New Play in Manhattan

How to Get Tough About It (by Robert Ardrey; produced by Guthrie McClinticj. In plays like Stevedore and Waiting for Lefty the facts and threats of labor conflict were introduced as dramatic themes, integral to the play. Last week Playwright Ardrey ushered in the second stage of proletarian drama, using strikes and scabbing not as a serious theme, but merely as streamlining, as a means of gearing his play to 1938. Ten years ago he probably would have thrown in a psychiatrist's office for the same reason. His story concerns a young waitress in a cheap cafe (Katherine Locke) who surrenders to a handsome, hard-as-nails buccaneer (Kent Smith) but holds on to her dreams for a high-minded young boatbuilder (Myron McCormick). In the clash over the girl, the tenderfoot learns from the expert how to be sufficiently tough to turn the tables on him.

Robert Ardrey wrote a play. Star Spangled, which did middling badly two years ago, has another play, Casey Jones, opening this week. In How to Get Tough About It Ardrey is too clever for his own good. His labor jabs aimed impartially to left and right, impartially glance off. His attempts to seem theatre-broken induce him to write scenes for how they will play, not for what they will mean. The dialogue is bright but not always in character. The sentiment is sometimes touching but sometimes phony. Worst of all, the humor, though often spontaneous, is often distinctly out of place.

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