Evening star., 1948-11-17

ulONc I'LL ulGcl cSIlIlS COllCCl1lp1dCAOl.
Of the revolutionary mind than an
exciting revelation of its current ac-
tivities.
Mr.. Sartre's work is Of a form
which inspires its star and director
to make something of it, yet not so
much dynamic theater as intelligent
observation of force which is dis
turbing to every thoughtful human.
It offers no new evidence of how
anarchists work, but in packaging
them in Actor Boyer's graceful skill,
it surely commends them to wider
attention.
It is an impressive performance
he gives as a balding, intellectual
Communist whose heart has not
finally hardened. It should come
rs q terrific surprise to those who
wander innocently into "Red
Gloves" thinking to find Boyer up
TO his old boudoir tricks. Yet not
even M. Boyer is up to keeping an
alien flavor of Gallo jest out rf
the plays climactic scene in which
amour does lift its foolish head.
For this few minutes, and until
Director Harris can do something
about it, M. Sartre's play goes Holly
wood, or to some other place which
begins with H.
X X X X
Sartre is thinking hard, but not
without fuzziness. in Red Gloves"
He has found a virtually unbeatable
subject in a pair of men who rep
resent two techniques Of world revo-
luton. One of these Is q young
Communist (John DalD, a fanatic
idealist who processes a faith in
ruthless extinction, but whose in
tellectuality robs him Of the as
sassin's drive. The other (Boyer)
is the old anarchist, a blood-splat-
tered political reaist who has
learned how to compromise while
waiting for opportunity to play into
his hands.
The conflict of the play is be-
tween these two. It Is disclosed in
five segments representing a pro-
logue, three acts and an epilogue.
The body Of the drama is set in
an unidentified small country in
Central Europe in the spring Of
1945. The Russians are coming and
the native Communists are standing
by for their arrival when they in
tend to take over. The imminence
of their long delayed seizure of
power has reduced them to some
sort Of intellectual frenzy. This re-
suits In a factional split in which
those who disagree with Boyers
program have assigned Dali to kill
him.
The latter, a recruit from the
aristocracy and full Of the passion
of recent converts, becomes the old
Communists secretary. From the
first to the end of the third act,
they stage an theological duel which
finally ends in the older mans as
sassination. It Is not, however, a
murder done on assignment, but
rather for the excrutiatingly bour-
geois reason that the young man
finds his wife in the arms OF his
boss. 4
\ y
1t takes a great deal of talk to
cover the interval during which the
trigger man is helpless before the
moral armor OF his party's leader.
Some of it is good talk, and all Of
it is enriched by the directoral art
fulness of Harris. The latter Is
an extraordinarily canny man In
giving the mask to what otherwise
would be idle chatter. Red Gloves"
puts quite test upon his resources.
Harris dexterity is accountable
for the best spot in the first act,
in which Boyer gives his intemper-
ate secretary a lesson in party dis
cipline; again in the second In
which the older man delivers a
dramatic lecture on Communist
technique, and most conspicuously
In a superb third act interval in
which the young man is quietly dis
armed of the long unused murder
weapon.
The star and director of Red
Gloves" team up to make these high
moments in a play that is often
maundering, contradictory and
foggy.
Boyer's man in Red Gloves" is
q fellow to disarm more than the
assassin Sartre's play. 1t should