Old Play in Manhattan

THE THEATER

John Bull's Other Island (by Bernard Shaw; produced by Richard Aldrich & Richard Myers, in association with Brian Doherty) gave Broadway its first view of Dublin's Gate Theatre. Founded 20 years ago by Actors Hilton Edwards and Micheal MacLiammoir, who are still its heads and headliners, the Gate has grown more popular in Dublin as the once-great Abbey Theatre has grown less so. Though in Manhattan it will offer only Irish plays, in Dublin (unlike the Abbey) it features foreign ones; it has produced the works of O'Neill, Maxwell Anderson, Kaufman & Hart, engaged such U.S. actors as Burgess Meredith and Orson Welles.

Though 44 years old, John Bull was also virtually new to Broadway, having been 43 years absent. On the whole, it seemed less rusty from time than the Gate seemed dusty from travel. Shaw's two-way joke about England and Ireland can get devilishly talky and even downright tedious. But certainly at its best John Butt is still impressive; whereas even at its best the Gate seems merely competent.

The play is chiefly impressive for its perfectly friendly, utterly deadly knowledge of both the English and the Irish. Leaping in two directions, Shaw spares no one, stops at nothing. But his fireworks sometimes shed new light, and his paradoxes sometimes prove very sound perceptions. Least of all does John Bull spare Larry Doyle, the Irishman who, like Shaw, has turned English, sees clearly what's wrong with both countries, and is not very happy in either.

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