In Robert Anderson's "Silent Night, Lonely Night,"… [a man and a woman] conduct a long discussion of love, marriage and adultery….

But after an act and a half of recollections and rationalizations, a theatregoer cannot be blamed if he wishes that Mr. Anderson and his actors would please change the subject….

For an act and a half they tell each other the unhappy stories of their lives and resist adultery for noble reasons. Between the first and second scenes of the second act, however, they resort to adultery to assuage their grief. For all practical purposes this seems to solve their problems. On Christmas Day they are both refreshed, and they resume their separate married lives in good heart….

To Mr. Anderson, all this doubtless has a private significance that has to be respected. But his elegy on marriage is performed in public and has to be judged...