New Play in Manhattan

The Comic Artist (by Susan Glaspell & Norman Matson; Arthur J. Beckhard, producer) has been under various play doctors' care since 1927, when Mr. & Mrs. Matson first wrote it. Its ills are still uncured. To begin with, the play is not named after the central character of the piece. Central character is Stephen Rolf, a prolix worthy who lives and paints on Cape Cod and goes about in a windbreaker. His brother, sensitive Karl, is the cartoonist of the family, having created a comic strip character named "Muggs," who always is defeated in the last picture.

Stephen (Richard Hale) is leading a comfortable life with his stolid, attentive wife (Blanche Yurka ) when Karl and his bride come to visit. The bride (svelte Lora Baxter) has previously been Stephen's mistress in Paris.

The embarrassed handling which Playwright Glaspell and her husband give this houseful of agitated folk is typical of much of Miss Glaspell's previous dramatic writing. Action and conversation are carried on by a monotonous series of dialogs. Except for two moments--the scene in which Stephen and his onetime girl embrace, and the finale in which Stephen and his wife decide to carry on together--the spectator finds himself wondering just how two more actors can be maneuvered in when the present pair dismiss themselves. Somehow, like Noah marshaling his animals in the Ark, the authors manage to turn the trick, but not always neatly.

The Comic Artist contains a good deal of excellent prose in its dialog, expresses not a few credible convictions, is honest if somewhat unprofessional. Most reviewers left it with justification for harsh criticism, but without the heart to administer it.

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