New Plays on Broadway
The Devil's Advocate asks the largest questions raised on Broadway this season—thelargest questions, whether of Catholic theology or of living in theworld, that man can ask. The play begins with a dying man sent off toask questions about a dead one: a cancer-ridden English monsignor atthe Vatican journeys to a mountain town in Calabria to serve as devil'sadvocate in the matter of a possible canonization. He is toinvestigate—in terms of his role, as critically as possible—thequalifications for sainthood of "Giacomo Nerone,'' an EnglishWorld War II deserter who, before being executed by the Communists, hadperformed many great services, and possibly miracles, for thetownspeople.
A cold man who amid ecclesiastical tasks had felt little human emotion,the monsignor, turned detective about the dead, runs full tilt uponlove and hate, good and evil, in the living. Encountered in hisinvestigations are a humanely skeptical Jewish doctor, a peasant womanwho was Nerone's adoring mistress, their illegitimate teen-aged son,and a nymphomaniac contessa who clashes with a bitter homosexualpainter over the boy. Watching past and present collide, seeingmartyrdom cheek by jowl with betrayal and murder with suicide, themonsignor—before his own death—becomes a more troubled man of God andaware shepherd of men, as absorbed in the plight of sinners as in thecredentials of saints.
A good many of the play's individual scenes—some of them flashbacksthat put Nerone on the stage—have dramatic color and impact; severalperformances—Sam Levene's as the doctor, Leo Genn's as themonsignor—are striking. But though its theological concerns oftenacquire theatrical force, The Devil's Advocate seems discrete andunfocused in the theater.
Once again a novel's scalpel has been dulled, a dramatization has too much settled for meredrama. It is not simply that ethics have been a bit smothered intheatrics — though the production seems often needlessly stagy; it isequally that the edges have half obscured the center. For the colorfulsecondary characters to keep their full size, the chief ones — themonsignor and Nerone — must dwindle; indeed the meant-to-be ChristlikeNerone never really takes shape.
As a result the play contains all the requisite moral compass pointsbut, in an artistic sense, no needle pointing north; provides a largeand picturesque altarpiece but without a dominating central panel.
Doubtless to dramatize its large questions, the story needs its largecast; but on the stage, the more it does with the one the less it cando with the other. Yet to keep close to the center, to what themonsignor learned about Nerone and about himself, would mean beinginvolved with mystical matters and inward ones, things hard for thestage to bring off. The play, as it stands, is high-purposed and ratherhigh-pitched, is vivid and at the same time ill-harmonized.
Mary, Mary is bright with wit, as becomes the author ofPlease Don't Eat the Daisies. Moreover, it is wit with an engaginglyfriendly appeal that, without raising blushes or leaving scars, neatlyjabs mankind and woman kind, husbands and wives, bigwigs and nitwits,Hollywood and Broadway — and not least, ladies who can be too wittyfor their own good. The heroine of Mrs. Kerr's otherwise pretty standard comedy is just such a girl, which ispartly why the girl and her publisher husband are getting divorced. Hehas constantly worried about himself and she has constantly crackedwise about the worrying. But her frankness and his funk prove to bechildren of one mother—insecurity.
Though the husband is about to remarry, the play's outcome is obviousthe minute his fiancee appears as a humorless devotee of health foods.Otherwise, the wife's admirer—an attractive movie actor —might, withhis light and civilized personality, seem a serious and desirablethreat. But, with two wives behind him, he is no longer the marryingkind; the husband and wife were never the divorcing kind; and Mary,Mary is not of a reverse-the-engines kind. As playwriting, Mrs. Kerr's originality lies in decor rather than design; as comments onlife, her criticisms are lodged in her witticisms.
But her playwriting. fortified by a sound production, is smooth enough.Under Joseph Anthony's deft staging, a good cast, in which Barbara BelGeddes as the wife and Michael Rennie as the actor particularly shine,outskates the thin ice of the narrative. If a drawback exists, it isthe too thick icing of the bons mots. Playwright Kerr has a knack forscene writing but tends to let psychological Truth and Consequencesturn into verbal pingpong.
She needs to curb somewhat a gift that most people sweat to acquire;meanwhile, Mary, Mary is very often funny and always likable.
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