SOURCE: A review of Bravol, in his The Theatre Book of the Year: 1948–1949, Alfred A. Knopf, 1949, pp. 153-62.

Nathan was an esteemed American journalist, playwright, author, and critic. In the following review of the 11 November 1948 Broadway production of Bravo!, he argues that while the play has technical, structural problems, "it contains much of the stuff on which good plays are made."

The advance out-of-town reports on the play [Bravo!] were so fiercely grim that, having often after long experience become rather cynical in such cases, I went to the New York opening in a somewhat optimistic mood and learned, as sometimes in the past, that it was not entirely ill-founded. That rewriting had been done during the tryout period and even directly afterward was more or less apparent, but there was not enough of it to keep one from speculating why it is that plays which are condemned...