In this unfavorable review, Simon feels that Dorfman fumbles an opportunity to expound upon the subjects of dictatorships and human rights violations. Death and the Maiden, he feels, is nothing more than a contrived mystery.

Ariel Dorfman, the Chilean writer, brings us his Death and the Maiden, a drama set in a country that, the program coyly tells us, "is probably Chile." A long era of dictatorship has yielded to a new democracy, and Gerardo Escobar, a lawyer, has been appointed to the presidential commission investigating political crimes. Driving back to his beach house, he blows a tire and, having neither a spare nor a jack (much is made of these two unconvincing circumstances), gets a stranger, Dr. Miranda, to give him a lift home. By an even less persuasive device, Miranda drops in after midnight, and Gerardo's wife, Paulina, recognizes him (or so she thinks) as...