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THE GREATEST MAN ALIVE by ***«, a*. NEW YORK, N. Y., May 10.— The thine I to do with The Greatest Man Alive," is to have a point of view about it. If you accept a nice, iieht, unpretentious and undemanding summer comedy as just exactly what you want to see because it will impose no burdens of emotion on you, then the new comedy at the Ethel Barrymore theatre is your answer. If you can- further bring yourself to laugh at death as easily as you laugh at life, which seems only sensible since given one the other is inevitable, then the new show has further pleasures for you. This play by Tony Webster is light as goose feathers, giddy as a squirrel and in all critical truth not much of a show, but Ill tell you this much about it: If George M. Cohan were alive Hed give his teeth to play the role Dennis King has. Except for an occasional expletive from the blithe old man who is its principal character, it is as clean as new soap. Cohan would have relished the role and I suspect that Mr. King does. This is one of those plays never meant for clinical dissection or critical inspection. It was just meant to amuse peo- pie and if it survives gadflies and summertime, it will amuse them. Mr. King is a 72-year-old retired carpenter in the city of New York who is convinced in his heart that he might have been a great lawyer, doctor or even pope. But he is a nobody. An aged nobody with another aged nobody for a crony. He de-! termines to hang himself while wearing a ! derby, in the hope that this bizarre sui-i cide will attract some press attention and cause people to say "Old Amos Benedict was a terrific guy" instead of saying "I New York Play Review heard old whosis died the other day." Into this determination comes his crony, abetting the idea, and a young girl and two fellows. The girl is appalled, one fellow thinks Amos is daffy and the other thinks he is considerable of a human being and while not condoning suicide does condone and understand old Amos hunger for fame. Mr. King skips and ambles through this tissue plot with beautiful timing, lovely j nonsense and an almost Cohanesque j stance. He is a beguilding dotard, even I with a rope around his neck and a bat- tered derby on his head. Amos has a won-drously sane attitude toward life and even when the Bellevue butterfly net boys come to get him he maintains his philosophies. And these philosophies are handled with cunning and grace by Mr. King. Russell Collins, as a shambling old idiot on the horizon of senility, is equally engaging and between them they make advanced age and the prospect of death seem a sort of desirable lark. Miss Kathleen Maguire and Biff Mc-Guire I wish these families would stabilize their spelling aie the more ornate of the three younger people, but Richard Kelly is in there as the third with two nice scenes. John Gibson has a wry bit as a TV bishop who uses all the cliches to dissuade Amos from hanging himself but confesses his private anxieties are that his book isnt selling. This is the kind of gossamer play which will annoy some people to distraction but charm others into chuckles and warm giggles. I am not going to say it is a good play because in all cold truth it isnt. But by the same standards of accuracy I have to say that a large portion of the first audience laughed hysterically. Elliott Nugent directed and, with John Gerstad and Frederick Fox, also produced "The Greatest Man Alive!" If you go, dont take any starchy conviction along with you. Just go ready for some laughter and unexplosive fun.
