been renamed yet either—she is now called Vidya), had been riding around the compound courtyard on a bike. Vimala came to the courtyard soon after, begging Roshen to stop. Roshen, unfortunately had a severe form of heart disease. Nirmala and I noticed that she was very much out of breath after a few laps around the courtyard. Her lips had turned blue; her fingertips had turned blue as well.

Vimala, by far the most traditionally religious person of the family, had consulted a guru who advised her to change Roshen’s name. Nirmala had chosen Roshen as a name for her niece; Vidya, which means wisdom, however, is a lovely name, no doubt about that. I will call her by that name from now on.

Vidya had had a test a few years earlier to determine the nature of her cardiac disease. The procedure, called a cardiac catheterization, entailed the injection of an iodine-based dye into her blood stream, so that her vessels could be better visualized on X-ray. Vidya, however, suffered a near-fatal allergic reaction to the dye and the procedure had to be aborted. Only a partial video was available. This study was sent to the famous cardiologist, Dr. DeBakey, in Texas. He reported that she most likely had a diagnosis called transposition of the great vessels; he believed that the condition was now inoperable. There was nothing to do but await the inevitable.

Nirmala and I weren’t ready to accept this devastating news; perhaps something could be done. When we returned to the United States, Nirmala contacted cardiologists at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, where Nirmala worked as a pediatrician. She came into contact with a young cardiac surgeon there, whose name was Dr. Griepp. He reviewed the study, which we had brought along with us. He told us that the diagnosis was not transposition, bur a condition called tetralogy of Fallot. (His diagnosis, by the way, proved to be the correct one). He believed an operation could save her, and was willing to do it for free!  Those were the days—such largesse would be impossible today!

Nirmala and I were very pleased—as was Vimala, when we informed her. It was in the fall of 1977 when Vidya and her mother arrived in New York.  An aside: when we left the airport, Vimala noticed a billboard advertisement for drumsticks.”They have drumsticks here!” the vegetarian Vimala beamed. East is East and West is West, I thought, amused, for in India a drumstick is a yummy-gummy  vegetable, very different from the disembodied thigh of a dead bird!

The operation was a complete success! Helping to arrange for Vidya’s surgery was one of the three best things I’ve ever done. The first was marrying Nirmala, the second was adopting our son, Philip. The real hero of all this is, of course, Dr. Griepp, without whose help Vidya would not be alive today, nor would her lovely daughter, Shrada, a psychologist, ever have been born.

3. The Demise of the Family Matriarch

Vimala lived for over thirty years post retirement; her mind, as mentioned previously, remained sharp until the very end. But her last few months were difficult. It made me think of the poem Heinrich Heine wrote on this deathbed, the last stanza of which, in my translation, follows:

You wring your lovely hands so sadly.

O be consoled! It is our fate,

Our human fate, what’s good and great

And lovely ends—and ends badly.

Vimala’s eldest daughter, Sudha, did a fantastic job caring for her mother. She lived with her, slept with her, and did everything she could to ease her suffering. Vidya, of course, was a significant presence as well.

Vidya, who was with her when she died, reports that Vimala, propped up so that gravity could help her with the secretions that had gathered in her throat as she died, suddenly and very quietly simply stopped breathing. This reminded me of a poem by Emily Dickinson, The Last Night She Lived, perhaps the best poem about dying ever written. Here is how it ends:

She mentioned, and forgot—

Then lightly as a Reed

Bent to the Water, struggled scarce—

Consented, and was dead—

And we—We placed the Hair,

And drew the Head erect—

And then an awful leisure was—

Belief to regulate.

Nirmala and I have begun this process of belief-regulation through daily meditations. During one of these sessions, I “saw” Vimala, as it were, and asked her if death had changed any of her views of life. She smiled and “answered” me. “Before I had many views, some correct, some incorrect; now I have all views. You cannot imagine the peace I have now.”

I told this to Vidya, who had had a similar experience. Vimala had become the world; she informed us that there was no reason to mourn; but mourn we will.

Vimala leaves behind two daughters and two grandchildren, Shrada and Varun; her brother, Rajagopalan, and two sisters, my wife Nirmala and Romila, and a host of other relatives and friends, too numerous to mention.

Her passing and the experiences Vidya and I had afterward, remind me of a poem I had written years earlier, after her wonderful mother, Bhagirathy, died in 1994:

Last Words

Dear ones, now that I am gone,

Do not shed another tear;

Why grieve for one beyond harm?

Children, there’s no sorrow here.

There, at the moment of death,

Pain is what I left, not love:

The mother you knew on earth

Has become Mother above.

Where have I gone? Look and learn

From the silent sky: now (do

Not believe I’m in an urn,

Dears!) from the stars I greet you.

R.I.P. Vimala Arjun, you shall be missed.