William Gibson's rather sloppily constructed but magnificently conceived drama The Miracle Worker can touch the heart. Based on a purely humanistic norm, it can, when properly played, work marvellous things in the soul and one triumphs with little Annie Sullivan as she brings a child into the world of conscious man. But she does triumph. When there is no triumph, something else must be substituted to make the work acceptable. In the plays of frustration and ineptitude—plays with which our stage abounds—the audience must be given something else to divert them. They won't accept moral triumph, but they will accept Chekhovian frustration providing you make it diverting enough in the telling.

To use another of Gibson's plays for an example, Two For The Seesaw, fast becoming a summer stock standard, is a perfect illustration. Gibson has created a small hell in this play. Inhabiting this miniature...