Black Comedy

"One thing I can assure you," said Novelist-Playwright Graham Greene two years ago. "There will be no miracles in my next play." To the evident delight of first-nighters at London's Globe Theater last week, Roman Catholic Author Greene proved as good as his word. The Complaisant Lover, in a sparkling production directed by Sir John Gielgud, flaunted none of the theologizing that pervades The Living Room and The Potting Shed; not once were sin and grace wheeled explicitly into battle during a soul's dark night. Instead, Greene's latest is a secular "black comedy" moving from glossy front-room comedy to boudoir farce to the tender pathology of love.

Not that the old themes are entirely absent--but they must be read between the lines. Hypotenuse in Playwright Greene's triangle is stolid, sluggish Dentist Victor Rhodes (Sir Ralph Richardson), whose single-minded concern for teeth drives his wife Mary (Phyllis Calvert) into a shabby affair with a frustrated bookseller, Clive Root (Paul Scofield). In a scene of Congrevous farce, the lovers are caught by Rhodes, but con their way to freedom. Eventually, Rhodes learns the truth, and Greene suddenly, boldly reveals the decent clod beneath a fool's veneer. Unable to live without his wife, he shamelessly offers to share her with the bookseller. At play's end, Mary and Clive prepare for a cold assignation in shabby rooms, already fearing that she will inevitably and finally escape to .the warming boredom of her husband. The question: Are the lovers more guilty than the complacent cuckold? Wittily, wisely, Greene gives no clear answer.

Author Greene considers The Complaisant Lover his best play, and the London critics--who were not notably stirred by his earlier stage tries--agreed enthusiastically. Amid the general applause, a minority of Greene fans hoped that he would not give up religious themes for good; quite a few playwrights have successfully written about manners and immorals, but few nowadays even attempt to deal with miracles.

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