Ill Bloweth the Zephyr

The East Wind. There are some evenings in the theater when no vestige of dramatic joy can be scented, tasted, felt, seen or heard. Manhattan's Lincoln Center Repertory Theater has provided far more than its foul share of such evenings. East Wind, by a 41-year-old Polish expatriate, Leo Lehman, is a mighty ill zephyr that further solidifies the company's reputation as the home of seasoned failures.

The plot, or what there is of it, concerns a malingering suicide. In Act I, he botches the job with a rope thick enough to tie up an ocean liner. In Act II, he simmers down to melancholy and despair, possibly induced by the "death of God" he keeps talking about, or by revisiting the Central European town from which he had fled as a refugee, or by both. In Act III, he finally hangs himself on a meat hook in the back kitchen of his London delicatessen. The prevailing lack of cheer is not noticeably alleviated by the play's billing as "a new comedy."

One measure of poor playwriting that can be applied to dramas like East Wind is the liquidity test. Every superfluous drink the characters sip and guzzle is a time-killing, plot-evading device for shuffling people around a stage. In East Wind the characters down pots and pots of tea with lager chasers, and it takes very steady nerves just to watch it. In the leading role, George Voskovec acts well above and beyond the call of duty. Considering the quality of the play, his reluctance to commit suicide is a marvel of forbearance.

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