Autumn Leaves

THE KINGFISHER

by William Douglas Home

Some plays would be rushed directly from the stage to an intensive-care unit were it not for a massive transfusion of star power. This season has offered several examples. First Monday in October and Tribute promptly expired with the departure of their respective stars, Henry Fonda and Jack Lemmon. Alexis Smith is giving nightly resuscitation to Platinum. And but for the sly insinuative charms and stylish expertise of Rex Harrison and Claudette Colbert, The Kingfisher would swiftly be recognized for the plucked Broadway turkey that it is.

This is a tale of Old Boy meets Old Girl, but does Old Boy lose Old Girl again? Cecil (Harrison) is an English novelist and knight who lives in autumnal bachelor ease at his country house with the aid of a loyal valet, Hawkins (George Rose), who is not above discreetly reproving his master or sampling his port. Into this Eve-less Eden strolls the recently widowed Evelyn (Colbert). It's not the first time. Fifty years before, the same majestic tree that spans the garden had seemed the arbor of true love to Evelyn and Cecil, but he lost her to a stuffy rival. He tries to kindle the sere and yellow leaves of that romance, but, for the bulk of the evening, nothing comes of it.

Harrison, Colbert and Rose lend the static scene a picture-book grace, render fitfully amusing lines as if they had been minted by La Rochefoucauld, and are never so tactless as to reveal that, dramatically speaking, their oxygen supply has been cut off. --T.E. Kalem

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