SOURCE: Hayes, Richard. “The Stage.” Commonweal (12 February 1954): 471-72.

In the following review, Hayes provides an unfavorable assessment of the 1954 New York production of Colombe.

Mlle Colombe, the fifth of Jean Anouilh's plays to achieve the condition of an American failure, has provoked a fresh rash of critical speculation on the international dissimilarities of theatrical taste. A small quantity of this analysis has been responsible and illuminating, but too much of it sententious and niggardly, designed to reinforce a heedless public in its indulgent prejudices. Myself, I suspect one need not go so far afield in determining the cause for this failure: the fault, dear Broadway, lies not in the French but in ourselves, and our curious impercipience to the particular weight and quality of M. Anouilh's world. We have had, since the war, productions of Antigone, Legend of Lovers, Ring Round the Moon, and Cry of the Peacock...