'Devil's Advocate'

Lakewood's Opener

Is Thought Provoking

By GLENN C. PULLEN

"The Devil's Advocate" is

a curious soul-searching and man-hunting drama that

Įtroversial candidate for beatiification.

Some of the qualities of a detective story are incorporshould give audiences at Lake. ated in the religious theme. It wood Little Theater something has flashes of suspense, thick chunks of melodrama, a few "Dolce Vita" twists and West Side civic leaders enough painstaking detail to turned out for the special $5-fill three plays.

to think about.

per-ticket preview Tuesday It is enriched, however, by night. It was a kleig-lighted some stirring speeches about party in honor of the theater's spiritual integrity as the priest 36th season and Dore Schary's traces the World War II steps

Broadway play which started of an alleged miracle-worker its public performances last in Italy's Calabria area.

night.

İ GEORGE YANEFF seems GRIFF DAVIES, who won! sufficiently plausible, if not an "Oscar"-styled award last very emotional in acting, as season, creates another power-a conscious-stricken British ful portrayal here. He is sen-army deserter. His life-saving sitive and touching as a canwork in a superstitious Italian cer-ridden Catholic priest as-village. his love for a pretty signed to investigate a con-

peasant girl, his betrayal and execution by Communists-all are revealed in a long series of flashbacks.

Was the ex-officer a saint jor a sinner? Or was he just ja man, with the usual human weaknesses, seeking regen{eration?

These debatable factors are carefully weighed by the priest in scenes that move ponderously or episodically. It is regrettable that playwright Schary, who dramatized Morris West's novel, overworks the flashback technique to a tiresome degree.

KARL MACKEY'S players have a difficult time interpreting their wordy parts with the right honesty. Davies does it best. He is impressive, compassionate and gentle as a monsignor whose own faith in God is nearly shaken by his illness.

Stanley Sullivan also displays integrity as a Catholic bishop. Joseph Hudson enacts a cardinal sympathetically. Good restraint is generally used by Marion Grider, as the deserter's mistress, and by young Kenneth Knight as their illegitimate son.

BERNARD SINGERMAN gives his portrayal of a Jewish refugee doctor a disciplined shine. There are too many uneasy moments in the work of Mary Bennett's immoral contessa. James Anderson's priest role and David Low as a homosexual cynic. Even with these exaggerations, “The Devil's Advocate,' which runs through Oct. 16, has some important things to say about a man's search for himself and God.

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