A play about old age should not itself be tired, but the writing in The Chinese Prime Minister is sometimes more enfeebled than its subject matter. Enid Bagnold, I am informed, was seven years about it. That's too long, especially when the work still lacks plot, or focus, or clear intention. I would guess that the author spent the major portion of those years honing up her dialogue, for each line has been sharpened to a fine edge. But she has grown too sage, and the epigrams tend to come out homilies. Take, as typical, this sentiment, which I assume to be the theme of the play: "The only way to enjoy death is to exhaust life." Note how Miss Bagnold has structured the thought; note the Latinate balance, the euphuistic contrasts, the rhetorical antitheses. Note also that, for all its formal finish, the sentence offers purely routine...