Sex as Punishment

Under the Weather. Saul Bellow, novelist (Herzog) and would-be playwright, cannot seem to decide whether women are a pain in the neck, a pain in the groin, or a pain in the psyche. In these three one-acters, the relations between the sexes appear more punishing than pleasurable, something men and women endure rather than relish.

In the first playlet. Out from Under, a middle-aged widower with sex-battle fatigue gets himself pinned under a car rather than drive off to announce his engagement to a high-pitched emotional amazon. In The Wen, a distinguished atomic physicist yearns to re-enter the love playpen of childhood. He scouts out a now-stout married member of Hadassah and begs her to let him view again a most intimate mole, in hopes of recovering the lost ecstasy of that first exposure to sexuality. What is ludicrous about this effaces what is poignant. The third and most effectively comic playlet, Orange Souffle pits a "Polack whore" against her monthly client, an 88-year-old tycoon: she is hurt that he fails to recognize her social graces.

Bellow's lines are sometimes witty, always literate and frequently laced with Jewish humor, but one can never be sure whether he is spoofing the language of pop-psych or employing it. He is not earthy enough to be bawdy, so his scenes and situations register as leeringly risque rather than forthrightly bold. Shelley Winters and Harry Towb do unerringly professional acting jobs, but Bellow has yet to learn that language is not the master of the stage but simply a fuse to ignite dramatic action.

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