And Slow to Bed

By T. E. K.

SAME TIME, NEXT YEAR

by BERNARD SLADE

The play begins in bed as dawn lights up a snug hostelry called the Sea Shadows Inn. The time is 1951. Doris (Ellen Burstyn) and George (Charles Grodin), strangers less than 24 hours ago, have taken their first jittery plunge into adultery. He had aroused her libido the evening before by sending a steak over to her table.

Doris is a 24-year-old Roman Catholic who is accompanying a group of nuns on a retreat. George is a certified public accountant (almost a religion to him) en route to working on a friend's income tax. She seems exhilarated, though considerably perturbed, while he quivers with guilt as he pulls on his trousers. They are much too decent to sustain an illicit affair and too happily married (or so they frequently and wholeheartedly insist) even to contemplate divorce. They do agree, however, to meet "same time, next year"--same bed--sort of like an annual college reunion.

Once one accepts this arbitrary and highly implausible premise, the play sails along on a tide of felicitous gags and domestic ups and downs reported at one remove. Doris and George swap spouse stories instead of spouses. Meanwhile, over a time span of a quarter of a century, the changes in attitudes, dress and behavior that occur in Doris and George constitute a kind of nostalgic calendar of the U.S. itself. Except that it is wittier, Same Time, Next Year is a redo of The Fourposter. It is the kind of theatrical fare that fiftyish middle-class marrieds have been starved for on Broadway in recent seasons, and they are likely to queue up for tickets in avid droves.

They will certainly be fully rewarded by the performances of the two leads. sbT. E. K.

Ellen Burstyn glows with womanhood and the understanding of life that comes from having weathered life's storms. Her performance has an unstrained authority and is resonant with insight. She would make a marvelous Candida if some astute producer chose to revive the Shaw classic. Grodin is a kind of Dagwood uncharacteristically blessed with a heart and a mind. His manifest desire to do the right thing by both his absent wife and Doris contributes visibly to the felt compassion of the play. Rarely have a man and a woman on a stage mixed the honey of love and the glue of marriage so deftly that both are bonded in sweetness and surety. qedT. E. K.

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