NOT since Sophocles' Oedipus Rex opened to mixed reviews in the 5th century B.C. has the theater suffered for want of criticism.

Carrying on the tradition of his forebears is Theodores Efstathios Kalemkierides, better known as T.E. Kalem, TIME'S drama critic for the past decade. This week we publish more of Kalem's distinctive prose than usual. He reviews two Broadway openings, including Harold Pinter's Old Times in the Theater section, and assays Peter Brook's film version of King Lear in Cinema. All three articles underscore Kalem's reputation as one of the most demanding practitioners of his craft.

"A lot of Americans," he says, "feel that the critic is a kind of spoilsport. But anyone who writes a play is joining the company of some real giants. I'm not here to say to a playwright, 'How nice, John, you've written a play.' Let his mother say that." Kalem believes that he is here "to give the reader a clear idea of whether this work is worth seeing. Criticism should also aim at placing a play within the history of its genre."

Though he often differs sharply with his colleagues, Kalem gets good notices from them. Says Clive Barnes of the New York Times: "What makes Ted one of the finest critics America has ever produced is his very emotive relationship with the theater, a relationship that far transcends mere intellectual considerations." Twice elected to be president of the New York Drama Critics Circle, Kalem nonetheless chose to abstain on two occasions from the circle's balloting for best play of the year. "Some people," he explains, "regard the theater season as a horse show, and if the closest thing they've got to a horse is a one-eyed mouse, he gets first prize. As far as I'm concerned, only thoroughbreds should get recognition."

Kalem's search for thoroughbreds started while he was growing up in Maiden, Mass. His Greek parents, Protestant fundamentalists from Asia Minor, called the stage "an instrument of the devil." This attitude naturally created a forbidden-fruit temptation, and young Ted sneaked bites at every opportunity. But it was to be a long road to his permanent aisle seat. At Harvard he majored in sociology, graduating cum laude. During World War II he won a Bronze Star in the Pacific. At the Christian Science Monitor he reviewed books, an occupation he followed during his first ten years at TIME. It was in 1961 that he succeeded Louis Kronenberger as our drama critic.

At the height of the 1971 Broadway season, Kalem's satisfaction over his successful trek is a bit diluted by some of the shows he sees. Still, he cannot abandon the belief that theater "is the noblest of arts, a metaphysical ritual, an unbound volume of erotica, a childlike festival of clowns and kings, a never-surfeiting banquet for the eye, the ear and at times the soul."

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