["Poor Richard"] is not only marked by the slick style and literate wit to which the playwright has accustomed us. It also boasts, advertently or not, a cogent bit of near-self-criticism, plunk in the second of its three acts.

"Will you stop being so bloody charming?" our impassioned and impatient ingenue finally demands. And poor Richard, in one of several anguished moments of self-revelation, explains away his slick style and literate wit with "It's a noise I make to keep people from noticing I have nothing whatever to say."

It's only "near" self-criticism, because in this play Mrs. Kerr does have something to say—but every time anyone gets ready to say it for her everyone gets so bloody charming that we can't hear the wisdom for the wit, the truth for the tumult of witties….

The something that is lurking on the fringes of the laugh lines...