Wrong Number

By Gerald Clarke

Wrong Number 84 CHARING CROSS ROAD by Helene Hanff; Adapted by James Roose-Evans

A good writer can construct a play out of cardboard and paste, and, in the right hands, even the flimsiest plot can be turned into an amusing and diverting evening in the theater. But such hands have not come anywhere near this English import, which opened on Broadway last week. Rarely has so very little been made of so very little.

To call these two acts a play is to stretch the definition beyond the limits of even the most permissive dictionary. James Roose-Evans, who adapted the book by Helene Hanff, seems to have deliberately, almost perversely, avoided any interchange that might be called dramatic. The dialogue consists entirely of 20 years of letters: actual correspondence between Hanff, a struggling playwright in Manhattan, and the employees of a small London bookstore, the address of which is, of course, 84 Charing Cross Road.

Hanff (Ellen Burstyn) is trying to gain an education by reading the great works, and Frank Doel, the bookstore's chief salesman (Joseph Maher), is the man who finds them for her. A relationship of sorts develops. Britain is still suffering from postwar rationing, and she sends packages of food, which are shared by the other four employees. Some of them also join in the correspondence, telling about their lives and their families, and Hanff chats them up from her 95th Street apartment.

And that, alas, is all there is. Even good acting by Burstyn, Maher and the rest of the company cannot create a play where none exists. The dialogue is sometimes unbearably cloying. Hanff is given to saying things like "thou varlet," but except for the fact that she is single, Roose-Evans tells almost nothing about her, far less than he reveals about her friends in England. Does she have a love life? Not a word. Does she ever leave her apartment? Again, scarcely a syllable. Has she ever explored one of Manhattan's secondhand bookstores? Apparently not. There are other puzzles, one being why the play has run a year in London, and by the end of the evening, many in the audience may think they have been sent to the wrong address.

--By Gerald Clarke

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.