'Gravity' too much for Miss Hepburn

By William Glover

AP Drama Critic

NEW YORK

Even the keen

talents of Katharine Hepburn cannot save "A Matter of Gravity," a very dull and dumb play.

Fans who yearn to see the lady of resplendant reputation in one of her rare Broadway visitations could well be satisfied with the production at the Broadhurst Theater. Those who prefer coherent drama, won't.

Enid Bagnold, one of England's eldest writers, contrived the piece which somehow has been overlooked by all of London's alert managements, clever chaps.

In it, Miss Hepburn portrays an

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In Review

elegantly rich grandmother whose Oxford-bred grandson brings home to the family's crumbling stately mansion an odd quartet of weekenders.

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The two visiting couples are homosexual, one male and the other to emphasize just how liberated we all are tonight female. Lurking around for an extra dimension of possible meaning is an obese wino maid who needs to be dominated and who has a peculiar ability to float in the air. Her levitational knack only occurs offstage.

After an eight-year hiatus, Grandma Basil welcomes the grandson's bride, the younger half of the lesbian pair and a halfblack at that. Then she goes off to an assylum, on cue that it is the only life experience thus far untasted.

Miss Bangold's desperate effort to combine old-fashioned stagecraft with new-fangled notions never gets far from boredom. There are drawing-room discussions full of sound and small substance, false conversational leads and unresolved questions. One actor in the first scene never returns, lucky him.

Miss Hepburn, a queen of magnificent chuzpah, moves through all the exasperating inadequacies

in finest fettle, every move imperious and every speech ended with an exclamation point.

Director Noel Willman gets uneven results from other cast members. Charlotte Jones, the elephantine slavery, and Paul Harding, the sad senior gay, are the most helpful. Among the others, new comer Wanda Bismson proves an offbeat ingenue with a grating, singsong voice and rigid stare.

The physical production is appropriately English county, salute designer Ben Edwards and costumer Jane Greenwood.

"A Matter of Gravity," however, stubbornly defies the law of adequate entertainment.