Neil Simon has developed a notable gift for light and amusing comedies that possess a kind of ingratiating charm of their own. His latest play, "The Star-Spangled Girl,"… lacks (Marvin) Neil Simon 1927– © Jay Thompsonsomething of the brilliantly expert artifice that marked "Barefoot in the Park" and "The Odd Couple," but it is brightened by enough of his humorous and often witty inventiveness to provide an engagingly entertaining theatrical evening.

Here he has gone in for the basic situation of two young men and a desirable girl. The men are two youthfully ardent rebels living in penury in a duplex studio apartment in San Francisco, and hopefully trying to get out a protest magazine called Fall-Out. The girl is a scatterbrained Olympic swimmer, who is recovering from her humiliation over having been defeated by a contestant from a desert country. A somewhat elementary patriot, she disapproves of them...