New Play in Manhattan

Common Ground (by Edward Chodorov; produced by Edward Choate). Playwright Chodorov is of value to the theater these days less for his gifts than for his guts. Knowing where reaction, repression and prejudice have led and can again lead the world, he exposes them with blunt, even brutal, words. Last season, in Decision, he slugged away at the menace of home-front fascism. In Common Ground he tests (a little late) the democratic spirit in the grip of Axis power. Democracy comes off better than the play.

Common Ground is about some U.S.O. entertainers captured by the enemy just before the liberation of Naples. The melting-pot troupe (Jewish comedian, Italian-born vaudevillian, Hollywood actor of German descent, etc.) faces a cold-blooded Nazi colonel who orders the Jew to a concentration camp, gives the others the choice between trouping as Axis propagandists or being shot. Each vacillates, rationalizes, wrestles with his conscience; all, in the end, choose to die. Their decision is also a retort: by their love of democracy and hatred of oppression, Americans of diverse backgrounds do share a common ground.

Common Ground is not glib in its affirmation of democratic faith. But it is too wordy and preachy. Under the sentimental pressure of its death-v.-dishonor plot, its tough, realistic tone slowly melts away. Anger rather than ardor makes Playwright Chodorov vibrant. His highly charged first act really gets under your skin. Thereafter, Common Ground strikes forcibly only upon the ear.

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