The difference between style and front turns out to be precisely the problem that plagues Mrs. Kerr's title character [in Poor Richard], a poet with a vague resemblance to the late Dylan Thomas and the late Brendan Behan. This poet, named Richard Ford, is in a fallow period of his creativity following an unexpected best-seller, and he is acutely aware that much of what he says and does is front. As he puts it, "Talking is a noise I make to stop people from noticing that I have nothing whatsoever to say." But like anyone who tries to write, Richard would like to believe that he once had style and that he might regain it.

Now, in the Broadway theater front is more important than style, and Mrs. Kerr finds herself somewhere in between the sort of playwright who is all front but deludedly equates it with style...