Irwin Shaw has written a semi-documentary melodrama in "The Assassin." His [play] … sticks to facts with reasonable authority as it celebrates the killing of the wily French collaborationist Admiral Darlan, in 1942. Unfortunately, it takes an unconscionable time getting to the pay-off, and winds up with no more than a tiny distillation of dramatic meaning and feeling. Occasionally the writing and the acting make a scene flare up rather triumphantly. This does not keep the cadences of the acts from having a dying fall. Even a good blast of the "Marseillaise" could not have saved the climax from an inherent confusion of construction.

There is no possible question of the author's sincerity and sensitivity. He has singled out the events that led up to Darlan's assassination as the crux of the French defection to the cause of democracy. He has tried to show that patriots, no matter what their...