"The Assassin" is not a good play. It is too often wordy, too often high-sounding without substance, it has too many waits and too little dramatic drive. The melodramatic phase of the murder runs into a sentimental love affair and that into a discussion of philosophy—and none of them fare well from the union….
On the political side, Mr. Shaw is saying that men of honesty, regardless of faith, eventually will reach the common good; that mistakes, such as the "Admiral," may happen, but they will be corrected. It is perhaps fair enough on a playwright's part to offer this through melodrama, but once he has started, Mr. Shaw should keep the local blood-pressure higher. "The Assassin" is fitful. There are long speeches relieved only by suddenly opened doors and the prowl of police, sent there, it often seems, just to end the talk. The love affair is the weakest link of all. It is set down as a sort of lip service to tradition, and, as the author apparently doesn't care much about it either, it succeeds in ruining more scenes than it helps.
Lewis Nichols, "'The Assassin'," in The New York Times (© 1945 by The New York Times Company; reprinted by permission), October 18, 1945 (and reprinted in New York Theatre Critics' Reviews, Vol, VI, No. 15, October 22, 1945, p. 140).
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