THEATER ABROAD: 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.