New Play in Manhattan

Heart of a City (by Lesley Storm; produced by Gilbert Miller). The only London theater that has never shut down, come blitz or blackout, is the tiny Windmill with its breezy nonstop revue. In Heart of a City English Playwright Storm has pictured backstage life at the Windmill while the bombs are falling outside. Lovely and lightly clad showgirls duck in & out of dressing rooms, rehearse, have their fun, lose their hearts, stifle their fears. The play is a tribute to two kinds of grit, "There'll Always Be An England" weaving in with "The Show Must Go On."

Heart of a City is a teacup version of The Wookey, with more sugar in it than tea. At times it is touching, at other times amusing (there is plenty of good old British ragging to tone down its heroics); but lacking imagination and any real eye for character, Playwright Storm can write only with a kind of mild, admiring tremulousness. She never really gets round to writing a play. Heart of a City is almost entirely atmosphere, and all its scenes are pretty much alike. Hence each scene is less effective than the one before it, and by curtain time the Windmill has ceased to turn.

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