'Patriot For Me' a limp drag

NEW YORK (A John Osborne's “A Patriot for Me," at the Imperial Theater on Broadway, is much more of a limp drag than its mere homosexual the me might imply.

By William Glover

Quite probably, considering present eagerness of a large segment of the paying public for prurient exotica and sensationalism, the elaborate production contains enough titillation to assure a profitable run. Just don't say you weren't warned.

Osborne dishes up rather than dramatizes the story of a high-ranking officer in the Austro-Hungarian army of 1890-1913, whose preference for muscular youths rather than waitresses or countesses trapped him into treason.

All based on historic scandal and examined now by England's ex-angry young man as some kind of a warning about the perils of

an overmoralistic society.

Such purported purpose, however, quickly gets lost in the yawn-provoking exposition of the long first act, and vanishes utterly during the post-intermission jaunt into the gay world of eccentric pleasures.

Insipid, over-detailed dialogue of ancient gossips, | some melodramatic banali-

ties to make us realize that the Russians are out to plackmail nonhero Alfredo Redl are the range of dramatic imagination.

The single, genuinely entertaining scene, which opens the second act, is a transvestite ball in old Vienna, with Dennis King hilariously dominant as the queen of queens. Thereafter the play is downhill all the way, unless some glimpses of bare buttocks can turn you on.

In the focal role, Maximilian Schell performs with much introverted tension and an accent not helped at all by the elaborate, overloud amplifier system that the management has unquestionably laid out. Salome Jens assails the role of a minor-league Mata Hari with fortitude.

Some sort of coding would be needed to sort out who is which in the large cast that takes part in the 60-plus roles provided by Osborne. Peter Glenville's direction fortuitously is unaffected and devoid of campy mannerisms.