PARTISAN REVIEW
exercising every night an easy and affluent charm; a man accustomed
to please, he has a rather serviceable and accommodating air, like a
familiar guest in a household who will pass the sandwiches or oblige
on the piano. A good-sized, sparkling fish in a small and sociable pond,
he brings to the theater a little poetry, a little polish, and a great deal
of gregariousness. Here in America he was certainly a fish out of
water; the critics were antagonized and bewildered by those pleasant
and insular manners, just as they were repelled by the Chekhov one-act
plays; the modesty of the undertaking alerted their suspicions.
Mary McCarthy
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