Slew Play in Manhattan

Blue Denim (by James Leo Herlihy and William Noble) embeds a troubled teen-age sex drama inside a sociological roundwork. The going-on-16 son of fond but unhelpful parents, Arthur Bartley (Burt Brinckerhoff) takes refuge, when at lome, in a basement hideaway, in a world of beer and draw poker with a pal, of fledgling sex with a professor's daughter. The girl becomes pregnant. Arthur tries to signal to his parents but cannot, then uses a forged check to pay for an abortion. In a suspenseful last act, everything suddenly comes out well--in fact, a little too much so.

Blue Denim is twin-burner drama: Arthur's relations to his girl provide the plot; his relations to his family, the basic problem. For though clearly the young lovers had far better have stayed apart, the play in the final and family sense is a lament for untogetherness. It dramatizes the barriers between generations, the dangers in families that have no communications system. What with the young couple's agonizing jam, the dangers in Blue Denim get vividly spotlighted and the story line holds. But there is not much at the end of the line, and there is more spotlight than illumination.

The play has honest details, good talk between Arthur and his pal, touching moments between Arthur and his girl (Carol Lynley). It has situations in which it is enough for people just to be young, or in trouble. But too much is pat or false, rigged up or spelled out; and at the end there is more softness on the playwrights' part than perception on the characters'. Truth, in Blue Denim, is too fitful, put-togetherness too frequent.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.