The Theater: New Play in Manhattan, Mar. 17, 1947

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Parlor Story (by William McCleery; produced by Paul Streger) might have made a very pleasant comedy had it kepi to the mood of the title. Playwright McCleery has a feeling for people (particularly young people) and a knack for natural and amusing dialogue. But he has cluttered his parlor with ideological furniture and chained his characters to a large hunk of plot.

Parlor Story is about a high-minded professor (Walter Abel) who wants to become president of his university. But he is soon snarled up in the political opportunism of the state governor, the wiles of an unscrupulous newspaper publisher, and the parlor tricks of his own meddling wife. All this becomes far too contrived to be credible, and not cleverly enough contrived to be fun. Mr. McCleery writes as an intelligent man of good will, but he tackles too many subjects for one play, and tackles them too undramatically for the theater. It is when Parlor Story has least to say that it comes most to life.