An American theater critic observed recently that the British theater has traditionally been a theater of language rather than a theater of emotion and spectacle. The comment, though patently less than a half-truth, was made to illustrate the special...

Republican challenger Bill Simon blasted away at California Gov. Gray Davis (D) yesterday in their first and perhaps only debate, charging that Davis's prodigious campaign fundraising made it appear that his office was for sale. Davis struck back, repeatedly warning that first-time candidate...

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The excellent revival of Simon Gray’s Butley at the Booth on Broadway proves particularly welcome because Mr. Gray’s hero isn’t nice. The British relish a bit of bitterness and intelligence, and Mr. Gray’s alcoholic, chain-smoking professor of English, Ben Butley, has a talent to abuse....

The excellent revival of Simon Gray’s Butley at the Booth on Broadway proves particularly welcome because Mr. Gray’s hero isn’t nice. The British relish a bit of bitterness and intelligence, and Mr. Gray’s alcoholic, chain-smoking professor of English, Ben Butley, has a talent to abuse....

Simon Gray's The Rear Column, an anti-adventure of Stanley's years after the discovery of Livingstone, is pure revisionism. Gray goes into Africa with modern eyes; Stanley has marched off to a year-long diversion and his rear guard—five on-stage British officers and several thousand offstage natives—is left behind to degenerate at will. The play is the progress of falling apart. It is a curious work, written in the language of the adventure movie with all the romantic myth remove...

Before the ending there are two parts of Close of Play which are entirely successful. The first is a brief conversation between the mercurial Marianne and the controlled Margaret, on the subject of the reviews of Margaret's latest novel. The faux pas of the not altogether unmalicious Marianne will be familiar to everyone who has friends and has written a book. This brief episode is both amusing and authentic. The second incident is not at all funny, but it is very brilliant…. [Henry] in his st...

["The Rear Column"] is based on a historical episode. In the late eighteen-eighties, Henry M. Stanley, the explorer of the Congo, led an expedition to relieve one Emin Pasha … in the Sudan. Stanley's officers were British volunteers, and he left a column commanded by two of them—a Major Barttelot and a civilian named Jameson—behind at a camp in the Congo jungle, to wait for a promised contingent of porters. Three other officers, on their way to join Stanley …...