New Play in Manhattan

The First Gentleman, also known as the Prince Regent and George IV of England, is shown chiefly as a father in Norman Ginsbury's period piece. For two acts the rakish, selfish, stylish Regent insists that Princess Charlotte marry the Prince of Orange, before giving her the Prince Leopold she loves. There are gaudy family scenes--the best one between an unhappy, runaway Charlotte and her unhappier, cast-aside mother--preceding Charlotte's death in childbed at 21.

All this, with handsome Ralph Alswang sets and superb Motley costumes, has a fine storybook air, but no vibration as story. Nor is showing this hopeless family man for a few years among his family very rewarding. Too much slighted is the George who was not always fat and fatuous, the sometime companion of Sheridan and Fox who adorned as well as tarnished a picturesque society. His maudlin lament, after Charlotte's death, that he can father no royal line, seems both needless and out of character in the father of Regent Street and Regent's Park, the Brighton Pavilion and Waterloo Place.

The writing has neither period gloss nor better-than-period glitter, and Tyrone Guthrie's staging shows best in small touches. As long as the title role keeps to a bright musicomedy level, with the Regent preening himself, or riding a rocking-horse, or struggling with his stays, Walter Slezak's Regent has all Walter Slezak's mischievous charm. But, for all Actor Slezak's avoirdupois, the characterization lacks body because of the writing. With its famous characters and historic occasions, the play is fun enough to look at, but wearisome to listen to.

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