New Play in Manhattan

The Little Hut (adapted from Andre Roussin's play by Nancy Mitford) was a great hit in London, where it ran for three years. In traveling to Broadway, it has suffered a decided sea change; it has almost the look, in fact, of something that fell in the water.

The play has to do with a husband, his wife and her lover (Roland Culver, Anne Vernon, Colin Gordon) shipwrecked on a tropical island. For impudent light comedy, there could be no brighter situation to start off with, and no tougher one to follow up. The moves may be almost as clearly indicated as in chess,, but as in chess there can be tedious waits between them. In The Little Hut, first the bland British husband is carefully told what goes on, then the obliging wife is openly shared. The lover, in the process, turns as growlsome as a husband, the husband grows gay as a lark; and in due course, a third gentleman appears and enters the lists (and the hut) with the lady.

The marooned party finally catch a boat, but the play distinctly misses it. The play fails less, perhaps, because its joke never really expands than because it never really effervesces; there is never that sudden overflow whereby a comedy of situation rips wildly into farce, or a comedy of manners lurches hilariously toward madness. The play remains part of a fashionable tradition which slices its amusement as paper-thin as its sandwiches, and--for success--demands a special type of flawless acting. In London, with Robert Morley, Joan Tetzel and David Tomlinson, The Little Hut presumably had it; but on Broadway an uninspired cast makes for unamusing castaways.

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