The manner in which layers and layers of motivation are peeled away [in A Walk on the Water] is deft, and so is the technique of sliding from a dialogue between Owen and Alma in 1956 to a dramatization of Owen's memory of 1945. Each of the seven roles gives an actor more than a stereotype to grapple with, but there is about the play the air of a technical exercise.

Stephen D, however, is one of the most impressive plays to appear in Dublin since the war….

From the Catholic point of view, there is some justice to the charge that the play is blasphemous and immoral, for the theme of Joyce's novels [Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Stephen Hero] and of Leonard's play is the revolt of the artist—a revolt which in Irish terms means a repudiation of what Leonard calls "the four...